Silent Hill Without Fog Is It Still Silent Hill?
It’s very clear that with Silent Hill f, both Konami and NeoBards Entertainment have found the key to an extremely effective formula. After the success of the remake of the second installment, which could soon arrive on new platforms, this new vision of the franchise, featuring the brave Hinako exploring a beautifully recreated Ebisugaoka set in 1960s Japan, has received a very positive response. And as always happens with countless titles, community-created mods didn’t take long to appear.
Among these mods, there’s one particularly special: one that removes the fog from the game and lets us see Ebisugaoka in a completely different way. Obviously these changes are strictly technical, so we won’t mention any kind of spoilers here, which means, if you haven’t played this masterpiece yet, this article represents no danger to you. You can keep reading with total confidence. But before that, you can take a quick look at this short comparison of the now-iconic Silent Hill f with fog and without it:
(By the way, if you want to skip straight to the comparison, you can start the video at 0:40. You’re welcome.)
Does Silent Hill’s Success Depend on the Fog?
It’s not a rhetorical question, and we won’t make you read all the way to the end to say it. Obviously the answer is NO. Silent Hill isn’t iconic just because of a single element, but because of a combination of them, which results in a highly effective formula, as we mentioned before. The thing is, the fog is a fundamental concept throughout the franchise, and it serves more than one purpose. At first, it’s a super practical way to transmit tension, limiting our visual field to just a few meters. On the other hand, and this is neither new nor unique to this game, there are environmental elements that simply don’t load until you get close enough to them, because they aren’t needed as long as they’re out of sight. When present, the fog hides those unloaded elements, helping to maintain the fluidity of the visible environment.
Curiously, even though it’s a horror game, we find that Ebisugaoka is much more beautiful than we might think. There is lush vegetation, more detailed buildings and environments that clearly show a lot of hard work. Everything looks far better than you’d imagine, although you should keep in mind that the game isn’t meant to look like this, without that powerful filter. That’s why there are many things that, as mentioned before, won’t be loaded until you get closer, and you simply shouldn’t be seeing them. In fact, objectively speaking, we shouldn’t see anything under that fog, at least not until finishing the game. And why do I say that?
Let’s Appreciate Game Development Work
Okay, we all know that tons of games from all eras, but especially modern ones, tend to hit the market filled with bugs, errors, malfunctioning basic mechanics, or even issues in essential gameplay elements, which are later improved through updates, patches, and yes, also mods. Maybe we could say that only in this context is the use of these modifications understandable, or at least initially. Personally, I think we should always enjoy games exactly as they were conceived, and complete them at least once that way.
Regardless of the size of the studio behind the development, a video game is the result of a lot of people spending a lot of time working hard to deliver a clear message, one they want us to interpret in a specific way, without any kind of alteration or distortion. Because of this, and because if we belong to this wonderful community that truly represents us, we obviously have real love for many titles or even entire sagas and franchises, I believe that the right way to experience a game, at least for the first time, is in its original form, without any modifications or mods of any kind. Only after finishing it or after trying out its different endings if it has them, could we experiment without losing that initial fascination its developers wanted for us.
So…
Sure, what I’ve said is just my personal opinion, but I’m pretty sure this way of thinking also reflects the stance of the rest of my teammates here at MLG. We’re all gamers at heart, and I’m sure we all choose to enjoy a game in its original form before experimenting with it. If Silent Hill f is scary, then be scared! That’s exactly what its developers want. And if you bought it with Silent Hill in the title, I’m sure you weren’t expecting Candy Crush, were you? Come on, my friend, if you can, go for the full experience and enjoy games exactly as they were conceived. Then, sure, you can satisfy your curiosity by experimenting with any mods you want, right? Obviously that’s not rhetorical either! Now we definitely want to know what you think, so the comments are yours! You know gamer, we’ll be reading you! 🙂
Images Source: Playable Official YouTube Channel, Max Level Gamer
