silent hill

Silent Hill: Cold Heart [Wii – Cancelled Pitch]

Silent Hill: Cold Heart was a pitch for a new Silent Hill game that eventually became Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. This pitch came to light when the developers Climax Studios held a competition to give away eight copies of the document to fans, who since have uploaded it to the Internet so that other fans can enjoy it. Cold Heart was planned in 2007 by Climax for the Wii and would have been published by Konami.

Cold Heart would have followed Jessica Chambers an athletic but emotionally vulnerable college student. The protagonist would have recently being talking to a psychiatrist after being plagued by horrific nightmares and being unable to sleep. These distressing circumstances lead to Jessica leaving her college town and going on a road trip to go back to visit her parents, on the way back Jessica becomes caught in a blizzard and so follows an ambulance that leads her to the town of Silent Hill. This is where the game would begin with Jessica stranded and needing somewhere to stay the evening: she explores the town, but now her nightmares start to become real.

silent hill cold heart wii cancelled

The game would contain the usual elements of a Silent Hill game but would use features of the Wii such as the Wiimote to control where the player shines the flashlight. The Wiimote was to be used for a large number of controls in the game, in combat the player would swing the remote to enact the actions on the screen, it is also noted that the sound of hitting an enemy would play through the speaker on the remote. The remote would also be used for when puzzles needed to be solved, using push, pull and turning motions. Also for puzzles certain audio cues would be played through the remote that would hint on how to solve them. The remote was also going to be used for interactions with other characters, allowing you to point, nod or shake your head.

The “world’s first real psychological horror” is how Silent Hill: Cold Heart is described in the pitch, this is because of the ways in which the game would tailor itself to the individual, creating unique experiences for different players. These experiences that would change would be story events, dialogue, sound cues, monsters and even camera field of view. Profiling was one of the ways this would be done when certain questions were asked by Jessica’s psychiatrist, the players answer would be logged, also your response to events would also be tracked, thus building up a psychological profile for the player. Climax also wanted each player’s psych profile to be shared and compared to friends over Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.

Climax also wanted to change the way that the player can use their inventory, rather than being able to collect many items, it would be restricted to what could only be worn or stored on the body of Jessica, or in a small backpack the player could use. This was because Climax wanted to have survival type elements to the game, with the player having to find new clothes to protect themselves from the blizzard that would rage through Silent Hill. The player would also have to eat food and drink water to maintain their health. These items would not just maintain the health of the player though, it would also maintain their body heat and stamina.

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There are a few puzzle examples also noted in the pitch document, such as the metal detector, the player would have to slowly move the Wiimote and use the audio cues of beeps from the remote to find hidden objects in the snow. “Sewer Fishing” is also another puzzle noted, this is where the player would have to try and collect a key while using rumble and audio cues to fish it out.

The main technical features that are mentioned in the document are that the game would have dynamic weather, mentioned are updated fog effects from Silent Hill: Origins, these would allow the fog to react to the different shapes of the environment. The variables of the weather would also change so that the player would have different intensity of the blizzard.

Climax also wanted the game to be seamless, to do this they were going to “stream” content ahead of the player by anticipating where the player would guide Jessica, this would mean that there would be little to no loading times in the game.  They also wanted to push photo-realistic graphics on the Wii and were confident that they could “redefine” what people could expect from real-time graphics on the WII.

One other feature that was mentioned, pending talks with Nintendo, was the integration of players Mii, their local weather and news. Climax wanted to be able to quote this in the game so that it would “spook” the player. With the Mii integration they wanted to use certain aspects of the user created Mii such as hair colour and project them on to the main characters in the game.

Contained in the document is a large description of some exploration, combat and puzzle solving, if you would like to read through this to see some of the experiences you would have in the game, please download and read the pitch to get a detailed understanding.

Ultimately, Cold Heart was never realized but a few details were used in Silent Hills: Shattered Memories as the cold and harsh environment, the use of a psychological profile to change some situations and parts of the plot. This pitch is however a really interesting look into how a different version of one of the top rated survival horror games could have looked like. Shattered memories was released for Wii in 2008 which was essentially a reimagining of the very first Silent Hill game, and it reviewed fairly well, it does however leave questions of how well a different story and character would have done.

If you have any more information on this game or any questions, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below.

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Silent Hill 3 [Beta / Unused – PS2 / PC]

Silent hill 3 is a third-person survival horror game developed for the PlayStation 2 and PC by Konami and later released in HD on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Here is a list of the following unused beta textures and sounds found on the PC game disk of SH3.

1) Closer monsters have an unused climbing animation.

2) Nurses have an unused animation that shows the nurses attacking upside down from the ceiling.

3) Unused Baby crying sound

4 & 5)  Unused photo: Found only as a texture, it was originally meant to be in Heathers inventory, found in the apartment. In addtion to the unused photo there is some unused text attached to the photo, text only seen when the player examines said item:

“It’s of Dad and me at Christmas. Looking at this makes me want to try even harder. I have to…I can’t lose. They killed my dad and they have to pay for it.”

6) Finally there is an unused level. While only seen in the video below this article, it shows the level to be unfinished. Orignally meant to be part of the Mall?

Source of the quote and additnal information: http://silenthill.wikia.com/wiki/Silent_Hill_3_Secrets_and_Unlockables

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Silent Hill 2 [PS2 – Beta]

Silent Hill 2 is the second installment in the Silent Hill survival horror series. The game was released in late 2001 on Sony PlayStation 2 and was ported to the Microsoft Xbox later that year and PC the following year. The original European edition also included a second disc: a “Making-of” DVD video featuring beta trailers, an artwork gallery and a documentary on the title’s development. [Info from Wikipedia]

For more info about the beta differences in these early screens and videos, read the full article: Silent Hill 2 Beta Analysis! A beta version of the game is in the hand of some collectors and as we can read at Letter from Silent Heaven, it has some nice differences:

The sign says “WELLCOM!” (instead of its later version, “WELCOME!”).

The background on the cutscenes where you talk with Angela at the cemetery received an update. It appears the depth-of-fog was increased for the final build.

A first aid kit was once found on the lobby floor of the apartments.

At one time, the “hit” sound effects for both the Lying Figure and Mannequin were the same but later changed so each would have their own unique cries of pain.

Even the famous “Pyramid Head and James in closet” cutscene has seen a few changes. The sound effect revolving around Pyramid Head was revised. Also note the second mannequin’s legs are visible in the kitchen in the early build.

Some more info about the beta cuts from the Silent Hill 2 beta were shared thanks to an anonymous developer that worked on the game:

MARIA DEATH BETA:
In the very early prototype, instead of Maria die at the hospital, she was to die at the Prison. The part where james jumps down the hole in the prison into the hole with no door, Maria was to be impaled on a spike, but removed that scene because we thought it not fit Lore.
EDDIE BETA SCENE:
In the early prototype, we have very different eddie scene in apartment. James was to walk into apartment and witness eddie murder a man, then drag body to fridge and beat body while the man screaming until death. After, Eddie runs into bathroom and pukes, and james then meets for first time eddie.
Additionally, we had other scenes written in early script but got removed in re write. 3 Scenes remember:
1. A scene was written for James to enter Silent Hill in car. He was to pass through another town and stop at gas station to ask for direction. This scene was later remade for the Silent Hill 2006 movie.
2. Angela had other cutscene cut which was her being found in hospital. She was in script to be found in the second floor hallway and attack james but stop when she sees its him.
3. Final scene is a cut ending. Another ending was show epilogue for “leave” end. If leave end gets, James was to adopt Laura and bury Mary.

Thanks to Il’ya P, Megalol and silverpen for the contributions!

Some more interesting differences can be found hidden in the game’s code, as some unused weapons found by DeepGameResearch:

Most weapons differ from their final counter parts:

  • Pistol= Pretty close to final.
  • Wooden plank= Has a different menu model.
  • Steel pipe=No menu model, more attack frames than the final animation
  • Shotgun=No menu model, No sound effects
  • Hunting Rifle=No menu model,Does not use ammo (Unlimited clip,Never reloads), Uses pistol sound effects.
  • Spray Can(s)=No menu model,Glitched ready stance,No damage frames
  • Giant Knife=No menu model,Uses shotgun walking animation.  So many more frames in the attack animation it makes the game look like it’s lagging, When the knife hits the ground it causes a loud screeching sound to play until the player enters the start menu.

Also even if the Doctor’s lounge and Examination room are inaccessible to normal players, DGR was able to found them both using the room jump in the debug menu. You can read more on Silent Hill community Forum! You can see more SH2 hack videos from DGR in his Youtube Channel.

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Silent Hill 2 Beta Analysis

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sh2titleanalisys

Silent Hill 2 is a survival horror developed by Konami’s Team Silent and originally released for the Playstation 2 in 2001. Unfortunately we don’t know much about the development of the game, but in this page we’ll try to analyze some beta screens using all the informations at our disposal.

[Article written by Yota]

Beta Neely Street

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Silent Hill Origins [PSP – Beta]

Silent Hill: Origins was first announced at E3 2006: the game would not be produced by Konami’s Team Silent, who had developed all previous Silent Hill games, but by Climax Studios instead. The first previews of the game featured a radical departure from the original game style with the inclusion of a Resident Evil 4 style camera angle, although Oertel stressed that the game would not be a first-person shooter.

Travis would have access to six weapons, three of which were melee weapons and three of which were firearms, including a pistol, a revolver and a shotgun. There were also plans to introduce a laser-sight for Travis’s pistol and a new “Barricade” system which would allow the player to block access to areas from monsters with improvised objects.

In October 2006, Climax’s US based team working on Origins was sacked, with rumors circulating that the game production was becoming a disaster through mismanagement and “unrealistic deadlines”, and that the final version of the game was expected to have only “three to four hours of gameplay”. Production of the game was subsequently moved to the United Kingdom.

Later previews of the game showed that the game had changed significantly, and contained gameplay more in line with that found in the previous titles in the series, scrapping the Resident Evil 4 camera angle and some of the enemies seen in the original trailers [Infos from Wikipedia]

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

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