Slitterhead was unveiled on the 2021 Sport Awards with what can solely be described as one hell of a teaser. It is being headed up by Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, however as we famous following its reveal, it seems to be a special form of expertise—shiny, loud, and actually gory—though the grotesquely terrifying horrors with too many too-sharp limbs are clearly nonetheless plentiful.
In a brand new Q&A video, the founders of developer Bokeh Sport Studio—Toyama, Slitterhead creator and Bokeh CEO, together with CTO and sport director Junya Okura and COO and producer Kazunobu Sato—revealed extra concerning the sport. The session would not get right into a deep examination of the sport, however it does reveal some attention-grabbing particulars, together with that Slitterhead is not really a straight-up horror sport in any respect.
(The responses are in Japanese however the subtitles help a number of languages together with Japanese, English, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian.)
“The sport would not totally enter the horror style,” Toyama defined. “It spans over a number of genres the place horror is expressed. From there, I wished to widen the participant base who might entry the sport, together with gamers who do not often play horror video games. I wished a sport that may very well be loved for its motion, but whose idea would not solely revolve round killing enemies. It conflicts the thoughts, making the gamers reluctant to enter sure fights. I need to obtain each motion and drama with this sport.”
Slitterhead shall be third-person, and whereas it is difficult to parse the response, it appears like it will likely be performed from a number of views. It hasn’t but been determined whether or not there shall be any DLC or expansions—”We first want to realize a powerful principal sport,” Toyama stated—however the studio founders appear to take pleasure in the truth that the selection is now theirs to make.
“Again within the day these choices wanted approval from Sony,” Sato stated. “In our present state, if it is enjoyable we will simply go forward and make it, so if the demand is large enough, it is simpler for us to reply.”
Okura stated the builders “need to concentrate on leisure somewhat than plain horror,” so there should not be any components the place gamers determine to surrender as a result of they’re successfully frozen with concern. That does not imply there will not be some powerful slogging, although. “There’s a terror facet that I need to embody even when the sport lays extra in the direction of motion,” Okura stated. “There are some sluggish and quick moments as properly. I’d like to incorporate some horror components within the slower components, balancing with the frenzy motion moments.”
In that sense, Slitterhead sounds a bit like Ghostwire: Tokyo, the brand new sport from Tango Gameworks, which we not too long ago described as “more Watch Dogs 2 than Evil Within.” However Toyama stated he’d prefer to get again to his Silent Hill roots sometime—however solely beneath the suitable circumstances.
“I need sometime to do one thing with some traditional psychological horror themes like I did with Silent Hill,” he stated. “Nonetheless, I’d somewhat try this when working with actually restricted sources, comparable to price range or having to concentrate on one particular person. Proper now, we have now workers with the power to work on motion. I need to leverage their abilities to go in one other course. Nonetheless, I additionally need to make one thing extra private sometime.”
This Q&A video is the primary of two components—the second is about to be posted on March 4.