※ Q & A section from the
"Official Silent Hill 2 Complete Guide Book"

Interview with the developers
of Silent Hill 2
Truths behind the remaining mysteries.

Q01: Are there any episodes that tell us about the historical background or past history of the town of Silent Hill?

Owaku: The stone monument of the blood-dyed swamp, the pictures and photos in the museum, and the folklore of Toluca Lake are examples of such episodes. However, in order to leave room for imagination, we have not decided on the details of those settings. We encourage everyone to imagine their own historical backgrounds based on their own interpretations.

Q02: What geographical location in the real world would you like people to imagine?

Owaku: Like previously, the geographical location is in the northeastern United States. The setting is the 70s and 80s, but we did not use any particular place as a reference. "What if all the people disappeared from the town where I live now?” I think that everyone has thought about this at least once. Silent Hill is a town where this has become a reality.

Q03: What is the true nature of the characters, e.g., about their pasts? What is the significance of Angela and Eddie, who are not directly involved in the main plot of the story?

Imamura: In writing the scenario, a detailed setting for each character was decided upon. Among them, James, Angela, and Eddie have one thing in common. In the game, there are several motifs of the three, and if you deduce from them, you will notice that they have something in common. That is why they were drawn to Silent Hill. And they all ended up with their own ends. In this game, you, the player, are in James' shoes. The game shows what happened in a roundabout way, so you can enjoy the scenario more if you pay attention to it. Also, each character has a specific age, but we chose not to disclose it because we did not want to give players a preconceived image of the character based on his/her age.

Q04: What kind of image did you have of each character in terms of personality or role?

Imamura: The only way to convey the thoughts/emotions* of James, the player character, to the player is through conversations with other characters. The other characters and Maria take this role. There was no particular actors or other models for the characters, but they arose from the necessity of the story to express James, and the personalities and roles of the characters were determined.
(* 心 "Kokoro" )

Q05: I think Maria plays a key role in the story, yet she seems to be the most enigmatic of all. Why did Maria appear to James?

Imamura: The reason why Maria appeared is told in the game. If you don't understand it, you can look at the three endings, excluding Rebirth.

Q06: Was everything that happened this time a delusion of James? Was this a world born from a mixture of reality and delusion in his own mind? For example, did Mary's letter exist? What about the existence of other people? How much of this is reality and how much is delusion?

Imamura: It could all be real, or it could all be delusional. The boundary between reality and delusion has been blurred. Maria's entire existence may be a delusion of James, or only the scene of her death may be a delusion. You can objectively interpret how much of James' experience is reality and how much is delusion, but that is up to the interpreter. The same is true for the mystery of the labyrinth that leads to the back of the museum.

Q07: There are not many inhabitants in the town (including dead bodies), does that mean that they have all turned into monsters?

Imamura: For James, the town of Silent Hill was an empty place where monsters roamed. Each character exists in Silent Hill through their own world. The reason why Laura and Angela were able to reach the hotel even though they were unarmed is that they did not necessarily see the same things that he did.

Q08: Toward the end of the story, Angela walks into the burning fire on the stairs of the hotel. James must have been worried about her, so why did he just let her go, and not try to save her?

Owaku: Because James knows Angela cannot be helped. All he can do is to watch where Angela is going.

Q09 Mary apparently adored Laura, but why did James never meet her? Why did Mary hide Laura's existence from him? Is there some secret to their relationship?

Owaku: Mary never hid Laura's existence. The reason why they never met is that Laura did not like James and was running away from him. Surely Mary had mentioned Laura at one point. But James simply forgets, in the face of his precious Mary's illness.

Q10: Why was Laura's letter, which was supposedly entrusted to Rachel, Mary's nurse, not given to James?

Owaku: As suggested in the story, Rachel was asked by Mary to give the letter to James and Laura after her death.

Q11 When James jumps into his grave, he emerges into the freezer. Does this indicate some kind of metaphor?

Imamura: This in itself is simply absurd and has no deeper meaning. However, there is a grave pit for three people side by side, and entering it is meaningful.

Q12 There is a scene where you get a light bulb from a can in the hotel. Where did that idea come from? Or a fish key served on a plate. What is the source of your strange ideas?

Owaku: The inspiration came from Jan Švankmajer's Alice, an adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. However, I don't really know where these specific ideas came from. "I just had an idea" might be the best way to describe it.

Q13 In the riddle of the coins and the riddle of the false accuser, the hint message was very well written. How did you come up with those sentences?

Owaku: There is no particular text from which I got the idea. I carefully chose words from the atmosphere and the sense of the words, and then carefully worked them into the text.

Q14: How did you decide on the variations of ending patterns?

Imamura: When faced with a painful reality, do you accept it and make efforts to overcome it, choose a way out, or even deny yourself? We decided on these ending patterns as symbolizing those ways of life.

Q15: The monsters in this game look different from those in the previous game. How did you come up with the design and the graphic?

Ito: Since the story setting is different from the previous work, naturally the design concept of the monsters has also been changed. Creepers appear in both works, but their size is different, so they are not necessarily the same either. Last time, the phenomena and creatures were developed from Alessa's memories, but this time there was nothing like that. But although I had no specific reference, I had personally looked at the works of an English painter, Francis Bacon. It is difficult to explain his work in words, so if you are interested, you can find them in the art section of a large book store. Among the monsters, Lying Figure, one of the earliest designs, may have been quite influential. As for the other monsters, I don't think they have much in common in terms of appearance…
This time, the setting of the story is more realistic, so I wanted to create a monster design that would be different from those usually seen in horror and fantasy stories. As a result, compared to the previous entry, the design reflects my personal tastes and works more.
In addition, all of the monster motions were hand-crafted to give them a more bizarre feel. We also paid close attention to the textures of the characters and monsters. They are hard to see because they blend naturally into the background, but if you pay attention, you will find many things.

Q16: There are monsters stuck to a board, or stuck in a frame, monsters wearing triangular metal hoods, etc, dressed in a kind of "restrained" way. Does that mean anything?

Ito: The reasons are different for each of them, but I wanted to give the impression that even the monsters, that are supposed to be enemies, are restrained. I felt that by "restraining" them, I could create some sense of "inconvenience" to them. As if the enemy has something that causes it, just like James…
Also, one of the theme of the enemies this time is that I wanted to make the enemies as individuals, like the pyramid head messing with mannequins in the apartment, rather than as 'James vs. army of the dead’, so I tried to avoid designs that were too "strong".

Q17 I feel that Flesh Lips and Boss Mary has similarity. Furthermore, we can hear the call "James..." after both of them are defeated.

Ito: I designed Flesh Lips as a precursor to Boss Mary. Therefore, it is composed of elements that strongly evoke the image of Mary in her hospital bed, such as the grid symbolizing the bed, the abusing mouth, and the symptoms. The "hospital treatment room" is also a location associated with Mary. As the final boss, Mary, like Fresh Lips, is equipped with a "grid symbolizing a bed. Like Fresh Lips, she is also upside down, both because her mouth is turned downwards and because her triangular head is a reference to the image of Mary being executed. Her face no longer has eyeballs, perhaps because betrayal, she refuses to see James. She also has an expression of constant fear or intense suffering, even as she takes James' life. It could be a sense of guilt for having made him suffer or it could be the anguish of the person taking his life, but is not able to completely separate herself from it.

Q18 There was an old photo of Red Pyramid Thing (Pyramid Head) on display at the museum, has he existed for a long time?

Ito: In the Silent Hill museum, there is a painting of him standing in a thick fog, holding a huge spear, in a place where countless corpses are hung. It is, however, inspired by an old local custom. In the old days, the execution of criminals on Silent Hill was carried out on a hilltop on a foggy day to avoid being seen by too many people. The rule was that they had to wear huge helmets to protect their enforcers, to give them anonymity, and to assert that they were acting in the name of justice. The presence of the pyramid head in Silent Hill now is the embodiment of James' strong sense of guilt. The fact that the pyramid head is roughly the same size as James' body may have something to do with the giant sword that James obtains in the torture chamber beneath the prison.

Q19: This is the first sequel in two and a half years.

Imamura: Yes. After the previous game was released, we took about a month to recharge our batteries before starting development of "Silent Hill 2.

Q20: What was the concept behind the "Silent Hill" series?

Imamura: It is to focus on the world-view thoroughly. We meticulously created the town of Silent Hill and pushed the realism of the world to the limit. This enhances the quality of the horror.

Q21 What was the inspiration behind the creation of Silent Hill? Was there any influence from novels or movies?

Imamura: I think that the project came about because we had a lot of people who liked horror, foreign games, and retro adventure games as members of the project team. We watched many horror films when we were planning the project, but David Lynch's films were a major influence.

Q22: What was the most difficult part of the development process (especially the storyline)?

Imamura: We started the project with the decision to write a new storyline that was not a direct sequel to the previous game. It was a lot of work, but I think that the more time we spent on it, the more profound and wonderful the scenario became.

Q23: The protagonist's situation and the "one and only family" seem to be connected to the previous work.

Imamura: I wanted to depict the love of family in the game, and by focusing on one person who is more important than one's own life, I thought I could clarify the weight of that love. Also, the casting of the characters (dead wife, mysterious girl, mentally ill woman, etc.) is similar, but this was not the intention, but the result. However, it is true that many of the characters are women due to the nature of the story.

Q24: What did you put special emphasis on in the character design, graphics, movies, sound, and other aspects of the game?

Yamaoka : It is a fear of sound with stereoscopic sound incorporating S-FORCE. To really walk through Silent Hill and feel the realism in real time… That was my goal.

Sato: Since I currently live in the U.S., I carefully observed the skull structure of Caucasians when designing the characters. I also carefully selected the main muscles that would be used in the final design, and carefully created them in 3D. This allowed us to create complex shadows on the entire body, especially on the face, which is not easy to achieve with CG. The characters in Silent Hill are not heroic, and I think that's why we were able to give them a deep flavor. Of course, the lip-synching (matching the lips to the dialogue) and the variety of facial expressions are also features of this project.

Tsuboyama: Compared to last time, this time there were no scenes that told a story or had a typical prologue, so one of our goals was to create a deeper atmosphere in the inserts and the trailer movie. As a result, I think we were able to create a somber atmosphere.

Q25: What was the idea behind the "James's look" element in this game?

Imamura: In pursuit of graphic realism, we found that items blended in with the background and were difficult to find. We couldn't use glittering lights, and we couldn't use blood to draw the eye to an item. So we made it so that the main character's eye is on the item. In the previous game, there were items that were too difficult to find, which confused some players. This system is a success because it gives the user a realistic action of looking at things.

Q26: Compared to the previous work, there are fewer types of weapons and monsters, and the monsters have fewer variations in their attacks. What was your intention?

Imamura: We have limited the variety of weapons and monsters so as not to distract from the world view. Also, in this game, the main focus is on making the player feel scared rather than on the action elements. Combat is only one of the elements that add color to the story. However, we set the action and puzzle-solving levels separately, so that players who are good at action but not at solving complicated puzzles, or vice versa, can enjoy the game.

Q27: By the way, it seems that it is quite difficult to achieve perfect score.

Mizuochi: Don't worry, you can actually achieve perfect (laughs). In test play during development, we confirmed that Perfect was achieved in more than one hour less than the clear time requirement (less than 3 hours). We believe that the bottlenecks to achieving Perfect are "clear time," "number of enemies killed," and "amount of damage James receives. If you get used to the game, you can finish the progression and puzzle solving in about an hour and a half, and if you keep in mind that the rest of the time should be allocated to the battle, you should be able to complete the game in less than 3 hours.

Q28: Will the X-BOX version that has been announced be a port of the PlayStation 2 version, or will it be a different version? If so, will it have a different storyline, additional monsters, etc.? Also, what does the subtitle "Saishin no Uta" mean?

Imamura: Basically, it is the same as the PlayStation 2 version. However, the quality of the graphics is high because it is the later hardware. The display has also been tuned to match the PlayStation 2 version. Of course, there are additional elements that are only available in the X-BOX version. I would like to keep this secret for a while longer, but the subtitle "The Last Poem" may be a hint.

Q29: Do you have any ideas for the future development of the series? How do you want the series to evolve?

Imamura: Since there are fans who are looking forward to it, naturally we would like to make "3," but we have not yet decided on the next installment since "2" has just ended. If we should decide to make a sequel in the future, we would like to change the game system while keeping the same dark atmosphere that underlies the game. It all depends on your requests. If there are many requests, we would like to respond to them.