News > Konami's Big Announcement - Silent Hill V
July 12, 2007
Yesterday, Konami held a press conference to discuss their upcoming titles and to show off Metal Gear Solid 4 some more. Prior to the conference, theypromised a "big announcement" and they sortof delivered.
"They say war is hell, but there are worse things. War changes a man, and nobody back home could ever understand. They never understood me. They say you can't go home again, but they're wrong. I just don't want to."
The real meat of the information came via lecture from the stage, though.
The game will star Alex Shephard, a military man returning home after a tour of duty overseas. He finds that his family in disarray, and that his son Joshua has gone missing. Where does he go to look? Oh, I know...Silent Hill, of course. Seriously, though, why the hell do these characters go into Silent Hill, of all places? I know that that creeped-out place is the last town I'd go looking for somebody in, but maybe I'm just more into self-preservation than the average Joe.
Anyway, Konami says that the combat system will be improved, and that Alex will "need to make full use of his military training." Environmental puzzles are still in place, of course, and Akira Yamaoka is returning to compose the game's soundtrack.
Regarding the combat, Associate Editor Brian Schulman said, "Does this mean we can expect the combat to become a little bit less unwieldy? I'm already a big fan of the psychologically twisted atmosphere, if playing the game is less of a chore, then maybe I'll be making the jump to playing the game rather than forcing my friends to play it while I watch."
Konami won't be developing the game in-house, however. It is being dished to western developer The Collective, the studio responsible for games such as Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I'm not sure how that's supposed to make me feel, but I would really rather have heard that the game was made by the same team that put together all the other Silent Hill games.
The game is scheduled for release sometime in 2008 on the Xbox 360 and PS3.
*Eddie R Inzauto - Senior Editor, GameWad.com
