I am extremely excited to get my hands on Slitterhead. (Whenever that turns out to be). Due to this, I wanted to take a minute to discuss just how great this game could be.
Before I get into my personal excitement for Slitterhead however, lets take a brief minute to outline what it actually is, at least in terms of the information we have been given so far.
Slitterhead is a currently in production horror game being developed by Bokeh Game Studio, under the watchful eye of Keiichiro Toyama. Toyama is probably most well know as the creator of the utterly classic and critically acclaimed Silent Hill series. A fact which has many, including myself heavily excited for Slitterhead as a concept.
So far, the only trailer we have had for Slitterhead has been…well it’s been utterly insane. The trailer opens with a business man walking down a dark alley. He turns around to lock eyes with a sexy young woman in a short skirt. She then turns into a giant insect like creature and promptly devours him. Following this, we get possible soul possession, people turning blood into swords, and perhaps the oddest thing, a plane flying mere inches above buildings for seemingly no reason. In short, it is an utterly crazy trailer, and shows us that the game is likely to be brilliantly Japanese in every way.
Moving on from this somewhat strange summary of the trailer then, let’s talk about why I am so excited for this game.
The first thing I want to talk about in relation to my excitement for Slitterhead is the sheer morbid beauty of the monsters shown within the game. The monsters in Slitterhead are, in the simplest explanation, what would happen if the creator of Silent Hill took a couple of lessons from the work of John Carpenter, or David Cronenberg. Think something from The Fly or The Thing with a slightly more Japanese tweak. Its terrifying, but also extremally cool. Then again, how can you think of “The Japanese version of the Fly” and not find it cool.
The second thing, following on somewhat from what I’ve already spoken about, is the way in which these “creepy fly monsters” seem to exist within the world around them. Rather than just being these insectoid monsters all the time, the creatures within Slitterhead seem to be able to switch between their human and insect forms at will. This creates a great deal of nerves, stress, and fear throughout your time watching the trailer, as you have no idea who is safe and who is a danger. As soon as you see the woman in the alley transform into her big bug self, you are driven to think, “oh god, how do I know who’s a real person and who’s a fly creature in disguise”. This idea of being unable to trust anything around you is something which I hope appears prominently within the final game, as there’s some really interesting ways it could be used. For example, imagine a section in which you walk through a group of NPCS, before one explodes into a huge insect creature and launches a surprise attack against you. It would be an utterly brilliant gimmick, and something I haven’t personally seen in a horror game before.
Moving on, lets discuss what appears to be the main combat element within the game. Blood.
Within Slitterheads trailer, we see what appears to be someone turning their own blood into a sword, before using it to cleave one of the insect creatures in two. Now while this whole blood weapon thing is cool in concept, I’m a little in two minds about it. On the one hand, using blood to create weapons is an extremely cool idea with a stunning aesthetic. On the other hand however, the trailer did seem to imply that the game may feature fast and aggressive combat, possibly similar to something like Devil May Cry. This style of gameplay is something I’m not sure I want in a game made by the team behind Silent Hill. It feels like it would be a little too action packed, for a game that many are calling the spiritual successor to Silent Hill.
Now, I will admit, some of the stuff I have been talking about in regards to what we could see in Slitterhead has been based around assumptions. The trailer showed very little truth be told, and I am using what it did show to try and make assumptions on what the game might contain.
So, since I’ve already spoken about the things I think the game might contain, lets just dive straight into the speculation deep end and talk about what I would like to see in the game.
As I said previously, there is a chance that Slitterhead is gonna be a really fast and frantic game. There’s nothing wrong with this approach, however my real excitement lies in the idea that they may choose to lean the other way.
Imagine if you will, you are going down a small alley filled with NPCs. As you make your way through said alley, one of them transforms into a giant insect monster and begins its attack. You don’t know what to do, and in your panic you cut your hand open, and use the now dripping blood to create a spear. You drive your spear into the creature, stunning it, and giving you a brief moment to escape. Unfortunately, using your blood power requires a sacrifice of your health, so you are now forced to slowly sneak your way around the area, knowing if the creature finds you one hit will kill you immediately.
Having the game play out in this way would keep the insectoid creatures, and blood powers from the trailer, while also making sure that the tone remained strictly within the survival horror realm. In addition, having these elements would be really cool as the whole “blood powers costing health” thing, would force you to think tactically about when to use said abilities.
In addition, you could perhaps have things like blood bags that would allow you to use your powers without losing health at the cost of using up the bag. It would make the game feel far more survival horror, as you weigh up the pros and cons of sacrificing health, sacrificing items, or hoping you can sneak by without having to use either.
There’s also the question of what POV this game could be in. Personally I don’t mind either way, which is probably good given the trailer really hasn’t given us any hints of which way it might go. I mean sure there were hints that it would be third person, given the big bombastic action, which usually lends itself to a third person viewpoint. However, so many horror games in the current day have been first person, so it wouldn’t be surprising if this one followed suit. I guess on this point we will have to wait and see.
So what’s my final takeaway on Slitterhead then? Well in essence, I am extremely excited about it, given that it has fly monsters, blood magic and just a whole host of things that tick all my boxes for “oh this is gonna be awesome”. (See my obsession with The Fly and Bloodborne here). I am however, not entirely optimistic. Given the amount of action in the trailer, there is a chance that the speed and bombastic nature of the gameplay could overshadow the horror elements, something which would be a really shame.
In short, I am extremely excited for Slitterhead, I just really hope it goes down the road of true survival horror, rather than just being a action game with big monsters.
Connor Queen: Thoughts And Things 