Silent Hill f – horror classic comes back to life in a fog-bound 60s town
It's under this sweaty backdrop that I find myself wandering Silent Hill f's fog-laden Japan. Set in the fictional town of Ebisugaoka during the 1960s, players are put into the dust-coated shoes of a misunderstood teenage girl named Hinako. Summer or no, Hinako's tale begins in suitably bleak fashion. Fleeing her drunk and abusive father, Hinako miserably roams the intricately rendered streets of her rural home town. Failing to live up to the lofty standards set by her impossibly beautiful older sister, Hinako finds herself teased by classmates – lost, and struggling to understand her place in society.
'Gender is a big part of the story,' teases series producer Motoi Okamoto. 'We can't really elaborate too much but the 1960s was when the women's rights movements started to take form in Japan … So this plays a major role in why we decided to go with the time period.'
Despite the town's inevitably eerie nature, Ebisugaoka is an utterly gorgeous virtual locale. As I roam its near-deserted streets, I can't help but peer into every cobbled corner, slide open each translucent bamboo door, and examine the lavish detail of every Inari shrine. It's a refreshing change from the Japan usually depicted in games – either a neon-drenched Tokyo or ye olde samurai epic.
'Horror games from Japan – and based in Japan – have not seen major releases over the last decade,' says Okamoto. 'Silent Hill has always been a marriage between western horror and Japanese-style horror, but as time progressed, we believed that the Japanese essence was starting to wane. So with Silent Hill f, we decided that we wanted to infuse the Japanese themes more strongly.'
It's not long before the town's unsettling beauty gives way to outright horror. As a plume of fog descends on Ebisugaoka, puppet-esque beings pursue Hinako, strikingly beautiful red plant-like tendrils rising up from the soil. These crimson flowers can attach to your legs during combat, tethering you helplessly to the floor as the mannequin-esque monstrosities judder menacingly towards you.
In keeping with the setting, there are no firearms in Silent Hill f. Instead, Hinako defends herself with whatever weapons she can muster – namely daggers, baseball bats and scythes. Tense melee combat is the order of the day. Perfectly timed dodges and counters replenish Hinako's stamina, allowing her to land a follow-up attack, resulting in a surprisingly Dark-Souls-esque survival horror.
'One of the first things that I had in mind going into this game was I wanted to incorporate more action,' says Okamoto. 'But of course, since this is a horror game, we can't lean entirely on the action. We also needed to have those tense moments in between … I think we've managed to strike a fairly delicate balance.'
Initially, I'm not so convinced. For the first hour, combat in Silent Hill F feels gruelling and sluggish. Each dodge and hard-won hit is slow and imprecise, resulting in some baffling early deaths. Yet where early battles frustrate, I slowly warm to the tense melee, eventually clicking with its considered cadence. While the inconsistent difficulty in this preview build could use a pre-release tweak – one late demo boss saw me suddenly dying upwards of 30 times – the scrappy combat fits survival horror surprisingly well.
'A lot of people say they really enjoy being scared by horror games, but I think what they actually mean is that they enjoy the tension,' says Al Yang, game director at the studio developing the game with Konami, NeoBards. 'The fear of the unknown is one thing, but jump scares constantly? That's going to get very old, very fast.'
Instead, Silent Hill f has stress built into its every system. In a Lovecraftian touch, players must pay attention to their sanity meter, leaving offerings at shrines to restore Hinako's mental stability. 'You need to know how close your candle is to going out, to really have it feel tense,' adds Yang. 'You can see the durability of your weapons … you're very aware of your own limitations, of how close you are to dying – or running out of resources – and that is what creates tension.'
Where the early hours see you navigating labyrinthine alleyways, tightly knit streets soon give way to foggy rice fields and eerily abandoned farmhouses. Yet for all Ebisugaoka's horrifying monstrosities, there's a refreshingly human yarn at Silent Hill f's heart. As Hinako searches for her friends while the town goes to hell, flashbacks and believable conversations keep you invested in her past, present and future. As with previous entries, there's a dreamlike quality to every encounter, leaving you unsure which interactions are real, yet the beautifully realised 60s setting consistently grounds things.
'When it comes to exploring time periods, if you go too far back, it becomes so detached from our familiar reality that it basically borders on fantasy,' says Silent Hill f's script writer, Ryukishi07 about the 60s setting. 'Whereas the present is too grounded in reality … so there's really no room for interpretation. It's why I've always [enjoyed] the possibilities that arise from the period in between the past and present – that's where fantasy and reality intersect.'
It feels fitting to be playing a new Silent Hill during Japan's equivalent of Halloween. For years, this was a series that seemed dead and buried – but now, like the spirits crossing into Japan, Silent Hill lives again.
'When I became involved with Silent Hill, my plan was that we cannot just have one remake and let that be the end,' says Okamoto. 'We could have just brought the old fans back and had a nostalgic get together – but I wanted there to be some kind of progression. I think fans can have more faith that Silent Hill has made a comeback … and that things will keep coming.'
Silent Hill f is released on PC, PS5 and Xbox, 25 September
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Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
Deep Purple's drummer: How we made the ultimate live album
It says rather a lot about the music industry that when Deep Purple travelled to Japan for the first time, in August 1972, the band's members were in economy class while their managers reclined in luxury in the expensive seats at the front of the plane. For the musicians in cramped quarters, though, time has had the last laugh. While few know the names of the group's managers, Purple's trip became a landmark occasion. As well as establishing them as an evergreen favourite of Japanese audiences, the quintet's three concerts in the Far East – two at the Festival Hall, in Osaka, and one at the sacred Nippon Budokan in Tokyo – heralded the concert record Made in Japan, one of the most revered and enduring live albums in the annals of rock music. Recorded in unusual circumstances and originally released in December 1972 – remarkably, fewer than three months after the conclusion of the short tour – the LP is being re-released in suitably lavish form. Whereas the original album featured just seven tracks, the new version (remixed by the ubiquitous Steven Wilson) contains 37 songs. Confusingly, the group are calling it a '50th Anniversary Edition'. Last year, they did the same for their studio album Machine Head, which was also released in 1972. From this, I can only conclude that Deep Purple aren't very good at maths. Asked to explain the appeal of an album that helped set the template for the modern live LP, Ian Paice, the band's drummer, answers without hesitation. 'There's never been a better recorded live show' 'Of its genre, of that type of rock and roll music, there's never been a better recorded live show,' he tells me. 'Simple as that. It's not just listening to what's going on, you can feel the atmosphere … you're there, you're a part of it. And I think that's the magic the album has. If you shut your eyes, you can be with us in the hall.' On a gloomy Tuesday in the middle of summer, Paice – the only constant member amid the swirl of Deep Purple's numerous line-up changes – speaks to me from a room in his home near Henley-on Thames. Before he's said even a word, the signs that this is a rock star from a more gilded age are on full display. With his laptop positioned at an unusual angle, for one thing, I can see elaborate adornments – ornate cursive, almost, but swirls rather than letters or words – on the high ceiling of what can easily be imagined is a reassuringly plush pile. 'I'll tell you who did that for me,' Paice says. 'It was done years ago by a good friend of ours … Larry Smith [the drummer] from the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. He was staying at George Harrison 's place, which is two miles down the road. He had a couple of weeks to kill so I thrust money in his fist, and he laid on his back like Michelangelo and did the ceiling. The contraption [on which he laid] was 16ft or 17ft high. We buggered off on holiday and let him get on with it.' Upon arrival in Tokyo, Paice recognised the band's digs, at the New Otani Hotel, as being the site of a scene from the James Bond film You Only Live Twice – but that was about it. During their short stay, the quintet encountered food they'd never seen before, and fans who handed them unwieldy packages bearing gifts as they prepared to board trains and aeroplanes. They also encountered audiences that are guaranteed to bamboozle every Western band visiting Japan for the first time. At the end of each song, venues resonate with cheers and applause that quickly gives way to silence. Not just calm, but perfect pin-drop serenity. By comparison, even Deep Purple's fabled appearance at the Royal Albert Hall, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, seemed noisier than the poll tax riots. 'You think you're doing something wrong,' Paice tells me. 'But after the first night we spoke to one of the local promoters who told us 'this is what we do. Once we've said thank you we wait for you start again without wanting to get in your way'. 'Oh right!' They were incredibly polite. Their whole society is like that, so why would going to a concert be any different? But you have to get your head around it … If you finish the tune and they don't applaud, then you know you've done something wrong.' 'A marriage between four or five people' Initially, Made in Japan was only intended to be sold in the UK. But when import copies became a sought-after item in the US, at the princely price of $10 for each disc, the album was granted a wider release. This isn't the only thing that makes Made in Japan seem like a curiously perfunctory exercise. Remarkably, the entire LP was recorded using just eight tracks, two of which were for the audience. Unlike many live albums from the 1970s, according to Paice, there aren't even any overdubs. 'Luckily, it didn't need anything else,' he says. 'The sound was just on the tape, which was just us. Once we got through everybody's egos saying that their bit should be a bit louder than everyone else's, we got it right.' Perhaps inevitably, the intermittently fractious Purple were themselves split on the merits of their influential creation. Keyboard player (the late) Jon Lord agreed with his drummer that the record represented the group at their best; singer Ian Gillan, meanwhile, expressed dissatisfaction at the quality of his vocal performance. Which isn't surprising. In 1972 alone, Deep Purple performed 127 concerts across three continents. Despite their singer requiring three months' rest and recuperation after contracting hepatitis, in New York City, they also released two albums. 'Back in those days, if a band lasted for four or five years, that was a miracle,' Paice says. 'There aren't very many bands who can get through that first decade. It's very, very difficult. You have to liken it to a marriage between four or five people, not two. The possibilities of it all going terminally bang are much greater. As they often do, and as we have done in the past.' As it turned out, Deep Purple didn't make it through that first decade. The line-up featured on Made in Japan (already the group's second iteration) lasted just one more year, until the Who Do We Think We Are album, after which Gillan and bassist Roger Glover were replaced by David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes respectively. After disbanding following a famously subpar concert at the Liverpool Empire Theatre, in 1976, Purple returned in 1984 with their classic line-up – completed, of course, by Ritchie Blackmore on guitar – with the Perfect Strangers LP. An appearance at a rain-soaked Knebworth House followed a year later. 'When you're kids, of course, everything is incredibly important,' Paice tells me. 'Even if it's not important, it feels like it is. Later in life you understand that your bandmates might not see the world like you do. And when you're a kid you may have an argument that might come to fisticuffs. But later [in life] you can see it differently. 'That's okay, we disagree, now let's go and play some music.' When you're a kid, that's the last thing that happens. Everything's a problem.' Holy trinity of British heavy rock Today, alongside Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, Deep Purple are one third of a Holy Trinity of British heavy rock bands. On this very subject, in fact, Paice offers a reminiscence of the last time he saw Ozzy Osbourne, 20-odd years ago in the Swiss skiing town of Zermatt. With drinks having been taken, the Prince of Darkness suggested the three bands undertake a world tour in which each played for just 20 minutes a night. The money would be so outstanding, he reasoned, that they'd only have to do it the one time. The idea came to naught, of course, and now it's moot. But on the day that Osbourne was laid to rest, Paice tells me that 'I think our generation of musicians is at the age where, when you turn on the news, you almost expect another one of us to have gone … But I will say this about Ozzy: he was a much smarter bloke than a lot of people gave him credit for. His persona of this bat-eating maniac had nothing to do with the truth at all.' He adds that Osbourne 'was much more of a cerebral man than people painted him as. He was very clever. He was thinking of stuff all the time.' There is a difference between the three bands, though. While in the 21st century Sabbath and Zeppelin have managed to harvest an army of younger listeners, overwhelmingly Deep Purple's audience has been by their side for decades. For all their musical accomplishments, the group's legacy has not been very strategically marketed. A win-win situation But that may be about to change. In the wake of the first trailer for the keenly awaited fifth and final series of Stranger Things, unveiled last month, the internet was aflame with people enquiring about the identity of the loud song featured in the clip. The answer: an enhanced version of the Deep Purple classic Child in Time, from 1970. If the effect of this anointment by television's hottest show is anything like that enjoyed by Kate Bush, whose 1986 single Running Up That Hill appeared in season four, Purple might be about to tap into the youth market for the first time in half a century. 'That's the real value of these things being taken and put in front of massive, massive audiences,' is the drummer's view. 'They're hearing something that they would never have looked for themselves, so that's a win-win situation. Occasionally stuff gets put in a TV show or a movie and you find that the record royalties take a little upward leap the next time round, and there's nothing wrong with it.' How much was he paid by Netflix? 'I haven't got a clue,' he shrugs. 'Somewhere in the future I'll get a piece of paper saying you've got this or you owe this.' Whether or not their audience changes, the band themselves will keep (space) truckin'. Despite their drummer being afraid to turn on the news lest he learn that he's just died, this most resolute of national institutions aren't done yet. Not only do they plan to return to the road, but there's even talk of heading back to Japan, the country which provided the setting for a live album that helped cement a reputation that endures today. 'I think we've said no to a farewell tour so often that it would be very difficult to now say yes,' Paice tells me. 'I generally have a feeling that when we play our last concert, no one will know that it's our last concert. I think that's the reality of it. Financially it's a ludicrous decision, and I'm not saying it won't happen, but my gut feeling is that one day one or two people [in the band] will just say, I don't want to do it anymore. And that'll just be it.'
The Guardian
10 hours ago
- The Guardian
Silent Hill f – horror classic comes back to life in a fog-bound 60s town
As the humidity rises in 35-degree Tokyo, so too do the dead. Ever since the Edo period, Japanese summertime has been associated with the arrival of supernatural forces – a season defined by malevolent spirits. As the country's temperatures soar, it's believed that the barriers separating the world of the living and the dead begin to wane, allowing once contained ghosts to slither into our realm. It's under this sweaty backdrop that I find myself wandering Silent Hill f's fog-laden Japan. Set in the fictional town of Ebisugaoka during the 1960s, players are put into the dust-coated shoes of a misunderstood teenage girl named Hinako. Summer or no, Hinako's tale begins in suitably bleak fashion. Fleeing her drunk and abusive father, Hinako miserably roams the intricately rendered streets of her rural home town. Failing to live up to the lofty standards set by her impossibly beautiful older sister, Hinako finds herself teased by classmates – lost, and struggling to understand her place in society. 'Gender is a big part of the story,' teases series producer Motoi Okamoto. 'We can't really elaborate too much but the 1960s was when the women's rights movements started to take form in Japan … So this plays a major role in why we decided to go with the time period.' Despite the town's inevitably eerie nature, Ebisugaoka is an utterly gorgeous virtual locale. As I roam its near-deserted streets, I can't help but peer into every cobbled corner, slide open each translucent bamboo door, and examine the lavish detail of every Inari shrine. It's a refreshing change from the Japan usually depicted in games – either a neon-drenched Tokyo or ye olde samurai epic. 'Horror games from Japan – and based in Japan – have not seen major releases over the last decade,' says Okamoto. 'Silent Hill has always been a marriage between western horror and Japanese-style horror, but as time progressed, we believed that the Japanese essence was starting to wane. So with Silent Hill f, we decided that we wanted to infuse the Japanese themes more strongly.' It's not long before the town's unsettling beauty gives way to outright horror. As a plume of fog descends on Ebisugaoka, puppet-esque beings pursue Hinako, strikingly beautiful red plant-like tendrils rising up from the soil. These crimson flowers can attach to your legs during combat, tethering you helplessly to the floor as the mannequin-esque monstrosities judder menacingly towards you. In keeping with the setting, there are no firearms in Silent Hill f. Instead, Hinako defends herself with whatever weapons she can muster – namely daggers, baseball bats and scythes. Tense melee combat is the order of the day. Perfectly timed dodges and counters replenish Hinako's stamina, allowing her to land a follow-up attack, resulting in a surprisingly Dark-Souls-esque survival horror. 'One of the first things that I had in mind going into this game was I wanted to incorporate more action,' says Okamoto. 'But of course, since this is a horror game, we can't lean entirely on the action. We also needed to have those tense moments in between … I think we've managed to strike a fairly delicate balance.' Initially, I'm not so convinced. For the first hour, combat in Silent Hill F feels gruelling and sluggish. Each dodge and hard-won hit is slow and imprecise, resulting in some baffling early deaths. Yet where early battles frustrate, I slowly warm to the tense melee, eventually clicking with its considered cadence. While the inconsistent difficulty in this preview build could use a pre-release tweak – one late demo boss saw me suddenly dying upwards of 30 times – the scrappy combat fits survival horror surprisingly well. 'A lot of people say they really enjoy being scared by horror games, but I think what they actually mean is that they enjoy the tension,' says Al Yang, game director at the studio developing the game with Konami, NeoBards. 'The fear of the unknown is one thing, but jump scares constantly? That's going to get very old, very fast.' Instead, Silent Hill f has stress built into its every system. In a Lovecraftian touch, players must pay attention to their sanity meter, leaving offerings at shrines to restore Hinako's mental stability. 'You need to know how close your candle is to going out, to really have it feel tense,' adds Yang. 'You can see the durability of your weapons … you're very aware of your own limitations, of how close you are to dying – or running out of resources – and that is what creates tension.' Where the early hours see you navigating labyrinthine alleyways, tightly knit streets soon give way to foggy rice fields and eerily abandoned farmhouses. Yet for all Ebisugaoka's horrifying monstrosities, there's a refreshingly human yarn at Silent Hill f's heart. As Hinako searches for her friends while the town goes to hell, flashbacks and believable conversations keep you invested in her past, present and future. As with previous entries, there's a dreamlike quality to every encounter, leaving you unsure which interactions are real, yet the beautifully realised 60s setting consistently grounds things. 'When it comes to exploring time periods, if you go too far back, it becomes so detached from our familiar reality that it basically borders on fantasy,' says Silent Hill f's script writer, Ryukishi07 about the 60s setting. 'Whereas the present is too grounded in reality … so there's really no room for interpretation. It's why I've always [enjoyed] the possibilities that arise from the period in between the past and present – that's where fantasy and reality intersect.' It feels fitting to be playing a new Silent Hill during Japan's equivalent of Halloween. For years, this was a series that seemed dead and buried – but now, like the spirits crossing into Japan, Silent Hill lives again. 'When I became involved with Silent Hill, my plan was that we cannot just have one remake and let that be the end,' says Okamoto. 'We could have just brought the old fans back and had a nostalgic get together – but I wanted there to be some kind of progression. I think fans can have more faith that Silent Hill has made a comeback … and that things will keep coming.' Silent Hill f is released on PC, PS5 and Xbox, 25 September
Daily Mail
11 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Shirtless Romeo Beckham shares pictures of himself in St Tropez with brother Cruz - after estranged sibling Brooklyn snubbed whole family from his vow renewal with Nicola Peltz
Romeo Beckham gave an insight into his family's summertime jaunt to St Tropez on Wednesday as he shared photos from their yacht. Elsewhere, his brother Brooklyn, 26, and his wife Nicola Peltz, 31, said 'I do' for a second time on August 2 in Westchester County in front of her family, with the Beckham clan nowhere in sight amid their ongoing 'feud'. Romeo, 22, joined his parents David, 50, and Victoria, 51, on the trip as well as siblings Harper, 14, and Cruz, 20, with Brooklyn the only Beckham child not present. He did however, spend the week before in the same location with his wife Nicola and his in-laws, but left before the Beckhams arrived. In an update to Instagram, Romeo went shirtless as he kicked back on his parents boat and soaked up some sun. Other photos showed him enjoying a game of golf as he snapped a selfie in a buggy while driving round the range. Brooklyn and Nicola, who first wed in 2022, failed to invite any members of Brooklyn's family, with reports David and Victoria heartbreakingly found out about their big day after reading about it on a US website. It's a stark contrast to Nicola's family, who had key roles at the second wedding, with her father Nelson, 83, officiating, wearing her mother Claudia's, 70, vintage wedding gown and letting her parents take centre stage once again at the after party. Brooklyn's family has been in turmoil in recent months as it has been claimed he has become increasingly estranged from his parents after failing to attend any of his father David's 50th birthday celebrations in May. The lack of Beckham presence at Brooklyn's vow renewal is the latest sign Brooklyn and Nicola have washed their hands with his family - with many indications seemingly marking Brooklyn's intentions to quit Brand Beckham for good. The Beckhams were said to be upset by the Peltzes during Brooklyn and Nicola's first wedding in 2022, as they felt they were taking over the wedding. The two families have not reunited since and Nicola has rarely been pictured with the Beckhams. A clear sign Brooklyn and Nicola have washed their hands with his family is that fact that none of the Beckham's were invited to the low-key ceremony. A source told The Sun: 'This was the final kick in the teeth for David and Victoria. Seeing Nelson having such a pivotal role at the ceremony was heartbreaking for David especially. Not one member of the 30-plus extended family knew about the wedding, or were invited.' His brother Brooklyn and his wife Nicola Peltz said 'I do' for a second time on August 2 in Westchester County in front of her family, with the Beckham clan nowhere in sight The source added: 'His grandparents are devastated too as Brooklyn has always been so close to them.' 'It feels cruel and spiteful. This is no longer a game. It has gone beyond all that. This is a family who feel they have lost their precious boy - and see no way back. 'Honestly, they are now questioning why he even wants to keep the 'Beckham' surname - will he revert to Peltz? August 2nd 2025 - is this the day Brooklyn formally declared himself no longer a part of the Beckham family? It certainly feels like it.' Even at their butterfly-themed afterparty, it appears not one of Brooklyn's childhood friends and family was in attendance - making for a glaring signal that Brooklyn has quit both his family and former life altogether. Daily Mail contacted Brooklyn, Nicola and the Beckhams' representatives for comment at the time. Brooklyn's family's feelings towards their vow renewal could suggest why none of his relatives were on the invite list. However, Victoria, David and their children Romeo, Cruz, and Harper, were said to have only found out about Brooklyn's big day after reading about it on a US website.
