The real problem is, Silent Hill was great not because there was a Team Silent or whatever. It was great because there was a bunch of game developers that had a vision and could actually work the way they want and wasn't binded by franchises, expectations and profit. I can't believe Silent Hill could ever be franchised and i'm still amazed how Silent Hill 2 managed to be so good after Silent Hill. I like the part you say how bad Silent Hill 2 was for people at the time. It's insane to see how people couldn't perceive the greatness of this game at the time and today is considered by many the best horror game/media out there
It's a called a slow burn. What's considered lame initially would become an all time classic years later. The 1958 movie Vertigo is another perfect example of this. That's just life, views and opinions always vary and change with the passage of time.
Nah, the game was great, because was cheaper to make, something that can't be done now. That's the real issue, new games won't allow experiments, because that will cost a lot of money.
I wasn´t crazy about SH 2 on release. I still ain´t. 1&3 and dare I say Shattered Memories rank above it for me but I also knew who David Lynch was when I played SH 2 so the homages were a bit on the nose. The game also plays much worse than its prequel or sequel. Shockingly so. Still, a good game and SH 4 ain´t bad either. RIP Team Silent. All 2.5 shifting versions of it.
"There was no team A" counts for most studios. Most people in a team, studio or whatever don't stay in it forever or for a very long time. Take Core design for an example. After the first tr game was made, two team members left. After the third tr game was made, most from the team that made the first one had left. So on and so forth until tr anniversary was in production, at which point half of the team that worked on angel of darkness(most of them were not newbies) had left. At any rate, there was team silent(silent hill 1), it just did not last for long.
This is a landmark work in the Silent Hill fandom. Honestly the very concept of this particular video: compiling irrefutable data and sources to show that the mythological idea of "Team Silent", let alone what it was, was not actually a thing, and how the sales of the later games slumped off over time which is in stark contrast to the way many fans *think* the series performed, is something I wanted to do as far back as 2011 but was too lazy and constantly distracted to ever actually get around to committing lol. Very glad you put this together, and it's incredibly well done as well. I can foresee this video being linked back to and referenced for years to come in the fandom.
“Team Silent” is just an informal term for a group of developers who can be traced back to the original Silent Hill game. Of course each game had different creative leads and team members. But they each have a similar quality which can be distinguished from the western developed Silent Hill games.
Arguably, Silent Hill 2 and 3 have some heavy crossover in design because they share many assets. But on the whole? Comparing Silent Hill 1 to 3, or 4 to 2, is just as wild as trying to compare Origins to Homecoming. All the games have a very unique feeling, and those elements that make them feel more uniform have more to do with the console they're on and the game design traditions of the time.
@@thegamingmuse your wrong about team silent not being a thing, the members all made all 4 games some members left the project and some came back I regard all the members as team silent Akira and Ito also confirmed team silent existence so I don't know what your doing girl trying to gather a new toxic fandom that disregards team silent work.
@@derekb4977 Wild youre saying that when Twin perfect exists in the silent hill fandom, which spent ages shitting on anything not "team silent". Get your head outta your ass.
Who the hell were these game reviewers? Silent hill 2 and 4 were so progressive and ahead of their time that they are finally being appreciated for the masterful artistic style that they delivered. Even now no other game has come close to the symbolism of sh2, and sh4's story is so well executed and gave the gaming world perhaps one of the most fleshed out villains ever... The early 2000s was so harsh on the gaming community.
Man, the more I think about this video the more it opens my eyes to view the Silent Hill series in such a different light. This is truly a fantastic watch, thank you!
Stumbled on this through recommendations... this is incredible! As a game developer, this was just so refreshing to hear, especially your closing. I was thinking of putting together an essay about combatting the facelessness of game developers (i.e. few folks know who exactly made their favorite games, or how the next game in their favorite franchise is probably made by a completely different set of people. My initial thesis was going to be "teams not studios" with the mythical Team Silent being on the top of my mind. It goes to show that even that narrative is highly reductive and obscures the myriad of workers who made these incredible games.
Very insightful! The conclusion was particularly touching, and made me reflect on my own experiences with horror games. Perhaps this trend is why these types of games are mostly indie now.
This particular video from this SH documentary series points out how the games had different directors with a distinct vision for the SH game they directed. I feel like there's some lovely, fourth-wall-breaking metaphor there. After all, the stories of SH were always about different characters who had their own perception of the events that were unfolding around them. You could say that, in a way, the players were not only discovering each protagonist's struggles and mind-set through gameplay, but also each director's art style, intentions and world knowledge. Thank you, Muse, for making me realise that :D
It says Team Silent at the end of one of the E3 SH2 trailers. Of course it wasn’t an unchanging team. Every single individual that worked on SH 1-4 was a member, no matter how small their role. It wasn’t a name created to berate the developers of the western games. Twin Perfect tried to turn it in to that but I’d like to believe they failed in that crusade of theirs.
@@Silent47963 twinperfect has alot of flawed videos, and are not above criticism. Their videos defending MoS, BvS, and "why Batman kills" are very flawed videos, with alot of fallacies and bad arguments. I would not question that their SH videos are as flawed. Making research doesn't mean much if context is ignored and/or misrepresented to favour the point you're trying to make, but he uses it as an excuse to deflect any criticism, just like you did.
@@Silent47963 What lol? Even back when those "documentary" videos came out, so much of the nonsense they spewed was already debunked by members of the fandom who weren't elitist shmucks desperately searching for internet clout by being Oppressed Gamers™. They were so lame that they stole theories other people had made in the fandom years prior to them without giving credit, and then still managed to push them as facts when they too had been debunked. That's not even getting into the litany of trash behavior they had towards not only actual developers, but other fans and random people out in the world (that time they mocked some homeless guy or whatever for the sake of 'humor', the racist "Del-Taco" nickname they gave to Del Toro, etc) They were some embarrassing to witness, like how when they cited a few lines from some interview from a dev team member to use to back up some shitty theory they had, then shat-talked that very same dev team member when it came to something that undermined some other shit they were trying to push. You saying they have a "brick wall of information" just shows how and why they managed to get a following to begin with: style over substance; so many people saw their production values for their vids and conflated that with them being actual authorities about anything related to Silent Hill. I wish SHC's domain was fully restored so I could just link to the numerous threads which showed so much of TP's bullshit get decisively wiped out, but you can still find examples on other sites. So yeah, they definitely "failed" at actually being objective and insightful with their 'documentary series', which in actuality just turned out to be them slobbing over the first three games and then it slowly degenerating when they got to SH4, whereafter it was just them shitting on everything and trying to pass it off as insightful lol. TL;DR you're wrong about everything.
@@Housesider but everything after 4 was indeed no where near as good as the originals and I don’t even consider them part of the series personally. They miss the mark so much
@@vaevictis_ How anyone personally feels about the games after 4 doesn't really have any bearing on how wrong Twin Perfect's SH videos were (they made quite a few that weren't about the games' qualities)
Your work on researching and putting all this together has been great and I hope this video gets more of the attention it deserves, the care you have for the subject is very easy to notice and gives the series a really cool style ^^
When I think of "Team Silent", I don't think of set group of specific people. I think of all the developers who worked at Konami at the time, who had a shared culture and comradery, whether or not they were officially working together as a team on this game or that. They were all part of the zeitgeist at Konami at the time that gave us those games.
@Ostrava_Of_Boletaria Heyas! I'm always popping up in various Silent Hill videos around TH-cam. It's more than just the music I love about those original games.
Please continue with [There is no Team Silent] series. It's been enlightening so far. I get to know each individual member what were they doing before and after SH projects.
Dang, I didn't know how poorly SH did in Japan! Though I still think Kojima Production's Silent Hills would have been a landmark release for the Horror genre.
I was there for the original SH2 release. Video game magazines of the era rightfully said it was more repetitive and easier than SH1, but fans like myself loved it. It's a slow burn, though.
I was there too. People were not really impressed by the game. I really enjoyed the game, but even if the ending was great, it was not like the horror and weird as the world in SH 1 was.
SH2 wasnt even just horror it was more about PTSD, psychological trauma etc and best at that. Who cares what some pencilpusher or ppl who don't know jack about these games or topics says anyways. We bought the game and loved it and that is all there is to it. Konami didn't know what it have and how to handle it that was the death of SH nothing else.
@@iceyfloor6730 Yes, but the narrative around the game at the time was definitely not "PTSD horror". It's no exaggeration that it was almost unclassifiable since it's hardly survival horror. More adventure horror than anything else. Critics around the time did not get it. A clown at EGM gave it a 7! (although the aggregate score ended up at 8.3)
same bro, legit manly tears coming down through my eyes right now. not too mention i got goosebumps too. this is just bitter but sweet remember that nothing last forever, thus that's why this series is so special to all of us.
This was a fabulous video. Thank you. I remember rejecting SH2 kinda when it came out because it had nothing to do with the first game's story. At the end of it I was like "What about Alessa and the cult?". For that reason I received SH3 much better and SH3 was my favorite for a while. I still liked SH2 a lot as a game, but the story kinda lost me. It took me about 4 years to come around and then it became my favorite of the series after I grew up a bit.
I'm really happy for the existence of this series. Your work was amazing. And I want to see what comes next. Silent hill is my favourite horror series of all time, even though I only played the first four. I do hope someone makes a good new SH, it doesn't matter who as long as they understand the series and its a good game in this amazing setting.
Just gonna leave this counter argument here for anyone who stumbles across this video to read: The video isn't accurate. For one thing, more than ten people worked on SH1. For another, the video insinuates that even the name "Team Silent" was invented by fans, which isn't the case. Here's a SH2 trailer with Team Silent's logo: youtu . be/dk7JkSArEdQ There absolutely was a Team Silent, in the sense that the majority of the team carried over for each game.The core team from SH1 returned for SH2, except for three members (Keiichiro Toyama, Isao Takahashi, Naoko Sato) who left to work at Sony.The team was expanded for SH2 due to the bigger budget. The story was developed by Hiroyuki Owaku, Takayoshi Sato, Masahiro Ito, Masashi Tsuboyama, and Suguru Murakoshi, all of whom worked on SH1 except for Murakoshi. After SH2, the team split to develop SH3 and SH4 simultaneously. Most of the core staff members from SH2 returned for SH3, and SH4 was also made up of people who worked on the first two games. Some members (Jun Inoue, Naoto Ohshima, Ryouko Horie) even worked on both games at the same time. Takayoshi Sato was originally involved with SH3, but left due to a payment dispute with Konami. If most of the team is returning for every game, two of the games were developed simultaneously, and core creators associated with the team led 3 out of 4 of them (Masahiro Ito, Akira Yamaoka, Akihiro Imamura, Masashi Tsuboyama, Hiroyuki Owaku, etc), then Team Silent existed.
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these have got to be the most complete and neatly done Mini documentary series on the subject that's out here on YT. Again, Well done!
I’ve always considered Team Silent as the members we see throughout most of the OG 4! Yamaoka, Ito, Tsuboyama, Murakoshi, and Owaku. Yamaoka is the real OG tho. Involved in all original 4. But yeah these games have developers constantly coming and going. Doesn’t mean there aren’t those who 💯 consider themselves “Team Silent”. Thank you for another amazing video Muse!
The classic-status of the games amongst newer players is something that was mainly cemented by the hype around PT in the mid 2010s. Older players are well aware of silent hills niche-success status. Most of the Mythos around the games is retrospective
Thank you for taking the time to do this. SH was a massive part of my life back in the day, and it's great to be able to return to that foggy town via your videos.
I mean, "Team Silent" WAS a thing internally. It was a development team within KCET. You can even see the words "team silent" appearing at the end of one of the Silent Hill 2 trailers (a detail you conveniently left out in your video). The team obviously had changing members, as you pointed out but saying it didn't exist is blatantly wrong. You can actually compare this fairly well to music bands. Sometimes bands change some of their members a bunch of times, or heck there are bands in which almost all of the members changed over time and yet they're still called the way they're called. You wouldn't just say "this band never existed" because they changed their members, right? Same thing here.
The 'team silent' that appears at the end of that video is a term used by marketing, a separate division from the supposed "internal" team silent, and yes there was an internal team working on the games, but they were not a dubbed "Team Silent" team that had officially associated themselves solely with that game. Half of them even were working on other games at the same time. There's a difference between "we have a team of people working on silent hill" and "we have a Team Silent who is dedicated to our silent hill series", and they never had a team dedicated to the series the way they did Tokimeki or their soccer games.
Don't try arguing, the pretentious TH-camr has an army of sycophants to worship their delusion in spite of contrary evidence. Your comparison of a band is apt: It's like saying Nirvana never existed because Dave Grohl wasn't always the drummer. Iron Maiden never existed because there were two albums with Paul Dianno instead of Bruce Dickinson. Just because it wasn't an "official" team doesn't mean there wasn't a core team of minds working on it. At least it lets me know I never have to give anything thegamingmuse says any credence.
@@thegamingmuse For one thing, more than ten people worked on SH1. For another, your video insinuates that even the name "Team Silent" was invented by fans, which isn't the case. Here's a SH2 trailer with Team Silent's logo: youtu . be/dk7JkSArEdQ There absolutely was a Team Silent, in the sense that the majority of the team carried over for each game. The core team from SH1 returned for SH2, except for three members (Keiichiro Toyama, Isao Takahashi, Naoko Sato) who left to work at Sony. The team was expanded for SH2 due to the bigger budget. The story was developed by Hiroyuki Owaku, Takayoshi Sato, Masahiro Ito, Masashi Tsuboyama, and Suguru Murakoshi, all of whom worked on SH1 except for Murakoshi. After SH2, the team split to develop SH3 and SH4 simultaneously. Most of the core staff members from SH2 returned for SH3, and SH4 was also made up of people who worked on the first two games. Some members (Jun Inoue, Naoto Ohshima, Ryouko Horie) even worked on both games at the same time. Takayoshi Sato was originally involved with SH3, but left due to a payment dispute with Konami. We also from interviews that Team Silent's SH5 (cancelled) involved Masashi Tsuboyama, Akihiro Imamura, Akira Yamaoka, and Suguru Murakoshi. Which means you would have individual team members involved with 4/5ths of the Team Silent games. To quote the developers themselves: IGN: How much of the original team is working on [Silent Hill 2]? Akihiro Imamura: The core team is the same. But the sequel is a much bigger project, so we've had to supplement that with about thirty more staff from within Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo, Inc. Kazuhide Nakazawa: Actually, there are quite a few new staff members working on Silent Hill 3. Most of the core staff members from Silent Hill 2 are working on Silent Hill 3, however. Murakoshi: Production on SH4 began right after production on SH2 ended. We actually moved forward with SH3 & SH4 at the same time. One thing we discussed this time was "creating a new Silent Hill." We even originally started out with the intention of having the Silent Hill name as a subtitle. Q: Like The Room: Silent Hill, maybe? Murakoshi: Simply speaking, yeah. And so, at the very start, we took 2-3 months to plan things out. The production work for SH2 had just ended, so we were talking with each other about how accomplished it was and such, and we started deciding to what extent we wanted to make changes and do something new. So, we came up with three fairly polished plans, and we chose the scariest one - that was how it went. Q: So how did The Room end up being the subtitle for the game? Yamaoka: We wanted to express the idea that Silent Hill was moving in a new direction. We reasoned that with a title of Silent Hill 4: The Room, it would be recognizable to a great many people as "a new Silent Hill", but they'd understand right away that while it's at heart a Silent Hill game, it's different from what came before. If most of the team is returning for every game, two of the games were developed simultaneously, and core creators associated with the team led 3 out of 4 of them (Masahiro Ito, Akira Yamaoka, Akihiro Imamura, Masashi Tsuboyama, Hiroyuki Owaku, etc), then Team Silent existed.
I would laugh my arse off if they just slapped the "Team Silent" name on the remake with no relation to please people honestly they probably should have for marketing
Impressive research. Perhaps, even the most accurate historical reconstruction of Silent Hill IP developing and background to date. I have been a fan of the series until SH3. Once played sh4, I felt the sunset of the franchise began, and never played the other games but followed the reception and reviews. I believe, the first trilogy was the best horror tale in the history of video games, and maybe even in the horror/terror genre as a whole. The final comments are encouraging. I save the hope w will see a reboot of the first 3 games that can live up to its old glory.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for making such wonderful and insightful mini series. The incredible amount of research and absolute passion behind this project can be heard in your voice in every video. I don't think there is another documentary about SH that went as deeply into the histories and lives of several of the artists of the game. I also completely agree with the final point in this video about evolving passions of the artists who have moved on or rather graduated to new inspirations and interests in their creativity. Being a professional musician since early childhood and a person who has broad interests not just in arts but in other topics, I have faced same scenario, where people keep wanting more from you of "the same" that you've done years ago without realizing, that your interests might have evolved already several times and you might be going through 3rd career change purely out of desire of exploring new things and new ways. Thank you again for your incredibly hard work making this!
I'm so glad this video was recommended to me. I'm in the middle of writing a script for a video about P.T. and it's thematic connections to the earlier Silent Hill games, and parts of my script definitely fell into the trap of idolizing "Team Silent" and diminishing the value of the work created by the western devs. I think this video also points toward a larger trend within gaming discourse - the need to have a concrete villain. It's much easier to point at a specific game developer or director than acknowledge the complicated and nuanced systemic problems that run throughout the industry that often lead to troubled releases. I do believe as a whole we're getting better about how we discuss the industry - but it's still a easy trap to fall into. Thanks for putting this together, and now I'm off to do some rewrites.
This video isn't accurate. For one thing, more than ten people worked on SH1. For another, the video insinuates that even the name "Team Silent" was invented by fans, which isn't the case. Here's a SH2 trailer with Team Silent's logo: youtu . be/dk7JkSArEdQ There absolutely was a Team Silent, in the sense that the majority of the team carried over for each game. The core team from SH1 returned for SH2, except for three members (Keiichiro Toyama, Isao Takahashi, Naoko Sato) who left to work at Sony. The team was expanded for SH2 due to the bigger budget. The story was developed by Hiroyuki Owaku, Takayoshi Sato, Masahiro Ito, Masashi Tsuboyama, and Suguru Murakoshi, all of whom worked on SH1 except for Murakoshi. After SH2, the team split to develop SH3 and SH4 simultaneously. Most of the core staff members from SH2 returned for SH3, and SH4 was also made up of people who worked on the first two games. Some members (Jun Inoue, Naoto Ohshima, Ryouko Horie) even worked on both games at the same time. Takayoshi Sato was originally involved with SH3, but left due to a payment dispute with Konami. We also from interviews that Team Silent's SH5 (cancelled) involved Masashi Tsuboyama, Akihiro Imamura, Akira Yamaoka, and Suguru Murakoshi. Which means you would have individual team members involved with 4/5ths of the Team Silent games. To quote the developers themselves: IGN: How much of the original team is working on [Silent Hill 2]? Akihiro Imamura: The core team is the same. But the sequel is a much bigger project, so we've had to supplement that with about thirty more staff from within Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo, Inc. Kazuhide Nakazawa: Actually, there are quite a few new staff members working on Silent Hill 3. Most of the core staff members from Silent Hill 2 are working on Silent Hill 3, however. Murakoshi: Production on SH4 began right after production on SH2 ended. We actually moved forward with SH3 & SH4 at the same time. One thing we discussed this time was "creating a new Silent Hill." We even originally started out with the intention of having the Silent Hill name as a subtitle. Q: Like The Room: Silent Hill, maybe? Murakoshi: Simply speaking, yeah. And so, at the very start, we took 2-3 months to plan things out. The production work for SH2 had just ended, so we were talking with each other about how accomplished it was and such, and we started deciding to what extent we wanted to make changes and do something new. So, we came up with three fairly polished plans, and we chose the scariest one - that was how it went. Q: So how did The Room end up being the subtitle for the game? Yamaoka: We wanted to express the idea that Silent Hill was moving in a new direction. We reasoned that with a title of Silent Hill 4: The Room, it would be recognizable to a great many people as "a new Silent Hill", but they'd understand right away that while it's at heart a Silent Hill game, it's different from what came before. If most of the team is returning for every game, two of the games were developed simultaneously, and core creators associated with the team led 3 out of 4 of them (Masahiro Ito, Akira Yamaoka, Akihiro Imamura, Masashi Tsuboyama, Hiroyuki Owaku, etc), then Team Silent existed.
This is one of the reasons why I never liked watching videos on "This is the true meaning of Silent Hill!" or "Those theories are wrong. This is what's really happening!", etc. Because at the end of the game, all the games had mostly different directors and writers, and different teams. So the lore of one game could be completely different than the lore of another game. There wasn't anyone there that played a George Lucas role to keep things consistent. Which is why one game said Alternate Reality, and another game said Alternate Dimension. Because each writer/director had different interpretations on what was happening in the first game.
Isn't this what everyone already says since the American games came out? This really isn't that big of a revelation. It just shows Konami didn't care about the series even less because of no consistency and wanting to appease western players by making them cliche horror games.
I had to think when you told me there were different teams. Although a few stayed,eventually different teams were made and a one split into two groups to work on the fourth and third games. I understand that the core audience and element went away. Its always publishers decisions in the end that determine the finalizing of a project never the westerners or teams of any kind.
I'm glad someone else on TH-cam has said there that there is no Team Silent. I heard that said one other time, I think on a podcast where Jeremy Blau... something lol, was quoted as having said that there was no Team Silent. So thank you for helping to dispell the myth. And it's so odd how SH2 upon release seems to have been shunned, when nowadays a lot of people think of it as being the best, myself included. But it was also my first with many playthroughs, so naturally there's a bias. I think any of the original 4 could be argued as being the best, yes even The Room. That poor, misunderstood The Room. It's ok Room, I still love you.
The amount of people still believing the series was made by a cohesive group is mind numbing. Silent Hill fans are pretentious and romanticize what actually happened.
what's the problem with just watching the credits and matching the developers? the term "team" does not necessarily imply that the same people always work in it
I always thought of Silent Hill as more like an anthology than a series - more along the lines of 'Twilight Zone' and less 'Stranger Things' - while there may be some intersections (place, characters, etc.) the stories should be taken as individual, made by different sets of people, inspired by different ideas and themes, and with different expressions. This video explains - FINALLY - why each game feels so different. Because they are. Because they're meant to be. And maybe that's not such a bad thing.
Excelent work, this is not even a cuestion of a Fan Work or something like that, is trying to discover who and how a group of people created these work of digital interactive art. Thank you!
Amazing video AJ, you're one helluva researcher, and you've improved and grown so much since you've started this channel. Love ya dorkus, and thx for starting this channel in the 1st place!
I trust that some of the people who worked at Konami´s old horror division can still make coherent games but I don´t trust Konami to release anything good. Why should I after a decade to a decade and a half of mostly trash, not even counting nearly all bad SH games after 4.
Thank you SO much for this video. This echoes so much how I feel about the series, and both East and Western developers of the series. Yes, I love SH1 to 4 more than the other games.... but the western games absolutely had their moments and even did some things "better" then SH1 to 4. Homecoming's Bosses and combat were the best in the series.... Shattered Memories was very underrated and did things none of the other games did. Origins was stunning for a portable title. I never got to play Downpour though. I only hope people will be nice and receptive to my fan made Silent Hill virtual pinball game. It's a passion project that I think will impress any Silent Hill fan when they see the finished game.
The reactions to the second game comments you showed has me so confused in that I struggle to see their points. It REALLY feels like most of them didn't play it or did but nowhere near finished it. I guess the world of people's takes on games was actually always like this huh
They did. Both critics and fans complained about the game not being a sequel to the first one, the story being confusing, and "boring", and the monster to be "uninspired"...I was around those forums, and I still own magazines from that time, SH2 had a "mixed" reception.
thats alot ALOOOOOOOT of effort I feel bad for not contributing to u. patreon or else ,you really deserve it cause u r making our favorite franchise to be alive.
im not a fan of any of the games you have covered on your channel, but i've watched a bunch of them because of your style, presentation, and style of reporting. it's very nice to finally be able to sit through a video game video free of snarky, witty, sarcastic humor. thank you very much for what you do.
In the Yakuza games, you can also feel that connection between titles, like if all were chapters of one big game alone, despite the changes from one to another and the differences of the time that has passed since the very first game to the last one, and, of course, this includes the technology used to create the titles in real life as well. And by the way, the technology shown within the games themselves, has some sort of evolution, for example, the usage of a "primitive" cell phone in one side quest in Yakuza 0, and then, in latter entries (chronologically speaking), the usage of modern cell phones is something very common to see among the characters including Kiryu, the protagonist. That little details add some sense of coherence and even "realism" to some extent, at least, for me.
As a massive Team Silent fan I want to clarify a few things. Some of us fans are well aware that there never was a solid team that worked on the series and each of the 4 entries were comprised by different people. In fact I've always known team silent was a nickname given by the fans themselves. Team silent, even though were different people for each game all had one quality that was integral for all 4 entries. Whoever was the main force behind the development of each project UNDERSTOOD the world, the lore and the themes established by the first game. Team silent, simply refers to the people that knew and understood the complexity of what silent hill was. The western devs didn't quite get it and they made their own versions of silent hill. Anyone who likes those entries is well in their right to do so, maybe they speak to you, maybe they are more your style and that is all fine. But when fans cry that they want team silent back, all they are really asking is for people that actually understand the lore established by the first 4 games. I personally don't want a game named silent hill unless it is made by people who understand it and respect it. A new team silent if you will, otherwise they might as well just make a new horror title with a different name.
This kind of idea is unfortunately part of the problem. The people who made the later games understood Silent Hill. They were all fans. They just understood it differently than you. Personally, I think they understood it fine, and interviews make it even more clear to me how much they love and knew the games. Idealizing the previous devs because they "understood" it also ignores how different each devs "understanding" of Silent Hill was. Toyama and Sato and Tsuboyama all had vastly different games. Each Silent Hill is a very personal look at the same themes and similar gameplay elements, and even if you do not like one or many of them, they are still Silent Hill. The first four are not the "true" or "canon" games. They are all true, and they are all canon. This kind of argument is still not helpful for discussing the series because it's very self centered to define a game's series and its lore by what you approve of and like best.
@@thegamingmuse It's not an argument about what I deem canon or not, or what the fans in general deem canon. The fact of the matter is that the series changed drastically after 4 and the fandom became divided, not out of spite for western devs or idealized love for the original ones (though of course some people will fall into those two categories) but because they didn't like the games period, or felt they weren't as good. Another thing is, Silent hill does have plenty of room for interpretation and can be wonderfully personal for that matter; that being said, there is still an established lore that ideally should be respected in order for the story to make sense and be compelling. When I say the western devs didn't understand it, I mean it. Origins paints Alessa as an evil child and has no room in the continuity. The projected nightmare and monsters begin in 1 when Cheryl is reunited with Alessa when Harry arrives to silent hill. Leaving no room for the events in Origins. It's just convoluted and confuses people I still have to hear people refer to Alessa as evil because of that game and it's annoying. Also Homecoming has pyramid head and bubblehead nurses which belong only to James and his personal experience. And look, it's fine if you like those games, but I personally can't overlook the missteps, plot holes and general lack of subtlety every game has after 4, and tons of other people think that way too and that is totally fine and fair. It's the same as arguments about star wars movies. Nobody agrees on anything and there's plenty of opinions out there, and that is how that works. And for the record, I'm not huge on Sh4 either, I feel the quality began to drop there. I'm really just a huge fan of the first 3 games, for what is worth.
The truth is, the fandom was always divided. I still receive comments about how 2 is not a good game truthfully, about how 3 was not, and 4 was not - going back to the first game, fans have always been divided. We just have this false understanding that those divisions started because of the western devs, when in truth they were always there, they just weren't as well documented. Fansites and forums from those times are mostly gone. And again - issues like Origins plot has to do with the problems I pointed out in the video. Without spoiling my next project, Origins was quite literally forced into a plot created by outsiders and given half a budget and half a timeline to finish the game. It was a real mess.
So at the end of it all, Konami as a corporation is still the reason Silent Hill went downhill? Nothing new there. Still, really interesting video. Hats off to K.C.E.T.
Very nice storytelling and compiled material. This is interesting how a myth can phagocyte reality and turn to be the reality itself. I would never bother to question the existence of this team considering the (modest) numbers of videos and analyses I have heard from skilled narrators referring to them as an establish fact. Thank you so much for the great work.
Yeah I never really liked 2 all that much either. My personal favourites are 1,3,2 and then 4 don't know about the rest. Also I don't see why the original devs try to run away from it, if I created something that a lot of people like and I don't care about it all that much because I have other interests, I would still atleast try to give them something that they like and pursue my own interest in my personal time because even I understand that not everyone would like what I like or share my interests. If I created something like silent hill and a bunch people liked it but for some reason I didn't really care about it and was more interested in.... I dunno... history or something but a bunch of people kept asking me to come back and do the thing they liked, I'd do it! And I'd still find time to pursue my own passions
Thank you thank you THANK YOU for this video. Like I said commented on your video for the Shinto themes within Fatal Frame, you are TRULY a professional professional. This comes across like an actual journalist’s report. If you went to school for this, be proud that your VERY refined technique shows, and if this is a passion project, you should wholeheartedly embrace the fact that you have a very VERY good talent of researching, presenting information, I am absolutely bLOWN away.
The main problem is every Silent Hill game (after SH4) always copying SH2's formula with inferior results. They keep trying to recapture SH2 without understanding what made it work. The best way to move forward is to not get too fixated on anything about "past trauma." It's gotten too predictable.
@@damkylan3 The video isn't accurate. For one thing, more than ten people worked on SH1. For another, the video insinuates that even the name "Team Silent" was invented by fans, which isn't the case. Here's a SH2 trailer with Team Silent's logo: youtu . be/dk7JkSArEdQ There absolutely was a Team Silent, in the sense that the majority of the team carried over for each game.The core team from SH1 returned for SH2, except for three members (Keiichiro Toyama, Isao Takahashi, Naoko Sato) who left to work at Sony.The team was expanded for SH2 due to the bigger budget. The story was developed by Hiroyuki Owaku, Takayoshi Sato, Masahiro Ito, Masashi Tsuboyama, and Suguru Murakoshi, all of whom worked on SH1 except for Murakoshi. After SH2, the team split to develop SH3 and SH4 simultaneously. Most of the core staff members from SH2 returned for SH3, and SH4 was also made up of people who worked on the first two games. Some members (Jun Inoue, Naoto Ohshima, Ryouko Horie) even worked on both games at the same time. Takayoshi Sato was originally involved with SH3, but left due to a payment dispute with Konami. If most of the team is returning for every game, two of the games were developed simultaneously, and core creators associated with the team led 3 out of 4 of them (Masahiro Ito, Akira Yamaoka, Akihiro Imamura, Masashi Tsuboyama, Hiroyuki Owaku, etc), then Team Silent existed.
I have to agree with your conclusion: Konami doesn't really care about games. I'm also a big Castlevania fan, and all I know is that whatever comes from all these rumors about a new Castlevania, a new Silent Hill... is that it's going to be different, if it happens. If Konami cared about good games, this different could be good. But they don't. Not like Square Enix, for example: they keep experimenting, maybe failing sometimes, but always, delivering something that's at least, fun. Konami doesn't do that anymore. And it's sad.
I always said how there is some sort of Mandela Effect regarding Silent Hill, people think it was this super successful and critically acclaimed series until western developers started working on it, and ruined everything...reality is, western developers started working on this franchise BECAUSE it was doing poorly both in sales and critical reception, with only the first game being a hit, I was around in the early '00s, I remember fans and critics disliking 2, giving 3 trash, and then completely ignoring 4. There is a similar situation with Metal Gear Solid, the only true ultra hit was the first game, then the sequel, while selling better, had a mixed reception from critics, and fans hated it, and when it came to 3 and the rest, each entry sold less and less, while they kept getting more and more expensive... I think Konami just took the same big risks with both franchises at the same time, and both critics and consumers just started to leave the series after the second entry came out...crazy how nostalgia can play tricks with us... Btw, seeing Shenmue II on the Dreamcast outselling Silent Hill 2 on the Playstation 2 in Japan, is...wow, I had to double check, because I couldnt believe what I was seeing, it did that poorly in Japan?
Silent Hill is the greatest series that never was. And I am thankful for what each entry is, even PT. edit: just watched to the end, really happy we got to the same conclusion
Wow..those guys who worked on first sh game and created a new franchise of were actual geniuses,but sure so true to just make their wildest dreams and ideas in something to remember..the rest is just follow their steps in order to make them bttr,but noone did,and never will..i love those games but you are on another lvl..hope this series will continue cause this must not be silenced :) Team Silent term is for me like true guys who worked and give their ideas for game put at the side like they are irrelevant but we know this is not true..
The only negative things were coming from reviewers who didn't got paid to praise a review title. Something for example IGN is well known for. Another problem being those pretentious ego driven reviewers shouldnt review games because they don't know jack about games and their zombie followers who spam toxic nonsense should be ignored too. So what ever they say is irrelevant in reality because there was tons of us people who bought the OG SH games and loved it. So as whatever the younger generations that are stupid and ignorant also mindlessly rant about, all those clickbaits etc all is irrelevant. Team Silent name existed in official books and promotional materials. The team might not exist on legal documents but in media they did. The team was more a representative as a dev team inside Konami corp who was working on SH games, so as even tho some people changed they still managed to continue bring back the spirit of the main lore and essence of SH which changed after 4 for both ways. People were in touch and shared information outside work etc. Devs in Japan respect each other and work together even outside contracts. Who doesn't understand this simple rule shouldn't really talk about game development in Japan or SH in this matter at all. Thanking the teams outside Japan also don't deserve a single praise. So as Konami who didn't understand what it had nor what it have. Slapping a SH title on a game doesn't make it a SH game. People in these western team who didn't wanted to mud their names left those companies early on for a reason. I talked to many and they all said the same things. Also sometimes what Ito or others say is lost in translation. This capped comment of his how he is tired of rust and grime etc also makes zero sense since his art continued to be exactly themed on that for ages and still is. This blabber about "we are not into horror we wanted to do something else" bla bla bla yeah that is why they continued to make horror, scifi and postapocalypse mainly horror xD Siren for example is more horror and brutal then SH ever was. So all these comments of some individuals and quotes are just absurd and meaningless because everything is contradicted and lost in bad translation.
The whole "members change so it's not Team Silent" is such a bad take. Pete Best left the Beatles and they were still the Beatles. Chad Channing left Nirvana and they were still Nirvana. Plenty of bands do this all the time, and they are usually groups of only 3-5 members. Why suddenly is a development team of dozens of people "not the same team" when a couple leave, or some new people join? Like yeah, we get it, it's not the exact same team from game to game, but there is a clear style and direction from the team as a whole for the first 4 games that is consistent despite the overall team roster changing.
If you watch my other videos on the seires which are far more developed youll see its more complicated than just one 'team silent' even if they had much in common.
@@thegamingmuse My point is that despite some people leaving and some joining, most of the original team still returned. The vast majority of core members from Silent Hill 1 still returned for 2. After 2 they split to develop SH3 and SH4 simultaneously Most of the core staff members from SH2 even returned for SH3, and SH4 was also made up of people who worked on the first two games. Some members (Jun Inoue, Naoto Ohshima, Ryouko Horie) even worked on both games at the same time. If most of the team is returning for every game, two of the games were developed simultaneously, and core creators associated with the team led 3 out of 4 of them (Masahiro Ito, Akira Yamaoka, Akihiro Imamura, Masashi Tsuboyama, Hiroyuki Owaku, etc), then Team Silent existed.
@@silverg2862 they didn't had a proper name and konami don't want proper team because right now kojumbo still fucked with konami and WON because he is a legend first and a man after
THATS CRAZY! I can't believe that many people didn't like Silent Hill 2! Me and everyone I personally know agree that SH2 is not only the best in the series, but one of the best horror games ever made! This was really quite a blow to learn that people didn't like it when it came out. Are me and my friends weird? lol. I played the Xbox version and they all played the PS2 version and our conclusions were all the same. who are these people who hated it? Perhaps they were the same who hated Lament of Inocense. I liked that one too hehe. Great documentary by the way. Really good. I don't share your admiration for how things turned out, but that's cool. I do share your passion for some of the games and in the end, we aren't getting any more of them so all we have is what we've got.
Absolutely great and incredibly important video to all of horror fans. Although I have a nitpick There's only one Fatal Frame that never got to the west and 5 wasn't digital only. Unless by "the west" you mean just North America which is kinda weird
Well it shouldn’t be at all. This “Team Silent” label invites pretentious discussion, mythologizes a nuanced development process, and discredits the work of anyone else who ever worked on a Silent Hill. No more Team Silent. The series is an anthology and it’s time for people to wake up.
The real problem is, Silent Hill was great not because there was a Team Silent or whatever.
It was great because there was a bunch of game developers that had a vision and could actually work the way they want and wasn't binded by franchises, expectations and profit.
I can't believe Silent Hill could ever be franchised and i'm still amazed how Silent Hill 2 managed to be so good after Silent Hill.
I like the part you say how bad Silent Hill 2 was for people at the time. It's insane to see how people couldn't perceive the greatness of this game at the time and today is considered by many the best horror game/media out there
It's a called a slow burn. What's considered lame initially would become an all time classic years later. The 1958 movie Vertigo is another perfect example of this. That's just life, views and opinions always vary and change with the passage of time.
Nah, the game was great, because was cheaper to make, something that can't be done now. That's the real issue, new games won't allow experiments, because that will cost a lot of money.
I wasn´t crazy about SH 2 on release. I still ain´t. 1&3 and dare I say Shattered Memories rank above it for me but I also knew who David Lynch was when I played SH 2 so the homages were a bit on the nose. The game also plays much worse than its prequel or sequel. Shockingly so. Still, a good game and SH 4 ain´t bad either. RIP Team Silent. All 2.5 shifting versions of it.
Silent Hill has poor sales. Sales is important.
"There was no team A" counts for most studios.
Most people in a team, studio or whatever don't stay in it forever or for a very long time.
Take Core design for an example.
After the first tr game was made, two team members left.
After the third tr game was made, most from the team that made the first one had left.
So on and so forth until tr anniversary was in production, at which point half of the team that worked on angel of darkness(most of them were not newbies) had left.
At any rate, there was team silent(silent hill 1), it just did not last for long.
Phenomenal video. And this aged so well with the release of the remake. Timeless.
This is a landmark work in the Silent Hill fandom. Honestly the very concept of this particular video: compiling irrefutable data and sources to show that the mythological idea of "Team Silent", let alone what it was, was not actually a thing, and how the sales of the later games slumped off over time which is in stark contrast to the way many fans *think* the series performed, is something I wanted to do as far back as 2011 but was too lazy and constantly distracted to ever actually get around to committing lol. Very glad you put this together, and it's incredibly well done as well. I can foresee this video being linked back to and referenced for years to come in the fandom.
Agreed. But some people are too lazy to do research so I have less faith that this video being linked back to and referenced for years to come. :(
@@GuyOnAChair henlo, hows james development ? ;D
@@GuyOnAChair true, and People also don't like letting go of the romantic ideas they've grown attached to.
@@amirah232 Ah hello! James hair is still poor sorry for the late reply. :)
Damn it - you unapologetic hype man! Now I need to watch the video ....
I love these videos, i thought i knew pretty much everything over the years but i learn something new in each video.
“Team Silent” is just an informal term for a group of developers who can be traced back to the original Silent Hill game. Of course each game had different creative leads and team members. But they each have a similar quality which can be distinguished from the western developed Silent Hill games.
Arguably, Silent Hill 2 and 3 have some heavy crossover in design because they share many assets. But on the whole? Comparing Silent Hill 1 to 3, or 4 to 2, is just as wild as trying to compare Origins to Homecoming. All the games have a very unique feeling, and those elements that make them feel more uniform have more to do with the console they're on and the game design traditions of the time.
@@thegamingmuse your wrong about team silent not being a thing, the members all made all 4 games some members left the project and some came back I regard all the members as team silent Akira and Ito also confirmed team silent existence so I don't know what your doing girl trying to gather a new toxic fandom that disregards team silent work.
@@derekb4977 The SH fandom was always toxic. Your comment just reinforces it.
@@derekb4977 Wild youre saying that when Twin perfect exists in the silent hill fandom, which spent ages shitting on anything not "team silent". Get your head outta your ass.
@@derekb4977 agreed ^_^, also with OP. it's simple as that
Who the hell were these game reviewers? Silent hill 2 and 4 were so progressive and ahead of their time that they are finally being appreciated for the masterful artistic style that they delivered. Even now no other game has come close to the symbolism of sh2, and sh4's story is so well executed and gave the gaming world perhaps one of the most fleshed out villains ever... The early 2000s was so harsh on the gaming community.
Man, the more I think about this video the more it opens my eyes to view the Silent Hill series in such a different light. This is truly a fantastic watch, thank you!
This is so good ❤️
Thank you for putting this together, it's a fantastic essay!
Stumbled on this through recommendations... this is incredible! As a game developer, this was just so refreshing to hear, especially your closing. I was thinking of putting together an essay about combatting the facelessness of game developers (i.e. few folks know who exactly made their favorite games, or how the next game in their favorite franchise is probably made by a completely different set of people. My initial thesis was going to be "teams not studios" with the mythical Team Silent being on the top of my mind. It goes to show that even that narrative is highly reductive and obscures the myriad of workers who made these incredible games.
Very insightful! The conclusion was particularly touching, and made me reflect on my own experiences with horror games. Perhaps this trend is why these types of games are mostly indie now.
For me silent hill 2 is one of these video game "miracles" that only happens once. Like chrono trigger or majora's mask.
Chrono Trigger is the best video game ever made. In my opinion of course, but for real though? Best game ever made
Agreed
silent hill 2 was the first that you played?
@@rahah00 No, I played all four in order.
This particular video from this SH documentary series points out how the games had different directors with a distinct vision for the SH game they directed. I feel like there's some lovely, fourth-wall-breaking metaphor there. After all, the stories of SH were always about different characters who had their own perception of the events that were unfolding around them.
You could say that, in a way, the players were not only discovering each protagonist's struggles and mind-set through gameplay, but also each director's art style, intentions and world knowledge. Thank you, Muse, for making me realise that :D
what an incredibly fascinating watch. i can't thank you enough for all of the research you did in putting this together. very well done
Amazing work! It has been a delight to watch all the episodes made in such deep and detailed way.
It says Team Silent at the end of one of the E3 SH2 trailers.
Of course it wasn’t an unchanging team. Every single individual that worked on SH 1-4 was a member, no matter how small their role.
It wasn’t a name created to berate the developers of the western games. Twin Perfect tried to turn it in to that but I’d like to believe they failed in that crusade of theirs.
@@Silent47963 twinperfect has alot of flawed videos, and are not above criticism. Their videos defending MoS, BvS, and "why Batman kills" are very flawed videos, with alot of fallacies and bad arguments. I would not question that their SH videos are as flawed. Making research doesn't mean much if context is ignored and/or misrepresented to favour the point you're trying to make, but he uses it as an excuse to deflect any criticism, just like you did.
@@Silent47963 What lol? Even back when those "documentary" videos came out, so much of the nonsense they spewed was already debunked by members of the fandom who weren't elitist shmucks desperately searching for internet clout by being Oppressed Gamers™. They were so lame that they stole theories other people had made in the fandom years prior to them without giving credit, and then still managed to push them as facts when they too had been debunked. That's not even getting into the litany of trash behavior they had towards not only actual developers, but other fans and random people out in the world (that time they mocked some homeless guy or whatever for the sake of 'humor', the racist "Del-Taco" nickname they gave to Del Toro, etc) They were some embarrassing to witness, like how when they cited a few lines from some interview from a dev team member to use to back up some shitty theory they had, then shat-talked that very same dev team member when it came to something that undermined some other shit they were trying to push.
You saying they have a "brick wall of information" just shows how and why they managed to get a following to begin with: style over substance; so many people saw their production values for their vids and conflated that with them being actual authorities about anything related to Silent Hill. I wish SHC's domain was fully restored so I could just link to the numerous threads which showed so much of TP's bullshit get decisively wiped out, but you can still find examples on other sites. So yeah, they definitely "failed" at actually being objective and insightful with their 'documentary series', which in actuality just turned out to be them slobbing over the first three games and then it slowly degenerating when they got to SH4, whereafter it was just them shitting on everything and trying to pass it off as insightful lol.
TL;DR you're wrong about everything.
No need to be petulant
@@Housesider but everything after 4 was indeed no where near as good as the originals and I don’t even consider them part of the series personally. They miss the mark so much
@@vaevictis_ How anyone personally feels about the games after 4 doesn't really have any bearing on how wrong Twin Perfect's SH videos were (they made quite a few that weren't about the games' qualities)
Your work on researching and putting all this together has been great and I hope this video gets more of the attention it deserves, the care you have for the subject is very easy to notice and gives the series a really cool style ^^
When I think of "Team Silent", I don't think of set group of specific people. I think of all the developers who worked at Konami at the time, who had a shared culture and comradery, whether or not they were officially working together as a team on this game or that. They were all part of the zeitgeist at Konami at the time that gave us those games.
@Ostrava_Of_Boletaria Heyas! I'm always popping up in various Silent Hill videos around TH-cam. It's more than just the music I love about those original games.
Please continue with [There is no Team Silent] series. It's been enlightening so far. I get to know each individual member what were they doing before and after SH projects.
After SH4, part of the team was recruited by Sony to form Project Siren
Dang, I didn't know how poorly SH did in Japan! Though I still think Kojima Production's Silent Hills would have been a landmark release for the Horror genre.
I was there for the original SH2 release. Video game magazines of the era rightfully said it was more repetitive and easier than SH1, but fans like myself loved it. It's a slow burn, though.
I was there too. People were not really impressed by the game. I really enjoyed the game, but even if the ending was great, it was not like the horror and weird as the world in SH 1 was.
SH2 wasnt even just horror it was more about PTSD, psychological trauma etc and best at that. Who cares what some pencilpusher or ppl who don't know jack about these games or topics says anyways. We bought the game and loved it and that is all there is to it. Konami didn't know what it have and how to handle it that was the death of SH nothing else.
@@iceyfloor6730 Yes, but the narrative around the game at the time was definitely not "PTSD horror". It's no exaggeration that it was almost unclassifiable since it's hardly survival horror. More adventure horror than anything else. Critics around the time did not get it. A clown at EGM gave it a 7! (although the aggregate score ended up at 8.3)
idk who needs to hear this but
SH4 and Downpour are pretty cool
kbai
4 was pretty alright. Downpour was poo.
@@fjorgyn7438I enjoy Downpour so that you don't have to XD but really though I respect your difference of opinion, cheers
Yea 4 and Downpour were great
4 was good. Downpour felt like a watered down SH2
I played them back to back, both have charm and meaningful stories. Sh4 was harder and the music is just perfect.
Im literally crying right now! Such a beautiful and masterpiece written piece of silent hill documentary. Thank you AJ for being a GOAT!
Bruh.
same bro, legit manly tears coming down through my eyes right now. not too mention i got goosebumps too. this is just bitter but sweet remember that nothing last forever, thus that's why this series is so special to all of us.
This video was incredibly well done. I very much appreciate this!
This was a fabulous video. Thank you. I remember rejecting SH2 kinda when it came out because it had nothing to do with the first game's story. At the end of it I was like "What about Alessa and the cult?". For that reason I received SH3 much better and SH3 was my favorite for a while. I still liked SH2 a lot as a game, but the story kinda lost me. It took me about 4 years to come around and then it became my favorite of the series after I grew up a bit.
you know, I don't expect all dev teams to be entirely intact through the years but DAMN.
I'm really happy for the existence of this series. Your work was amazing. And I want to see what comes next. Silent hill is my favourite horror series of all time, even though I only played the first four. I do hope someone makes a good new SH, it doesn't matter who as long as they understand the series and its a good game in this amazing setting.
Excellent video, Muse.
Just gonna leave this counter argument here for anyone who stumbles across this video to read:
The video isn't accurate. For one thing, more than ten people worked on SH1. For another, the video insinuates that even the name "Team Silent" was invented by fans, which isn't the case.
Here's a SH2 trailer with Team Silent's logo:
youtu . be/dk7JkSArEdQ
There absolutely was a Team Silent, in the sense that the majority of the team carried over for each game.The core team from SH1 returned for SH2, except for three members (Keiichiro Toyama, Isao Takahashi, Naoko Sato) who left to work at Sony.The team was expanded for SH2 due to the bigger budget. The story was developed by Hiroyuki Owaku, Takayoshi Sato, Masahiro Ito, Masashi Tsuboyama, and Suguru Murakoshi, all of whom worked on SH1 except for Murakoshi.
After SH2, the team split to develop SH3 and SH4 simultaneously. Most of the core staff members from SH2 returned for SH3, and SH4 was also made up of people who worked on the first two games. Some members (Jun Inoue, Naoto Ohshima, Ryouko Horie) even worked on both games at the same time.
Takayoshi Sato was originally involved with SH3, but left due to a payment dispute with Konami.
If most of the team is returning for every game, two of the games were developed simultaneously, and core creators associated with the team led 3 out of 4 of them (Masahiro Ito, Akira Yamaoka, Akihiro Imamura, Masashi Tsuboyama, Hiroyuki Owaku, etc), then Team Silent existed.
these have got to be the most complete and neatly done Mini documentary series on the subject that's out here on YT. Again, Well done!
The Real Silent Hill Experience might interest you. Started a decade ago.
Avalanche reviews way better
As others have said. The Real Silent Hill Experience is far better.
I’ve always considered Team Silent as the members we see throughout most of the OG 4! Yamaoka, Ito, Tsuboyama, Murakoshi, and Owaku. Yamaoka is the real OG tho. Involved in all original 4. But yeah these games have developers constantly coming and going. Doesn’t mean there aren’t those who 💯 consider themselves “Team Silent”.
Thank you for another amazing video Muse!
The classic-status of the games amongst newer players is something that was mainly cemented by the hype around PT in the mid 2010s. Older players are well aware of silent hills niche-success status. Most of the Mythos around the games is retrospective
Thank you for taking the time to do this. SH was a massive part of my life back in the day, and it's great to be able to return to that foggy town via your videos.
I mean, "Team Silent" WAS a thing internally. It was a development team within KCET. You can even see the words "team silent" appearing at the end of one of the Silent Hill 2 trailers (a detail you conveniently left out in your video). The team obviously had changing members, as you pointed out but saying it didn't exist is blatantly wrong. You can actually compare this fairly well to music bands. Sometimes bands change some of their members a bunch of times, or heck there are bands in which almost all of the members changed over time and yet they're still called the way they're called. You wouldn't just say "this band never existed" because they changed their members, right? Same thing here.
The 'team silent' that appears at the end of that video is a term used by marketing, a separate division from the supposed "internal" team silent, and yes there was an internal team working on the games, but they were not a dubbed "Team Silent" team that had officially associated themselves solely with that game. Half of them even were working on other games at the same time.
There's a difference between "we have a team of people working on silent hill" and "we have a Team Silent who is dedicated to our silent hill series", and they never had a team dedicated to the series the way they did Tokimeki or their soccer games.
Don't try arguing, the pretentious TH-camr has an army of sycophants to worship their delusion in spite of contrary evidence. Your comparison of a band is apt: It's like saying Nirvana never existed because Dave Grohl wasn't always the drummer. Iron Maiden never existed because there were two albums with Paul Dianno instead of Bruce Dickinson. Just because it wasn't an "official" team doesn't mean there wasn't a core team of minds working on it. At least it lets me know I never have to give anything thegamingmuse says any credence.
@@thegamingmuse Do you get fatigued from moving those goalposts?
@@thegamingmuse For one thing, more than ten people worked on SH1. For another, your video insinuates that even the name "Team Silent" was invented by fans, which isn't the case. Here's a SH2 trailer with Team Silent's logo:
youtu . be/dk7JkSArEdQ
There absolutely was a Team Silent, in the sense that the majority of the team carried over for each game.
The core team from SH1 returned for SH2, except for three members (Keiichiro Toyama, Isao Takahashi, Naoko Sato) who left to work at Sony.
The team was expanded for SH2 due to the bigger budget. The story was developed by Hiroyuki Owaku, Takayoshi Sato, Masahiro Ito, Masashi Tsuboyama, and Suguru Murakoshi, all of whom worked on SH1 except for Murakoshi.
After SH2, the team split to develop SH3 and SH4 simultaneously. Most of the core staff members from SH2 returned for SH3, and SH4 was also made up of people who worked on the first two games. Some members (Jun Inoue, Naoto Ohshima, Ryouko Horie) even worked on both games at the same time.
Takayoshi Sato was originally involved with SH3, but left due to a payment dispute with Konami.
We also from interviews that Team Silent's SH5 (cancelled) involved Masashi Tsuboyama, Akihiro Imamura, Akira Yamaoka, and Suguru Murakoshi. Which means you would have individual team members involved with 4/5ths of the Team Silent games.
To quote the developers themselves:
IGN: How much of the original team is working on [Silent Hill 2]? Akihiro Imamura: The core team is the same. But the sequel is a much bigger project, so we've had to supplement that with about thirty more staff from within Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo, Inc.
Kazuhide Nakazawa: Actually, there are quite a few new staff members working on Silent Hill 3. Most of the core staff members from Silent Hill 2 are working on Silent Hill 3, however.
Murakoshi: Production on SH4 began right after production on SH2 ended. We actually moved forward with SH3 & SH4 at the same time. One thing we discussed this time was "creating a new Silent Hill." We even originally started out with the intention of having the Silent Hill name as a subtitle. Q: Like The Room: Silent Hill, maybe? Murakoshi: Simply speaking, yeah. And so, at the very start, we took 2-3 months to plan things out. The production work for SH2 had just ended, so we were talking with each other about how accomplished it was and such, and we started deciding to what extent we wanted to make changes and do something new. So, we came up with three fairly polished plans, and we chose the scariest one - that was how it went. Q: So how did The Room end up being the subtitle for the game? Yamaoka: We wanted to express the idea that Silent Hill was moving in a new direction. We reasoned that with a title of Silent Hill 4: The Room, it would be recognizable to a great many people as "a new Silent Hill", but they'd understand right away that while it's at heart a Silent Hill game, it's different from what came before.
If most of the team is returning for every game, two of the games were developed simultaneously, and core creators associated with the team led 3 out of 4 of them (Masahiro Ito, Akira Yamaoka, Akihiro Imamura, Masashi Tsuboyama, Hiroyuki Owaku, etc), then Team Silent existed.
@@initial_C no need to be pretentious and a dickhead yourself tho
I would laugh my arse off
if they just slapped the "Team Silent" name on the remake with no relation to please people
honestly they probably should have for marketing
They didn’t because it never existed lol
Impressive research. Perhaps, even the most accurate historical reconstruction of Silent Hill IP developing and background to date. I have been a fan of the series until SH3. Once played sh4, I felt the sunset of the franchise began, and never played the other games but followed the reception and reviews. I believe, the first trilogy was the best horror tale in the history of video games, and maybe even in the horror/terror genre as a whole.
The final comments are encouraging. I save the hope w will see a reboot of the first 3 games that can live up to its old glory.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for making such wonderful and insightful mini series. The incredible amount of research and absolute passion behind this project can be heard in your voice in every video.
I don't think there is another documentary about SH that went as deeply into the histories and lives of several of the artists of the game.
I also completely agree with the final point in this video about evolving passions of the artists who have moved on or rather graduated to new inspirations and interests in their creativity.
Being a professional musician since early childhood and a person who has broad interests not just in arts but in other topics, I have faced same scenario, where people keep wanting more from you of "the same" that you've done years ago without realizing, that your interests might have evolved already several times and you might be going through 3rd career change purely out of desire of exploring new things and new ways.
Thank you again for your incredibly hard work making this!
I'm so glad this video was recommended to me. I'm in the middle of writing a script for a video about P.T. and it's thematic connections to the earlier Silent Hill games, and parts of my script definitely fell into the trap of idolizing "Team Silent" and diminishing the value of the work created by the western devs.
I think this video also points toward a larger trend within gaming discourse - the need to have a concrete villain. It's much easier to point at a specific game developer or director than acknowledge the complicated and nuanced systemic problems that run throughout the industry that often lead to troubled releases. I do believe as a whole we're getting better about how we discuss the industry - but it's still a easy trap to fall into.
Thanks for putting this together, and now I'm off to do some rewrites.
Glad to be of help! And I'm very curious about that project on PT - I'll have to be sure to check it out!
This video isn't accurate. For one thing, more than ten people worked on SH1. For another, the video insinuates that even the name "Team Silent" was invented by fans, which isn't the case. Here's a SH2 trailer with Team Silent's logo:
youtu . be/dk7JkSArEdQ
There absolutely was a Team Silent, in the sense that the majority of the team carried over for each game.
The core team from SH1 returned for SH2, except for three members (Keiichiro Toyama, Isao Takahashi, Naoko Sato) who left to work at Sony.
The team was expanded for SH2 due to the bigger budget. The story was developed by Hiroyuki Owaku, Takayoshi Sato, Masahiro Ito, Masashi Tsuboyama, and Suguru Murakoshi, all of whom worked on SH1 except for Murakoshi.
After SH2, the team split to develop SH3 and SH4 simultaneously. Most of the core staff members from SH2 returned for SH3, and SH4 was also made up of people who worked on the first two games. Some members (Jun Inoue, Naoto Ohshima, Ryouko Horie) even worked on both games at the same time.
Takayoshi Sato was originally involved with SH3, but left due to a payment dispute with Konami.
We also from interviews that Team Silent's SH5 (cancelled) involved Masashi Tsuboyama, Akihiro Imamura, Akira Yamaoka, and Suguru Murakoshi. Which means you would have individual team members involved with 4/5ths of the Team Silent games.
To quote the developers themselves:
IGN: How much of the original team is working on [Silent Hill 2]? Akihiro Imamura: The core team is the same. But the sequel is a much bigger project, so we've had to supplement that with about thirty more staff from within Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo, Inc.
Kazuhide Nakazawa: Actually, there are quite a few new staff members working on Silent Hill 3. Most of the core staff members from Silent Hill 2 are working on Silent Hill 3, however.
Murakoshi: Production on SH4 began right after production on SH2 ended. We actually moved forward with SH3 & SH4 at the same time. One thing we discussed this time was "creating a new Silent Hill." We even originally started out with the intention of having the Silent Hill name as a subtitle. Q: Like The Room: Silent Hill, maybe? Murakoshi: Simply speaking, yeah. And so, at the very start, we took 2-3 months to plan things out. The production work for SH2 had just ended, so we were talking with each other about how accomplished it was and such, and we started deciding to what extent we wanted to make changes and do something new. So, we came up with three fairly polished plans, and we chose the scariest one - that was how it went. Q: So how did The Room end up being the subtitle for the game? Yamaoka: We wanted to express the idea that Silent Hill was moving in a new direction. We reasoned that with a title of Silent Hill 4: The Room, it would be recognizable to a great many people as "a new Silent Hill", but they'd understand right away that while it's at heart a Silent Hill game, it's different from what came before.
If most of the team is returning for every game, two of the games were developed simultaneously, and core creators associated with the team led 3 out of 4 of them (Masahiro Ito, Akira Yamaoka, Akihiro Imamura, Masashi Tsuboyama, Hiroyuki Owaku, etc), then Team Silent existed.
@@silverg2862 exactly
This is one of the reasons why I never liked watching videos on "This is the true meaning of Silent Hill!" or "Those theories are wrong. This is what's really happening!", etc. Because at the end of the game, all the games had mostly different directors and writers, and different teams. So the lore of one game could be completely different than the lore of another game. There wasn't anyone there that played a George Lucas role to keep things consistent. Which is why one game said Alternate Reality, and another game said Alternate Dimension. Because each writer/director had different interpretations on what was happening in the first game.
Isn't this what everyone already says since the American games came out? This really isn't that big of a revelation. It just shows Konami didn't care about the series even less because of no consistency and wanting to appease western players by making them cliche horror games.
nakey jakey has a solid video on it.
I had to think when you told me there were different teams. Although a few stayed,eventually different teams were made and a one split into two groups to work on the fourth and third games. I understand that the core audience and element went away. Its always publishers decisions in the end that determine the finalizing of a project never the westerners or teams of any kind.
Speaking about Silent Hill, make sure to check out the trailer to my fan film. Made by fans for fans :) th-cam.com/video/OrY3RE8t-iA/w-d-xo.html
I'm glad someone else on TH-cam has said there that there is no Team Silent. I heard that said one other time, I think on a podcast where Jeremy Blau... something lol, was quoted as having said that there was no Team Silent. So thank you for helping to dispell the myth.
And it's so odd how SH2 upon release seems to have been shunned, when nowadays a lot of people think of it as being the best, myself included. But it was also my first with many playthroughs, so naturally there's a bias. I think any of the original 4 could be argued as being the best, yes even The Room. That poor, misunderstood The Room. It's ok Room, I still love you.
Sadly, this message still needs to get thru to more fans, 2 years later.
Nice use of I think Albinoni? Adagio in G?
The amount of people still believing the series was made by a cohesive group is mind numbing. Silent Hill fans are pretentious and romanticize what actually happened.
what's the problem with just watching the credits and matching the developers? the term "team" does not necessarily imply that the same people always work in it
Thank you for putting all time n gathering all this info together ❤
Most people dont bother even research, hope u get more views
I always thought of Silent Hill as more like an anthology than a series - more along the lines of 'Twilight Zone' and less 'Stranger Things' - while there may be some intersections (place, characters, etc.) the stories should be taken as individual, made by different sets of people, inspired by different ideas and themes, and with different expressions. This video explains - FINALLY - why each game feels so different. Because they are. Because they're meant to be. And maybe that's not such a bad thing.
Your Best Research So Far. Top Tier. You're Awesome Muse. 🥰
Outstanding & objective research of this topic + the extra mentions of all the other horror titles + information.
Thank you very much for this! :)
Excelent work, this is not even a cuestion of a Fan Work or something like that, is trying to discover who and how a group of people created these work of digital interactive art. Thank you!
Thank you for existing on the internet!
Amazing video AJ, you're one helluva researcher, and you've improved and grown so much since you've started this channel. Love ya dorkus, and thx for starting this channel in the 1st place!
I trust that some of the people who worked at Konami´s old horror division can still make coherent games but I don´t trust Konami to release anything good. Why should I after a decade to a decade and a half of mostly trash, not even counting nearly all bad SH games after 4.
Thank you SO much for this video. This echoes so much how I feel about the series, and both East and Western developers of the series. Yes, I love SH1 to 4 more than the other games.... but the western games absolutely had their moments and even did some things "better" then SH1 to 4. Homecoming's Bosses and combat were the best in the series.... Shattered Memories was very underrated and did things none of the other games did. Origins was stunning for a portable title. I never got to play Downpour though. I only hope people will be nice and receptive to my fan made Silent Hill virtual pinball game. It's a passion project that I think will impress any Silent Hill fan when they see the finished game.
The reactions to the second game comments you showed has me so confused in that I struggle to see their points. It REALLY feels like most of them didn't play it or did but nowhere near finished it. I guess the world of people's takes on games was actually always like this huh
They did.
Both critics and fans complained about the game not being a sequel to the first one, the story being confusing, and "boring", and the monster to be "uninspired"...I was around those forums, and I still own magazines from that time, SH2 had a "mixed" reception.
thats alot ALOOOOOOOT of effort I feel bad for not contributing to u. patreon or else ,you really deserve it cause u r making our favorite franchise to be alive.
This video got me in my feelings . Great work!
That was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful
Thank you for putting in all this work to give us this video.✌🏾
Why am I crying... I'm happy yet sad. I love Silent Hill!!! Thank you for the amazing memories Konami and DEVS!
Wow, seriously... Thank you for all your hard work in making this video..! ✌️👽
Incredible, thank you.
im not a fan of any of the games you have covered on your channel, but i've watched a bunch of them because of your style, presentation, and style of reporting. it's very nice to finally be able to sit through a video game video free of snarky, witty, sarcastic humor. thank you very much for what you do.
Great Video!
Maybe people will finally stop shitting on silent hill 4 now
In the Yakuza games, you can also feel that connection between titles, like if all were chapters of one big game alone, despite the changes from one to another and the differences of the time that has passed since the very first game to the last one, and, of course, this includes the technology used to create the titles in real life as well. And by the way, the technology shown within the games themselves, has some sort of evolution, for example, the usage of a "primitive" cell phone in one side quest in Yakuza 0, and then, in latter entries (chronologically speaking), the usage of modern cell phones is something very common to see among the characters including Kiryu, the protagonist. That little details add some sense of coherence and even "realism" to some extent, at least, for me.
Another awesome video I expected nothing less 🤘🏻
As a massive Team Silent fan I want to clarify a few things. Some of us fans are well aware that there never was a solid team that worked on the series and each of the 4 entries were comprised by different people. In fact I've always known team silent was a nickname given by the fans themselves. Team silent, even though were different people for each game all had one quality that was integral for all 4 entries. Whoever was the main force behind the development of each project UNDERSTOOD the world, the lore and the themes established by the first game. Team silent, simply refers to the people that knew and understood the complexity of what silent hill was. The western devs didn't quite get it and they made their own versions of silent hill. Anyone who likes those entries is well in their right to do so, maybe they speak to you, maybe they are more your style and that is all fine. But when fans cry that they want team silent back, all they are really asking is for people that actually understand the lore established by the first 4 games. I personally don't want a game named silent hill unless it is made by people who understand it and respect it. A new team silent if you will, otherwise they might as well just make a new horror title with a different name.
This kind of idea is unfortunately part of the problem. The people who made the later games understood Silent Hill. They were all fans. They just understood it differently than you. Personally, I think they understood it fine, and interviews make it even more clear to me how much they love and knew the games. Idealizing the previous devs because they "understood" it also ignores how different each devs "understanding" of Silent Hill was. Toyama and Sato and Tsuboyama all had vastly different games. Each Silent Hill is a very personal look at the same themes and similar gameplay elements, and even if you do not like one or many of them, they are still Silent Hill. The first four are not the "true" or "canon" games. They are all true, and they are all canon. This kind of argument is still not helpful for discussing the series because it's very self centered to define a game's series and its lore by what you approve of and like best.
@@thegamingmuse It's not an argument about what I deem canon or not, or what the fans in general deem canon. The fact of the matter is that the series changed drastically after 4 and the fandom became divided, not out of spite for western devs or idealized love for the original ones (though of course some people will fall into those two categories) but because they didn't like the games period, or felt they weren't as good. Another thing is, Silent hill does have plenty of room for interpretation and can be wonderfully personal for that matter; that being said, there is still an established lore that ideally should be respected in order for the story to make sense and be compelling. When I say the western devs didn't understand it, I mean it. Origins paints Alessa as an evil child and has no room in the continuity. The projected nightmare and monsters begin in 1 when Cheryl is reunited with Alessa when Harry arrives to silent hill. Leaving no room for the events in Origins. It's just convoluted and confuses people I still have to hear people refer to Alessa as evil because of that game and it's annoying. Also Homecoming has pyramid head and bubblehead nurses which belong only to James and his personal experience. And look, it's fine if you like those games, but I personally can't overlook the missteps, plot holes and general lack of subtlety every game has after 4, and tons of other people think that way too and that is totally fine and fair. It's the same as arguments about star wars movies. Nobody agrees on anything and there's plenty of opinions out there, and that is how that works. And for the record, I'm not huge on Sh4 either, I feel the quality began to drop there. I'm really just a huge fan of the first 3 games, for what is worth.
The truth is, the fandom was always divided. I still receive comments about how 2 is not a good game truthfully, about how 3 was not, and 4 was not - going back to the first game, fans have always been divided. We just have this false understanding that those divisions started because of the western devs, when in truth they were always there, they just weren't as well documented. Fansites and forums from those times are mostly gone.
And again - issues like Origins plot has to do with the problems I pointed out in the video. Without spoiling my next project, Origins was quite literally forced into a plot created by outsiders and given half a budget and half a timeline to finish the game. It was a real mess.
Amazing analysis
well done as always..long live silent hill
Everything @Housesider said, thank you for such a greatly insighful and fascinating deep-dive into Silent Hill development history.
Silent Hill 2 was so ahead of its time.
Brilliant team. Thanks for these videos.
So at the end of it all, Konami as a corporation is still the reason Silent Hill went downhill? Nothing new there.
Still, really interesting video. Hats off to K.C.E.T.
Very nice storytelling and compiled material. This is interesting how a myth can phagocyte reality and turn to be the reality itself. I would never bother to question the existence of this team considering the (modest) numbers of videos and analyses I have heard from skilled narrators referring to them as an establish fact. Thank you so much for the great work.
Yeah I never really liked 2 all that much either.
My personal favourites are 1,3,2 and then 4 don't know about the rest. Also I don't see why the original devs try to run away from it, if I created something that a lot of people like and I don't care about it all that much because I have other interests, I would still atleast try to give them something that they like and pursue my own interest in my personal time because even I understand that not everyone would like what I like or share my interests.
If I created something like silent hill and a bunch people liked it but for some reason I didn't really care about it and was more interested in.... I dunno... history or something but a bunch of people kept asking me to come back and do the thing they liked, I'd do it! And I'd still find time to pursue my own passions
Thank you thank you THANK YOU for this video. Like I said commented on your video for the Shinto themes within Fatal Frame, you are TRULY a professional professional. This comes across like an actual journalist’s report. If you went to school for this, be proud that your VERY refined technique shows, and if this is a passion project, you should wholeheartedly embrace the fact that you have a very VERY good talent of researching, presenting information, I am absolutely bLOWN away.
i only reason i could think of
of why silent hill is becoming less and less interesting
is the lack of innovation in the series
The main problem is every Silent Hill game (after SH4) always copying SH2's formula with inferior results. They keep trying to recapture SH2 without understanding what made it work. The best way to move forward is to not get too fixated on anything about "past trauma." It's gotten too predictable.
There is no video that promotes misinformation on the internet more than this one
You mad?
Lol someone's reality got shattered.
@@damkylan3
The video isn't accurate. For one thing, more than ten people worked on SH1. For another, the video insinuates that even the name "Team Silent" was invented by fans, which isn't the case.
Here's a SH2 trailer with Team Silent's logo:
youtu . be/dk7JkSArEdQ
There absolutely was a Team Silent, in the sense that the majority of the team carried over for each game.The core team from SH1 returned for SH2, except for three members (Keiichiro Toyama, Isao Takahashi, Naoko Sato) who left to work at Sony.The team was expanded for SH2 due to the bigger budget. The story was developed by Hiroyuki Owaku, Takayoshi Sato, Masahiro Ito, Masashi Tsuboyama, and Suguru Murakoshi, all of whom worked on SH1 except for Murakoshi.
After SH2, the team split to develop SH3 and SH4 simultaneously. Most of the core staff members from SH2 returned for SH3, and SH4 was also made up of people who worked on the first two games. Some members (Jun Inoue, Naoto Ohshima, Ryouko Horie) even worked on both games at the same time.
Takayoshi Sato was originally involved with SH3, but left due to a payment dispute with Konami.
If most of the team is returning for every game, two of the games were developed simultaneously, and core creators associated with the team led 3 out of 4 of them (Masahiro Ito, Akira Yamaoka, Akihiro Imamura, Masashi Tsuboyama, Hiroyuki Owaku, etc), then Team Silent existed.
I blame the algorithm vid title and tags in this case.
"There is no Team Silent" might not help it appear on YT. :(
I have to agree with your conclusion: Konami doesn't really care about games. I'm also a big Castlevania fan, and all I know is that whatever comes from all these rumors about a new Castlevania, a new Silent Hill... is that it's going to be different, if it happens. If Konami cared about good games, this different could be good. But they don't. Not like Square Enix, for example: they keep experimenting, maybe failing sometimes, but always, delivering something that's at least, fun. Konami doesn't do that anymore. And it's sad.
great video, love this perspective hope youre doing well keep up the good work
Dang but it makes sense. All the production that goes on behind the curtain is never as clean-cut as people assume.
thank you for your effort as always
I watched another video on another page that I thought was great….. but the time you put into this video is amazing.
Good job on this, you really do have a viewpoint on this.
TEAM SILENT EXISTSSSSSSSS
I always said how there is some sort of Mandela Effect regarding Silent Hill, people think it was this super successful and critically acclaimed series until western developers started working on it, and ruined everything...reality is, western developers started working on this franchise BECAUSE it was doing poorly both in sales and critical reception, with only the first game being a hit, I was around in the early '00s, I remember fans and critics disliking 2, giving 3 trash, and then completely ignoring 4.
There is a similar situation with Metal Gear Solid, the only true ultra hit was the first game, then the sequel, while selling better, had a mixed reception from critics, and fans hated it, and when it came to 3 and the rest, each entry sold less and less, while they kept getting more and more expensive...
I think Konami just took the same big risks with both franchises at the same time, and both critics and consumers just started to leave the series after the second entry came out...crazy how nostalgia can play tricks with us...
Btw, seeing Shenmue II on the Dreamcast outselling Silent Hill 2 on the Playstation 2 in Japan, is...wow, I had to double check, because I couldnt believe what I was seeing, it did that poorly in Japan?
Before working on silent hill 1999 game one of the key members is credited in the 1994 animated movie "street fighter2" no joke
Silent Hill is the greatest series that never was. And I am thankful for what each entry is, even PT.
edit: just watched to the end, really happy we got to the same conclusion
Those crazy people that like homecoming are gonna love this and use it as justification for it not being bad
There always was more than one Silent Hill.
Amazing video! great job
Wow..those guys who worked on first sh game and created a new franchise of were actual geniuses,but sure so true to just make their wildest dreams and ideas in something to remember..the rest is just follow their steps in order to make them bttr,but noone did,and never will..i love those games but you are on another lvl..hope this series will continue cause this must not be silenced :)
Team Silent term is for me like true guys who worked and give their ideas for game put at the side like they are irrelevant but we know this is not true..
Thanks for the Great video!
The only negative things were coming from reviewers who didn't got paid to praise a review title. Something for example IGN is well known for. Another problem being those pretentious ego driven reviewers shouldnt review games because they don't know jack about games and their zombie followers who spam toxic nonsense should be ignored too. So what ever they say is irrelevant in reality because there was tons of us people who bought the OG SH games and loved it. So as whatever the younger generations that are stupid and ignorant also mindlessly rant about, all those clickbaits etc all is irrelevant. Team Silent name existed in official books and promotional materials. The team might not exist on legal documents but in media they did. The team was more a representative as a dev team inside Konami corp who was working on SH games, so as even tho some people changed they still managed to continue bring back the spirit of the main lore and essence of SH which changed after 4 for both ways. People were in touch and shared information outside work etc. Devs in Japan respect each other and work together even outside contracts. Who doesn't understand this simple rule shouldn't really talk about game development in Japan or SH in this matter at all. Thanking the teams outside Japan also don't deserve a single praise. So as Konami who didn't understand what it had nor what it have. Slapping a SH title on a game doesn't make it a SH game. People in these western team who didn't wanted to mud their names left those companies early on for a reason. I talked to many and they all said the same things. Also sometimes what Ito or others say is lost in translation. This capped comment of his how he is tired of rust and grime etc also makes zero sense since his art continued to be exactly themed on that for ages and still is. This blabber about "we are not into horror we wanted to do something else" bla bla bla yeah that is why they continued to make horror, scifi and postapocalypse mainly horror xD Siren for example is more horror and brutal then SH ever was. So all these comments of some individuals and quotes are just absurd and meaningless because everything is contradicted and lost in bad translation.
The whole "members change so it's not Team Silent" is such a bad take.
Pete Best left the Beatles and they were still the Beatles. Chad Channing left Nirvana and they were still Nirvana.
Plenty of bands do this all the time, and they are usually groups of only 3-5 members. Why suddenly is a development team of dozens of people "not the same team" when a couple leave, or some new people join?
Like yeah, we get it, it's not the exact same team from game to game, but there is a clear style and direction from the team as a whole for the first 4 games that is consistent despite the overall team roster changing.
If you watch my other videos on the seires which are far more developed youll see its more complicated than just one 'team silent' even if they had much in common.
@@thegamingmuse My point is that despite some people leaving and some joining, most of the original team still returned. The vast majority of core members from Silent Hill 1 still returned for 2. After 2 they split to develop SH3 and SH4 simultaneously
Most of the core staff members from SH2 even returned for SH3, and SH4 was also made up of people who worked on the first two games. Some members (Jun Inoue, Naoto Ohshima, Ryouko Horie) even worked on both games at the same time.
If most of the team is returning for every game, two of the games were developed simultaneously, and core creators associated with the team led 3 out of 4 of them (Masahiro Ito, Akira Yamaoka, Akihiro Imamura, Masashi Tsuboyama, Hiroyuki Owaku, etc), then Team Silent existed.
@@silverg2862 they didn't had a proper name and konami don't want proper team because right now kojumbo still fucked with konami and WON because he is a legend first and a man after
THATS CRAZY! I can't believe that many people didn't like Silent Hill 2! Me and everyone I personally know agree that SH2 is not only the best in the series, but one of the best horror games ever made! This was really quite a blow to learn that people didn't like it when it came out. Are me and my friends weird? lol. I played the Xbox version and they all played the PS2 version and our conclusions were all the same. who are these people who hated it? Perhaps they were the same who hated Lament of Inocense. I liked that one too hehe. Great documentary by the way. Really good. I don't share your admiration for how things turned out, but that's cool. I do share your passion for some of the games and in the end, we aren't getting any more of them so all we have is what we've got.
17:39 unreal. The haters complained about 2 for not being a sequel to 1, then didn’t buy the sequel.
Don’t listen to haters
Absolutely great and incredibly important video to all of horror fans.
Although I have a nitpick
There's only one Fatal Frame that never got to the west and 5 wasn't digital only. Unless by "the west" you mean just North America which is kinda weird
Even if team silent was not a thing internally, its still something recognized by the west. I appreciate this video, hope it gets more views
Well it shouldn’t be at all. This “Team Silent” label invites pretentious discussion, mythologizes a nuanced development process, and discredits the work of anyone else who ever worked on a Silent Hill. No more Team Silent. The series is an anthology and it’s time for people to wake up.
Well said.👌👌👌