Following the report that Konami had internally greenlit multiple Silent Hill games, original creator Keiichiro Toyama has said a Silent Hill remake needs to rethink its concept.
“It’s not an action game where you can just refine the action as in Biohazard. To bring Silent Hill up to current standards or to polish up the graphics, the fans wouldn’t be satisfied,” Toyama said to VGC.
He added, “That’s not what it was about – how beautiful it was. I think you’d have to rethink the concept to make it interesting to fans.”
The suggestion that a Silent Hill remake needs to rethink quite a lot of things comes after Toyama was asked if a remake can happen, like Capcom’s successful Resident Evil remakes.
“I think it would be harder to remake than Biohazard, because the gameplay as a concept is a little older,” Toyama said. He then went on to talk about remakes for video games in general.
“Unlike movies, games are difficult to enjoy as in the original state,” Toyama said. “Obviously because of the platform, but as time goes by game mechanics, especially in usability, lack rationality and sophistication.”
Lastly, Toyama talked up changing the original feel of a game to adapt it for modern platforms.
“Visually speaking it’s clearly not made for modern equipment, so I absolutely don’t have any objection to modifying an original essence to fit the modern era which we live in today,” he said.
A year ago Toyama had left his long career at Sony Japan Studio to form new indie developer Bokeh Game Studio, alongside many staff from Sony Japan. They recently revealed their horrifying debut game, Slitterhead, which you can read more about here.