After taking part in Silent Hill f for 5 hours final month, I walked away excited in regards to the recreation’s prospects, and looking out ahead to its Sept. 25 launch. However I did have just a few questions for Konami and developer NeoBards Leisure, the least consequential of which was: “Why is it known as Silent Hill f?”
I requested Silent Hill producer Motoi Okamoto the query in regards to the that means of “f” within the recreation’s title whereas visiting Konami’s headquarters in Tokyo, however, as anticipated, he performed coy. “Now we have plenty of totally different meanings infused into that f,” Okamoto stated via a translator, “however that is one thing we want to go away as an open-ended query for gamers to discover and are available to their very own conclusions, so I will chorus from elaborating on that.”
Al Yang, studio artistic director of Silent Hill f, was seated subsequent to Okamoto, and appeared to actually take pleasure in Okamoto’s fastidiously worded dodging of the query, so I requested him if he’d prefer to elaborate. Yang punted to Okamoto, who reiterated, “There are a number of totally different meanings that we have now envisioned, so we wish gamers to take the time and attempt to discover out for themselves.”
Within the absence of any form of official reply to Silent Hill f’s naming selections, I’ve some theories that I will current, beginning with the obvious.
f for 5
The final Silent Hill recreation to get a quantity in its title was 2004’s Silent Hill 4: The Room, prequel Silent Hill Origins (launched as Silent Hill Zero in Japan) however. Konami could also be subtly giving followers a touch that that is the fifth mainline Silent Hill recreation, regardless of an extended record of sequels (Homecoming, Downpour, and many others.) coming after Silent Hill 4.
Calling the brand new entry Silent Hill 5 would include plenty of weight and expectations, and will doubtlessly flip off newcomers to the sequel who is perhaps apprehensive they’d must have performed “the primary 4” to know this one. So f could also be a delicate solution to sign to followers that, yeah, Konami considers this Silent Hill 5.
f for forte
The f in Silent Hill f is definitely stylized as ƒ in its brand, and an italicized, hooked f is used as a path in music to imply loud or robust. Loud will surely be a distinction to the “silent” in Silent Hill, and since musician Akira Yamaoka seems carefully creatively concerned within the improvement of Silent Hill f, maybe a few of this was his concept.
Silent Hill is often about two worlds, and Silent Hill f is not any totally different: Gamers will discover the “actual world” and an otherworld all through the sport, and maybe the f represents one half of the locations we’ll go to.
f for feminine
You might wish to skip this part, in case you’re overly involved about spoilers. However one of many recurring narrative threads within the early hours of Silent Hill f contact on protagonist Hinako Shimizu’s platonic relationship together with her classmate Shu, and the way she appears not like different women in her hometown of Ebisugaoka. We all know from the start of the sport that Hinako’s elder sister Junko is the favored daughter, and that Hinako is usually the goal of abuse from her father. Does that familial strife and Hinako’s tomboyish nature play into gender roles in Silent Hill f? Does f, shorthand for feminine, suggest questions on her gender id?
f for mojibake
Let’s return to the character ƒ, as it’s stylized in Silent Hill f‘s brand. The character ƒ often seems in mojibake, the garbled textual content that may seem when translating sure character encodings. As somebody who used to work adjoining to language localization, I’d see mojibake — a Japanese phrase that means “character transformation” — lots when engaged on Japanese-language web sites. This interpretation might really feel like a stretch, however the idea of “character transformation” feels too good to not point out.
We’ll in all probability have a a lot clearer reply to the f of all of it subsequent month, nevertheless it may take 5 playthroughs to know all of it.
