Silent Hill Creator Slitterhead Prioritizes Action Over Fear

Head cut off was the strangest game I stumbled across at Summer Game Fest this year. Tucked away in a small cabin at the back of the event, it was a game that few in attendance seemed even familiar with. I felt compelled to take a look before the event ended, like I was possessed. I managed to snag an appointment to see it on the last day of Summer Game Fest, eager to dissect what I saw in its action-focused gameplay trailer. This move would put me face to face with Keiichiro Toyama, who helped create iconic franchises like Silent Hill, MermaidAnd Rush towards gravity, and has now moved on to doing Head cut off at Bokeh Game Studio.

We’re now in a survival horror renaissance thanks to Capcom’s Resident Evil remakes and notable indie films like Raven Country, but Toyama tells Digital Trends that he’s now looking into creating a full-on action-horror game. He thinks it’s what today’s players prefer, and Head cut off is the result of this. With its focus on combat, a parry deflection mechanic, and a possession system that allows players to move between bodies during battle, I felt like I’d stumbled upon a spooky hidden gem at Summer Game Fest.

A spiritual successor to Siren

Although Toyama is best known for creating the first silent Hill, Head cut off has more in common with the second horror franchise he worked on: Mermaid. This series was a scary survival horror game in which players could “hijack” NPCs to learn what they can see and hear. This gameplay concept, along with the idea of ​​telling another overall story with many characters, is something that Toyama and other returning developers came up with. Mermaid want to explore further with Head cut off.

“In Mermaid, there was this mechanism that allowed you to turn your view and see from another’s point of view,” Toyama explains to Digital Trends. “The (development) team brings back many of those who worked on Mermaid Additionally, we’ve modernized that feeling of borrowing someone else’s view, but this time you’re borrowing another body instead of just seeing someone else’s point of view.

I played the overture to Head cut off, and it immediately puts me in the role of a spirit called “Hyoki”, with little context on who he is. I quickly learned that I could possess most living things I saw at the touch of a button, from dogs to ordinary people walking the streets of Kowlong, the town in which Head cut off is set. Soon after, a sex worker hits on Hyoki before transforming into a giant praying mantis-like creature, one of the titular Slitterheads, and giving chase.

In true horror game fashion, Slitterheads’ designs are intentionally strange, off-putting, and sometimes even phallic. Toyama says this because the enemies in this game are impersonators – monsters pretending to be real people. They were inspired by creatures that camouflage themselves in the environment in real life, like octopuses and insects like the praying mantis. Eventually, Hyoki learns that some people he possesses can also sense that he possesses them.

From there, Hyoki’s quest to learn more about what it is and where the Slitterhead threat comes from begins. Toyama wouldn’t joke much about Slitterhead’s a larger story, only reinforcing what the opening of the game shows and that the great mystery of the game is discovering what Slitterhead really is. Dissecting the complex narratives of games like silent Hill And Mermaid is part of their appeal, and I can’t wait to do it with Head cut off once the whole game is over.

Possessed to play more

One thing I understood well during my playtime is that Head cut off is much more of an action game than a survival horror game. Because players are a spirit, the majority of gameplay is centered around possession. Players can jump between bodies while running away from Slitterheads; an ominous setting had me jumping out of a building as one person and possessing another before that body hit the ground only to escape in time.

With Head cut off And Unknown 9: Awakening both showcased at this year’s Summer Game Fest, 2024 is shaping up to be a surprisingly fruitful year for games with possession mechanics. Eventually I had to fight a Slitterhead head-on, and it became a full-on action game. The people I possessed created a blood weapon with which to attack enemies. There’s also a deflection parry system, although I didn’t understand its timing during my time with the demo.

There were people around each battle arena, and it was up to me to move from one to the other before the person I was controlling died. If the player dies three times in someone’s body or stays out of the body for too long, the game is over. Toyama tells me there are about 10 “rare characters” that players encounter over the course of Slitterhead’s a story that is much better in combat. I learned that players will eventually unlock abilities that can be used in combat, such as turning a body into an explosive time bomb that deals damage. The inclusion of such abilities means that players must constantly switch bodies.

Toyama admits that the biggest challenge when creating this system was making players want to keep moving between bodies instead of just fighting as a single character. Enemies take more damage from behind, so I found one of the best strategies was to assault an enemy with a normal human, then switch to a rarer character to do a lot more damage from behind.

And don’t worry: Even though players can own dogs, Toyama says they’ll never have to during combat.

Action horror on survival horror

I’ve found Slitterhead’s struggles to feel a bit of a coward overall. Attacks that required deflection could have been marked more clearly, and the action wasn’t as fluid as a game like this. Ghost Blade Zero or some kind of funny slowness like The souls of demons. Still, I’m fascinated by why Bokeh Game Studio focused more on action with Head cut off rather than making a survival horror game like silent Hill Or Mermaid. Toyama had a shocking response to this.

He told me he thinks “some people distance themselves from a game because it’s focused on horror or survival.” When he looks at the indie games he likes and the games younger gamers gravitate toward, they’re mostly action-oriented. As a result, he decided to do Head cut off an action horror game rather than a survival horror game, as it wants “a large segment of users to come and enjoy” Bokeh Game Studio’s debut title when it launches later this year .

I don’t entirely agree with this sentiment, as the success of indie games like Five Nights at Freddy’s And Raven Countryas well as bigger games like Alan wakes up 2, show that there is a gamer demand for survival horror. Still, I appreciate that Toyama isn’t just replaying his greatest hits and is creating a new type of horror game, unlike anything he or anyone in the video game industry has done before. I’m glad I was one of the lucky few possessed to give it a try Head cut off at Summer Game Fest this year.

Head cut off will launch on PC, PS4, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on November 8.

Editors’ Recommendations