Bokeh Game Studio has just put out a video with creative director Keiichiro Toyama, creator of Silent Hill, Gravity Rush, and Siren, in which he talks about the studio's upcoming first horror title and his own approach to game design, horror, and the world at large.
Toyama made waves at the end of last year when he announced his departure from Sony Interactive Entertainment, along with several of his colleagues, after more than 20 years on the job. They formed Bokeh Game Studio, seemingly regaining a sense of artistic freedom and creative flexibility that they hadn't had under Sony. Silent Hill fans are unlikely to see a new official game from its original creator since Konami holds the rights, but Toyama and his team have made clear that they intend to return to horror as a genre.
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In the video, Toyama reminisces about his start in the games industry before moving on to the circumstances around the founding of Bokeh Game Studio. He felt that as the industry had become larger and the audiences broader, many companies - including Sony, for whom he worked at the time - were feeling a pressure to appeal to the widest possible audience for financial and engagement-related reasons. To that end, he started Bokeh Game Studio with a few other ex-Sony developers so that they might focus creating the types of games that they wanted to, and let those games "choose their audience in a way."
He then moved on to discussing the studio's upcoming first game, a horror title that Toyama announced last December. Elaborating on his previous claims that the game would be an "horror-oriented" action-adventure game, he says in the video that "the [direction] I took is quite dark, far from my more recent titles. It's like I'm coming back to my roots." He also expresses an interest in the various "death game" concepts that have cropped up in comics and manga of late, asserting a fascination with the idea of "these regular people driven into irrational situations" and the emotional and mental toll that that would have on them.
Silent Hill fans will no doubt be thrilled to hear about Toyama's return to the realm of horror, although Toyama goes on to say that he "wants to keep an entertainment note" rather than just showing scary things on screen: "It should question our position, make us challenge the fact that we're living peacefully." With that said, it's hard to deny that much of the concept art scattered throughout the video features the kind of creepiness and body horror that Silent Hill devotees have come to expect.
Those eager to return to those spooky fog-filled streets may be in luck on another front too, considering the intriguing rumors that not one but two Silent Hill games may be in development. Between that information and the promising noises emanating from Toyama and Bokeh Game Studio, one way or another horror fans are going to be in for a treat soon. Only time will tell if Gravity Rush will get another sequel any time soon, though.
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