Play:I'm personally really excited about this game, as it's the first time we'll be able to see the Silent Hill world through different eyes, so to speak. How did this project come about?
Oertel: Well, it came about because my boss said he wanted to do it (laughs). I was already working on Silent Hill Experience, which was a PSP multimedia title. I wasn't sure what the plans in Japan were for future versions of Silent Hill, but my boss was really positive about handheld platforms and felt this was a good idea. I knew it was doable -- we showed the playable back at Leipzig, and I felt that alleviated a lot of concerns as to whether it was possible to do Silent Hill on a portable. Whether the graphical fidelity is there, the atmosphere and so on.
I'm curios how much input Team Silent has on this game. Did they set a story down in stone, or leave wiggle room for original contributions?
Oertel: The scenario wasn't written by Team Silent. We talked with Alira Yamaoka about the stor, but it was very much hands off. They gave us alot of leeway.
Would you say it was ccollaborative?
Oertel:Somewhat. Team Silent is working on their own project in Japan, so the story was really left to us to come up with. We talked about whether we'd do a sequel or a prequel...in fact, the original idea was to do a remake of Silent Hill 1. But when we looked at how much work that would be -- redoing all the graphics from scratch -- we decided to do something that updated the history of the series rather than repeating it.
With this game being a prequel, does it start at a point in time when Silent Hill was a "normal" town? Will we see its transformation into nightmare?
Oertel: At this point...there's already fog (laughs). So no, it's not a normal town. It's not quite yet where Silent Hill 1 is at, but it;s not a happy town yet.
Will the ending of 0rigins lead directly into the story of 1?
Oertel: Yeah. There's a definite connection.
What about the controversial laser sght we saw in some early screenshots?
Oertel: The laser is gone (laughs). That was an early development thing, and I don't thik it worked to well. We've found another way of doing the aiming.
Can you tell us a little more about the barricade system we've heard about? Does it become necessary to block off access to enemies to proceed?
Oertel: That was the original plan...that enemies would chase after tou and you'd have to trap them in other rooms to be able to proceed. It was almost going to be a kind of puzzle element. It proved to be very difficult to implement. The design would have taken alot of time, so that part is no longer in the game. It would have been a nice feature to have, but we just ran out of time. It was either...we could have a great barricade game, or a great Silent Hill game (laughs)
I'll post some of the remaining questions later. I need to eat some food right now before my stomach collapses on itself.
