Horror game giants Silent Hill and Resident Evil came out this week with a bang. Konami and Capcom have held online previews of each of their series that have given us a glimpse behind the curtain on what's to come, whether it's announcing new games and a movie, or revealing more of what we already knew. One of these presentations, in my opinion, won the target audience much better.
Before diving into this topic, it should be noted that Konami's new Silent Hill games are at a much earlier stage of development than the Resident Evil Village DLC and Capcom's Resident Evil 4 remake, so I'm considering these streams solely in terms of presentation effectiveness. and I will not evaluate them only by game frames, as this would be unfair.
Resident Evil has absolutely surpassed Silent Hill. The overall level of production and the pace of Capcom's presentation made for a far more engaging experience than Konami's. Although Konami is not a key developer on any of its upcoming projects, it was Konami who hosted the 35-minute show; however, despite being only seven minutes longer than Capcom's, it felt like an eternity.
I understand that Konami had nothing to show, but it just makes me wonder why the company chose to talk so much. The Silent Hill 2 Remake and Silent Hill F trailers looked amazing, and instead of drawing attention to them, there were just people standing around on a green screen talking about basically nothing. So much could have been cut.
The worst offender was the game Silent Hill: Ascension. It's being touted as a "new interactive video streaming experience," but Konami never explained what that meant despite talking about it for five minutes. The concept sounds cool, but if you don't want to say too much, they don't say anything extra. You can form a canon, watch with friends and make decisions, but what that actually means remains a mystery that has turned an interesting idea into a deflated balloon.
Worst of all was the JJ Abrams "quote" that read like it was written by his assistant at three in the morning.
“The Genvid experience is a wild, epic and innovative new way to immerse yourself in the horrors of Silent Hill.” If learning simple English has taught me anything, it's that I'm a total no-no.
Again, I don't want to denigrate any of these games, Silent Hill: Townfall seems to be very interesting, and the trailer and behind the scenes look weren't long in coming. However, Capcom did it much better.
The Resident Evil showcase was designed like this: someone walked around the huge hall, and Duke from Resident Evil Village talked about each game. It showed a lot more creativity than just a few people on a green screen, and while Capcom did show some talking heads, they served to complement what was shown and didn't feel like they were replacing time.
Resident Evil also had a clear advantage in that it wasn't the series' return after a long decade and could instead focus on already announced games, but that just makes me think Konami should have cut their showcase short if they didn't have much to show . Not having much is completely normal, but it’s not a good idea to curtail your display.
I don't think Konami's reveal bodes well for the return of the Silent Hill franchise - all of these games are clearly early in development (the film appears to be just concept art at this point) and the trailers for each of them have been really good. It's just a shame that the focus was diverted from them to spend too much time on meaningless conversations instead of making the showcase simpler and angrier in terms of what Silent Hill could have shown.
Both Silent Hill and Resident Evil will release in a big way, at least in the near future, and hopefully we'll get some healthy competition between them that will push them to improve. It would be good for everyone.
