INTERVIEW WITH TOMM HULETT - SENIOR ASSOCIATE PRODUCER ON SILENT HILL DOWNPOUR

INTERVIEW WITH TOMM HULETT - SENIOR ASSOCIATE PRODUCER ON SILENT HILL DOWNPOUR

As part of my video on Silent Hill Downpour, Tomm kindly agreed to be interviewed! A big thank you to him for providing insight on the making of this title :)

Q1 - What led to deciding that open world aspects would be included in Downpour? Was it the trend of games at the time or was there something else that influenced this?

I had several aspects of the original SH games that I kept championing for the new ones, and one aspect was how much of SH1 was exploring the town itself. It was (relatively) huge! SH2 had a smaller more focused set of “town” areas, and then SH3 reused those. Origins brought it back to a degree but there wasn’t very much to do beyond the main quest.

Another thing I loved was how the notes in the original games would often mention characters or side stories that were not part of the main quest but definitely contributed to the atmosphere and creepiness. Lastly, as you said, open world games like GTA3 were cropping up all over. So these three factors all coalesced to become Downpour’s big explorable town filled with optional side quests that told little mini stories. But to be clear – we were not asked “can you put in something modern like Open World?” It’s more like what we wanted to accomplish with the town and sidequests made sense in an open world context, and then that created an exciting bullet point for marketing organically.

Q2 - Was there ever supposed to be a UFO ending? If yes, was there a rough outline for it?

We were not planning a specific “UFO” ending and I don’t actually recall why. We did plan for a joke ending, which turned into the happy birthday surprise. Or, it’s possible we planned for a UFO ending but someone came up with that instead and we just went with it, due to the nice escaping prison aspect of it.

I do know we wanted a wide variety of ending types, like the original games had, which is how we ended up with cool twists like the Anne/Murphy prison swap, etc.

Q3 - How did you get Korn on board for the theme?

When we got the unfortunate news we could not involve Akira Yamaoka, we knew that finding a worthy replacement for the game’s score was job # 1, and we were fortunate enough to be connected with Daniel Licht who did an amazing job matching the mood of Silent Hill with his own style.

But another big aspect of the SH music is the attract mode video, along with a rock song. Of course Yamaoka-san had always handled this as well, along with Mary Elizabeth McGlynn. Since this was kind of up in the air, our licensing department wanted to find a good licensing partner that might extend the awareness of Silent Hill beyond its core audience, but still sounded brand-appropriate.

A lot of different artists were discussed, but in the end, Korn made the most sense due to a variety of factors I can’t really get into. However one key factor was tailoring the lyrics to Silent Hill Downpour, rather than just being given an unreleased B-side as-is.

Q4 - The architecture (more so interior) style in Downpour feels very unique compared to the other SH games. Slightly gothic, almost like fancy buildings in New York - especially those apartments and office buildings! Although once I learned that the development team was based in the Czech Republic, I felt like maybe that was a big influence. What was the thought process behind going for this different style of environment?

I think a lot of this is, as you said, the Czech influence. Western Europe and North America have enough common threads I think it’s probably more similar than we realize if that is our whole sphere of reference. And obviously game players are familiar with Japan through games (Yakuza and Persona of course, among others) but Eastern Europe is far less represented. I think that Vatra “making what they know” had a positive effect on the games visuals and ambiance. It is the most unique and interesting of the Western SH games.

I think it’s generally accepted that as a whole, western gamers prefer the original SH games, made in Japan. And it turns out, there are a lot of Japanese fans who love the Western games most (going so far as to import Homecoming!), which was an interesting thing to discover. It tells me that an important part of Silent Hill’s creepiness is that sense that something is just OFF that you can’t put your finger on, and maybe it’s a result of unconscious cultural influences creeping into the design of the town itself, then being perceived through a different cultural lens.

Q5 - What were some of the most difficult parts of developing Downpour?

A minor challenge was the fact that fear is so subjective. Between two people sure, but let alone 2 teams in different cultures. So at times there was a lot of heated discussion about what the important parts of a scare or intense moment were, and what the audience would respond to.

The biggest difficulty though was external, just knowing the feelings and expectations of the fanbase at the time. The other Western Silent Hills had their fans of course, but nothing had made a huge splash like Silent Hill 2 (which itself wasn’t popular immediately but that’s a different story entirely!) We were very proud of Shattered Memories, but that was an unconventional entry and we just really wanted Downpour to be the “HD Silent Hill” that fans deserved. We all put a lot of pressure on ourselves. However even taking a quick peek at any forum there was so much cynicism it made the work challenging. And then at some point during the final year or so of development, an infamous series of videos released and sucked up a lot of air in the room as it were.

It also ended a lot of the spirited debate that Silent Hill fans enjoyed, as there were a lot of declarations of the “true” canon or “here’s what the game is REALLY about”. Those debates were always what kept the fanbase alive and vibrant, and it was rough seeing that go away. I don’t really feel like Downpour was given its fair shake in the indepth analysis department, which I was really looking forward to seeing, during development!

Q6 - What were some of the reasons behind the enemy designs of the game? Are their appearances all stemming from Murphy’s mind and experiences? Or Anne’s too? The prisoner types felt like they could be both, but the Dolls in particular made me wonder since they feel more related to her backstory!

It is kept purposefully vague. Obviously at first you’re supposed to assume this is Murphy’s Silent Hill, and the enemies need to support that. But then when you realize this is perhaps Anne’s story that Murphy is caught up in, they can’t betray that idea either. Fortunately the two characters have a lot in common. Murphy is a father willing to do anything to avenge his child. Anne is a child willing to do anything to avenge her father. Both have failed marriages because of their trauma, and so on.

Honestly this is one of the things I was hoping to see more debate about among the fanbase!

Q7 - For the Anne’s Story comics, was that originally supposed to be the basis for DLC for the game? I saw a mention of this online but wasn’t sure how true it was! Were there plans for other DLCs too?

In the very beginning, Anne and Murphy were conceived to be a 2-player experience, so each player could see situations from a different perspective, and we could play with that idea a lot. However after a very short time we realized that idea was a bit ahead of its time, and we focused on making a solid single-player horror game, but the overall story themes remained – but obviously you see less of what Anne is actually doing moment to moment.

As we were wrapping up the game for release, there were conversations about DLC and what form that might take, and Devin and I knew instantly it would be Anne’s side of the story. I wrote up a general structure of it for internal discussions. DJ Ricks had also had a more detailed story originally, so I tried to get some of those details back in as well (when this DLC fell through, I added his story in the Book of Memories DLC – if anybody still has a Vita and wants to delve into that!)

Right around the time I was leaving Konami, there were early discussions with IDW to release a companion comic to Downpour, since Tom Waltz was their SH guy (and has gone on to write their TMNT books and many other great things. Congrats Tom!) and had also written Downpour for us. I gave him a breakdown of my ideas for key moments in Anne’s story; things like Murphy and Anne operating in different chronologies (Murphy sees Anne in the clocktower otherworld BEFORE seeing Ricks, but Anne traverses that otherworld AFTERWARD), or a drowning Anne desperately reaching out for Ricks’s hand, only to find it’s a severed hand tied to his boat.

It took a few years for that deal to come together with the right artist, but thankfully it did! It’s a great companion piece to the game – there are some new details in there that weren’t in my treatment, but it was no longer my story to tell – I experienced it as a fan.

Q8 - What is something you’ve seen players rarely notice in the game which you think is a cool detail? Can be found in the world, story, gameplay or anything!

A tangible detail might be the road signs. I spent a long time figuring out where the other districts of Silent Hill would be, as well as Ashfield, and made sure they were properly charted on the large road signs. I made a map and measured distance and everything.

Story wise, I think Murphy’s role in the story is a bit misunderstood. Many players see it as a standard tale of the town punishing our protagonist but it’s a lot more nuanced than that. Anne, I feel, is being punished, because she is out for revenge right now. Murphy already got his revenge, and dealt with the consequences, and “did his time” as it were. Yes, he has to deal with the consequences of his actions – but those are consequences caused by Sewell, and they were already in motion outside of Silent Hill.

Murphy’s journey is more akin to “Born from a Wish”, or even Eileen’s role in SH4. While most of Walter’s victims did something wrong, Eileen was marked because she was kind to him. It’s basically circumstantial. The Orphanage level is meant to be something different from a standard Silent Hill construct. The town is almost rewarding Murphy for passing a test. It gives him a key that says “Freedom" and everything we weren’t being subtle. And if you watch during the boat scene, there are clear skies ahead of Murphy (and dark storm behind Anne).

And then of course the Silent Hill ambiguity – we all know the only thing on the other side of Toluca Lake is more Silent Hill, so that’s up for debate. Again I was really excited to see how the fans dissected our story and there was never a big discourse about it.

Q9 - There’s a big stretched face with a monocle at the end of the rollercoaster section in Devil’s Pit, I couldn’t wrap my head around it (ha) but who is that/what’s their backstory? I saw somewhere mention it was supposed to be a boss which appeared in a trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSSoIWJPL-4) but wanted to confirm what the deal was!

Originally there was a boss encounter with JP Sater which took the form of this hideous train man creature. The goal was to have characters such as Howard and Sater, who have both accepted their places in Silent Hill, but with drastically different results.  This would be something for players to ponder and explore.

For various reasons we needed to cut this encounter, and it isn’t exactly key to the story, but we didn’t want to waste the creepy model. So we extended the mine train sequence so it could end with the reveal and taunting by Sater. I guess Murphy can be thankful that he wasn’t part of Sater’s story, so he didn’t have to overcome an enormous steamengine behemoth.

Q10 - Always love hearing about any strong memories you have working on the game, feel free to share anything that comes to mind!

Devin and I both spent a lot of time in the Czech Republic during development, both together and alone. I think a lot "clicked" for both of us early on, when Andy Pang (Producer) took us on a trip to some of the sights around Brno, which included the Punkva Caverns – the inspiration behind the Devil’s Pit.

At the bottom of the caves is a river, and your group of maybe 20 tourists board a small boat and a guide navigates you through these dimly-lit caverns. The guide was discussing that this journey changes based on rainfall, as the water level in the caves may be too high to be safe, and as he said this, we noticed the ceiling was coming AWFULLY low. Especially on the left side of the boat, where we were. In fact, we had to lean over on our neighbors to avoid it. In fact, we scraped our shoulders a bit on the rock.

Afterward we both noted that in America, they would NEVER have sailed at that water level. In fact, there would be signs and barriers preventing you from touching the rock, and the boat might even be on a track or guide of some kind, to ensure maximum safety.

We understood a lot more about Downpour’s Silent Hill after that excursion.