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"What Happened to SH0 & Climax LA" (video)

Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2022 4:02 am
by rodox_head
TheGamingMuse recently uploaded a video detailing the development of SH0 and the transition from the LA studio to the UK studio. SH0 is a black sheep in the series so I'm glad to see some more light on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIIztCARXxo

Re: "What Happened to SH0 & Climax LA" (video)

Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2022 11:02 am
by firecrest
Overall, it was an insightful development story for Silent Hill Origins. It rather accentuates why having a solid game engine early on in development is instrumental to the game meeting its deadline and its success.

The part where she talks about why Silent Hill development moved to the West is a bit misleading. The Silent Hill team was already in the middle of losing staff during the development of Silent Hill 4 -The Room-. Konami was in the process of restructuring in 2003. Even if the fourth game had been a commercial success, the disbanding of the team was inevitable.

I don't think Konami's lack of guidance should be stated as a contributor to Origins' rocky development. That lack of guidance is what gave the original Japanese team the creative freedom for the first two games. It's only when Konami decided to provide a guideline that we got Silent Hill 3. It's well-documented how Yamaoka felt about the creative freedom for the third game.

Re: "What Happened to SH0 & Climax LA" (video)

Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2022 11:44 pm
by Naroon
Konami bigwigs did want SH3 to be a light-gun shooter, as Ito confirmed on twitter, which they wound up getting anyway a few years later with Silent Hill: The Arcade.

This resetera thread has some more info on what was going on in Konami internally to influence the cancellation of the Japanese-made SH5 and the new focus on external devs.