Silent Hill: The Short Message
Summary
Silent Hill : The Short Messageis to a great extent theme around self - harm , suicide , and contumely , and it is impossible to discuss the game without also mouth about these points in some detail . Reader discretion is encourage .
Konami’sSilent Hill : The Short Messageis the company ’s first real attack to return to the series since Hideo Kojima’sP.T.experiment ( disregard , as everyone should , Silent Hill : Ascension ) , and serves as an interesting line of latitude to what came before.P.T.was primitively placard as a demonstration for an unknown game from 7780s Studio , a fictional game party that never subsist , and restfully appeared on the PlayStation Store with little fanfare . It was n’t until participant had completedP.T.that they even find out they had just played part of a newSilent Hillgame .
Conversely , Silent Hill : The Short Messagewas dropped as part ofPlayStation ’s State of Play January 2024event alongside a " combat laggard " for the planned remake ofSilent Hill 2 . It ’s a complete , unretentive , free , first - somebody repulsion experience PS5 proprietor can download from the PS Store ( just likeP.T. ) and even kindle similar imaging early on - cockroach , a flaming bathroom , and slightly bumble door opening move animations which give the impression something is being loaded in off - screen . It ’s also far less subtle , to vary degree of effectiveness .
Stating the Obvious Up Front
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Silent Hill : The Short Message is a free , brief looking at at New SH voltage .
WithThe Short Message , it is clear one of Konami ’s primary goal is to update the world of Silent Hill to exist in the modern day . This does n’t just imply most of the in - game conversation bump through text messages , although they do , but it also includes insert recent event like the COVID-19 pandemic directly into its narrative . The biz places players in the role of Anita , a teenager who is looking for her Quaker Maya in an abandoned flat complex . The coordination compound is n’t in thetown of Silent Hillthough , it ’s in a fictional German urban center called Kettenstadt ( which Google Translate says means " Chain City " ) .
Why call itSilent Hillat all then , apart from sword recognition ? It assist that members of the original Team Silent are involved ( Masahiro Ito did creature designand Akaira Yamaoka composed the music forThe Short Message ) , but throughout the experience there ’s a shrewish star that this could have been called anything else . At first glance , Silent Hill : The Short Messagereally feels like it wants to beP.T.by mode ofResident Evil 7&RE8 , which makes the fact that the end event is moreLife is Strangethan anything else even more interesting .
What The Short Message Is
Two Gameplay Types To Observe
Silent Hill : The Short Messageconsists of two main form of gameplay which are swapped between at various points throughout the story . The first is a " unravel away from the scary monster " chase sequence , which see the participant transported to an alternate dimension version of the apartment edifice called the Otherworld . In the Otherworld there is a distressing monster with a head covered in cherry blossoms and wrap up with bristled telegram who is always chamfer Anita , and if the player gets too close they are caught , killed , and must lead off the whole sequence over again .
This is nothing unique tohorror secret plan of the retiring decade , but at least Ito ’s innovation , as always , look gloriously disturbing here . The 2nd form of gameplaySilent Benny Hill : The Short Messageincludes are fairly standard first - person take the air around exploration segment . The player has no real inventory , only a prison cell phone which pulls treble duty as a communications gadget , a flashlight , and the menu screen you utilize to re - study any of the many , many documents found in the environment . The controls consist of being able-bodied to look behind yourself with L1 or R1 , strabismus and zoom in to something far away with R3 , and the ability to walk with the left stick . Everything else is relegated to contextual X clitoris presses .
For a free plot that shows the first glimpse of what Konami is truly move to do with the dealership , Silent Hill : The Short Messageis utterly deserving experiencing .
The Short Message , when it is n’t shew animated human faces , looks fantastic . The transition issue from the normal world to the Otherworld in particular are telling , with normal hallways of a sudden waver to life sentence like a bowl full of citizenry performing a undulation with monolithic eyeball bill poster . It also form sound use of FMV sequences , typically for flashback , in a way that create these second find ( likely on purpose ) somewhat detach from the fiber in the game proper . Given how Anita looks and animates in the cutscenes where the participant is no longer in first - person , this is probably for the adept .
Unreliable Expectations
Story Effectiveness & Implementation
It ’s a story about how small matter can build over fourth dimension , how masses become overwhelmed but obscure their fears and defeat from others , how just because someone await like they have their life together it does n’t intend they in reality do . It ’s a floor about characters and consequences , and about felo-de-se and struggling to ride out out of the spiral suicidal mentation can bring on . It ’s about how one human body of trauma can generate another even when we test hard to keep that from happening , and , becausethis story has aSilent Hillin the title , there ’s also one slightly thwarting puzzle division that seems thrown in just for the interest of including a bit of literal gameplay .
How well it handle these topics will vary depending on a person ’s own relationship with them . For what it ’s deserving , as someone who struggled with suicide for the first two decades of my life , I thoughtSilent Hill : The Short Messageultimately did a good job in both its depiction and its overall message regarding the issue . It ’s a disgrace the gameplay did n’t offer up much on top of that .
A Short Message On Silent Hill
A Strong Start For New SH
For a free game that shows the first glance of what Konami is truly endure to do with the franchise , Silent Hill : The Short Messageis dead worth experiencing . That ’s not to say it ’s everlasting . The " take the air around and find the only interactable objective in the room " gameplay bring nothing newfangled to the tabular array , and after being caught by the giant two or three fourth dimension the escape elbow room segment become far more tiresome than they do scary ( specially the last one ) . The dialog is a minute too on - the - nose , and all the social media character reference that seemed pretty significant in the rootage are quietly shove to the side once the tangible story reveals itself . That all being said , it ’s a far better start than it could have been , and it is undeniably the bestnewSilent Hillmediasince 2014 .
Silent Hill : The Short Messageis available to download for PS5 possessor for spare on the PlayStation Store .
Silent Hill : The Short Message transports player back to the stalk town of Silent Hill in a gripping fresh story experience . concentrate around a mysterious content that lures the protagonist , Maya , to the desolate town , players must unravel the forbidding closed book hide within its murkiness - covered streets . As Maya delves deeper into the eery environment , she encounters horrifying creatures and puzzling puzzles that challenge her saneness .
