In his earlier lives at Konami and Sony Japan Studio, sport designer Keiichiro Toyama was identified for his iconic horror video games Silent Hill and Siren, then later PlayStation’s gravity-flipping journey Gravity Rush.
Understanding his observe document then, it’s no shock that his subsequent sport, Slitterhead, feels uniquely spooky. Whether or not his small indie startup Bokeh is ready to obtain its ambitions or not, it’s clear that this sport will on the very least stand out in what usually seems like an more and more homogenised video games market.
“With Sony, there was an rising motive to make extra extremely budgeted video games, and it needed to go that approach with the Japan Studio model,” Toyama informed VGC in a current interview, reflecting on the closure of PlayStation’s historic in-house developer in April 2021 (Toyama left to type Bokeh shortly earlier than this).
“My motive was at all times to create authentic video games. I really feel I can do that with out a large funds. This permits me to specific myself as nicely. By going impartial, this has allowed me to do this. From my time at Sony, I really feel like I’m undertaking what I need to do.”
Slitterhead is ready within the fictional East Asian metropolis of Kowlong, a shadowy city labyrinth stuffed with neon signage and soiled alleyways. It’s not the sprawling open-world metropolis of a triple-A manufacturing – the sport performs out throughout a number of ‘ranges’ – however Kowlong seems like a plausible place, and there’s a core intrigue that compelled us to discover it.
“One determination we made early within the sport was that we initially needed an open-world setting for the sport, however it wasn’t cheap with the funds,” Toyama tells us. “That call labored nicely, boxing within the missions and progressing via the storyline.”
The sport casts gamers because the Hyoki, an entity devoid of reminiscence and bodily type, whose solely motive is to destroy the monsters hiding across the metropolis, disguised as people, often called Slitterheads. These bug-like critters will burst from human heads, with their a number of, razor-sharp limbs, with out warning. For the reason that metropolis is stuffed with NPCs, this creates a excessive sense of stress when navigating the darkish backstreets.
At its most simple degree, Slitterhead is clearly an motion sport. In our first hour, we’re taught a wide range of commonplace motion sport melee mechanics, like parrying and dodging, however fight isn’t the sport’s most fascinating function.
Gamers begin the demo controlling a stray canine wandering via the streets. Finally, your progress via the again alleys will develop into blocked by a tall fence. Nonetheless, shifting the precise stick to identify a human NPC on the opposite aspect reveals the flexibility to own them with the press of a button, instantly flipping the participant’s perspective to the brand new host.
Q&A: Keiichiro Toyama
What’s been the largest shock of going indie?
Essentially the most stunning factor was publishing. We by no means revealed a sport at Sony as a result of they’ve departments that try this. That was probably the most difficult half, constructing relationships with different corporations and funding it.
It’s a tricky time for sport staff. Have you ever felt that?
I feel balancing a singular concept with a funds was key to constructing this sport, and that was why we have been capable of end it in 4 years. That could be why we have been capable of detach ourselves from different studios shutting down.
How did you react to Tango Gameworks’ closure?
I don’t really feel it’s my place to provide them recommendation, however I feel going again to what I mentioned earlier in regards to the steadiness of routine and preserving the fashion of your video games is related. You take a look at an instance like From Software program, they preserve making totally different video games however sure types and elements of their video games keep the identical. That’s an apparent instance of how a studio is profitable. Not altering every little thing each time is likely to be the important thing to life and surviving.
In a short time, Bokeh begins to play with this mechanic in additional fascinating methods. A Slitterhead bursts from a close-by citizen and, resulting from being unarmed, the one approach we are able to escape is by daisy-chaining between NPCs alongside the route forward, usually passing via partitions or as much as rooftops.
Later within the demo, the possession mechanic is used for every kind of twisted platforming segments, with us body-hopping between highrise balconies and sacrificing NPCs for quick journey by leaping off of a constructing earlier than rapidly switching to a different human on the road simply as our earlier host splatters on the pavement.
All of a sudden, the pretty commonplace melee fight mechanics from earlier within the demo additionally grew to become far more distinctive, with gamers capable of tackle a lot stronger Slitterheads through the use of a gaggle of NPCs, and leaping between them to land blows on its again, because it struggles to concentrate on a single opponent.
Some NPCs are extra outfitted than others, wielding barely stronger melee weapons, however throughout our demo there by no means felt like a lot want to carry on to them, as there would at all times be one other just-as-good NPC across the nook. Based on Toyama, it is a deliberate design option to painting people as fodder in Slitterhead’s world.
“The individual answerable for the possession mechanics was initially engaged on one other sport I used to be engaged on earlier,” he defined. “For this sport, we had a dialogue about methods to steadiness out what atypical civilians may do. Originally, they have been alleged to be highly effective, however that proved to be not entertaining.”
What we performed felt fairly linear – there doesn’t seem like a lot right here by way of aspect content material or exploration – however it’s additionally a refreshingly tight and unbloated expertise.
Slitterhead’s mixture of spooky East Asian vibes, with head-twisting perspective shifting, feels just like the end result of Toyama’s earlier video games. Nonetheless, the designer informed VGC that, going ahead, he desires to stay to the rules that inspired him to ascertain Bokeh within the first place: creating authentic video games that don’t require an enormous funds.
“Once we opened the studio, the idea was that we’d make authentic video games, and we need to proceed doing that,” he mentioned. “We’ve poured plenty of youth into the workforce, they usually discovered rather a lot via this course of. I look ahead to the youthful era making their very own video games on a decrease funds.
“Once we opened the studio, the idea was that we’d make authentic video games, and we need to proceed doing that. We’ve poured plenty of youth into the workforce, they usually discovered rather a lot via this course of.”
“Motion journey is one thing we needed to pursue, and we discovered rather a lot concerning that. We could switch that to a different sport. We need to switch the data that we’ve gained, however the idea will stay as it’s, to make distinctive video games.”
Regardless of a small variety of blockbuster stay service video games more and more dominating the market, the Silent Hill designer feels there’s nonetheless room for smaller, distinctive video games like these he constructed his fame on – particularly if their creators have monetary duty.
“I perceive that the pattern in improvement is far more conservative, like with service video games. I perceive why corporations transfer that approach. However there’s an significance in balancing that out. There’s positively a necessity or want for darker, extra distinctive video games. There’ll at all times be individuals who need that. So long as you retain the steadiness proper and don’t spend an excessive amount of on a sport, there will likely be customers who need that.”
Slitterhead will launch for consoles and PC on November 8.
