Konami kept its Silent Hill studios in the dark about each other's games

[Cached Stephen]

Konami took an unusual approach to managing its Silent Hill revival. Video Games Chronicle reports that the company deliberately kept its different Silent Hill teams from knowing much about each other's projects

Jon McKellan, founder of Screen Burn and director of Silent Hill Townfall, revealed this at a panel during MCM London Comic Con. He said his team found out about many of the other projects at the same time as the public

McKellan credited series producer Motoi Okamoto, who wanted to stop the games influencing each other or making too many compromises. Okamoto's team reviewed every project and would ask a studio to change direction if something looked too similar to another game, without always explaining what the other game was

McKellan remembered one case where an enemy design was flagged as too close to something elsewhere, although the resemblance was not huge. His team saw Silent Hill f a couple of months before launch and felt the two games were different enough that overlap was never a risk. He contrasted the approach with a Marvel style shared universe and said it gave his team more creative freedom

This is a clever way to keep a horror series feeling varied, since every Silent Hill game can be its own nightmare. It must have been frustrating at times not knowing what other teams were doing. Judging by Silent Hill f and the Silent Hill 2 remake, it seems to be working

Is keeping teams separate the right way to run a series? And how is the Silent Hill revival going so far for you?

Konami Deliberately Kept Its Multiple Silent Hill Games Secret From Each Studio To Avoid Crossoverwww.videogameschronicle.com