In a recent X post, Silent Hill 2 producer Motoi Okamoto shared some insights into Konami’s decision to partner with Bloober Team for the remake. Okamoto mentioned some general points about how important it is to possess specialized knowledge of a genre (as opposed to broad game design knowledge) in order to be entrusted with a development project by a client. This led him to explain how Konami assessed whether Bloober Team had experience valuable to Silent Hill 2 based on their indie game portfolio.
Before the Silent Hill 2 remake, Bloober Team was known for horror indie games like Layers of Fear, Observer, and The Medium. While some of these titles blend elements from genres like adventure and puzzle games, Bloober Team titles are generally known for their psychological horror and subversion of player expectations. According to Okamoto, Konami entrusted the development of the Silent Hill 2 remake to Bloober Team because of the studio’s “genre-specific” expertise (i.e. their track record of creating horror games).
Okamoto says that Konami was aware Bloober Team lacked experience in developing action games, but based on their evaluation, they were confident Bloober Team would overcome this.
The Silent Hill 2 remake is a survival horror game with combat as one of the main methods of interacting with the world. Although combat was not Bloober Team’s strong suit back then, it took it upon itself to overcome this obstacle and make the remake’s combat as fluid as possible while retaining the frantic feel of the original. The end result incorporates a third-person, over-the-shoulder camera and responsive gameplay offset by a scarcity of resources.
Okamoto points out the paradox of companies requiring highly-specialized experience from developers when outsourcing projects, as every developer has to begin somewhere. He sees indie game development as a way for aspiring developers to gain genre-specific experience that clients can evaluate, and cites Bloober Team as a prime example.
“No matter how broad a game design expert’s knowledge is, they won’t be hired to work on a fighting game if they have no experience developing fighting games. The same goes for horror. But then, with companies requiring such genre-specific experience, you realize that everyone has to start out as a novice for the given genre at some point. Nowadays, indie development has become the way to overcome that.”
Considering Bloober Team and Konami are working on a new game based on one of the latter’s original IPs, it seems both parties have seen the advantages of partnering up for another time. Now that Bloober Team has proven that it can remake a classic horror game, here’s to hoping they can strike gold with either a new title or another remake.
Silent Hill 2 is available now on PS5 and Steam.
