Silent Hill: Downpour Message Board

The patch for Silent Hill: Downpour that hit Xbox 360 last month is now live on PS3. Konami claims the patch improves the frame rate, fixes the save system and bugs in the "Homeless" mission, and enacts "several other" performance enhancements.

Meanwhile: Konami is offering exchanges for broken Xbox 360 copies of Silent Hill HD Collection rather than issuing a patch, and Silent Hill: Book of Memories is still a top-down dungeon crawler.

Yes, a Silent Hill game has been patched on Xbox 360. No, it's not that one. Instead, Downpour has been updated to improve the framerate, "fix" the save system, and eliminate bugs in the "Homeless" mission, among other unspecified fixes. The patch will be released on PS3 "in the coming weeks."

The Xbox patch comes just in time for a Games on Demand release of Downpour. It'll be downloadable for Xbox 360 on October 30 for $39.99.

The future may not be so bright for Silent Hill: Downpour developer Vatra Games, but Japanese gamers looking to play the latest in Konami's scary series will get their shot later this year. Silent Hill: Downpour will launch in Japan on November 8, the official Twitter account has revealed.

Konami will only localize Silent Hill: Downpour on PS3, choosing to forego an Xbox 360 port for obvious reasons - those obvious reasons being that nobody in Japan buys Xbox 360 games. Ever. Not a single person ever. Go ahead and check; we'll wait.

Told you so.

We're having a hard time thinking of other instances of a simultaneous patch announcement for two different games. Konami has issued a rare Two Patch Announcement for Silent Hill Downpour and Silent Hill HD Collection, planning to fix framerate problems and audio synching in the former, and auto-save issues in the latter.

Both updates will be released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in "the coming weeks." Still unaddressed, however, is the strange bug that occasionally causes the in-game environment to get all creepy and evil-looking.

Patrick and Ryan find it's going to take more than rain to stop all these monsters. Not much more, fortunately.

#talesofthepissed Welcome to "Backhanded Box Quotes," a collection of super pissed-off user reviews from people just like you! Whoa, whoa, don't take that personal. More »

#oops This is the back of the box for Konami's latest survival horror game, Silent Hill: Downpour, which came out yesterday for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. More »

#silenthill There's brutal, and then there's brutal—and the combat tutorial in Silent Hill: Downpour is brutal of the italicized variety. Captured by our intern Nick, this video is a tutorial of sorts, depicting the protagonist Murphy Pendleton performing a brutal prison murder on an unarmed, nearly naked fat guy. All while teaching players how to wield melee weapons. More »

If you had told me in 1999 that Silent Hill would ever be anything less than terrifying, my response would have been an incredulous, nervous laugh, muffled by the blanket I used to shield myself from newfound imaginary horrors. And yet, the human mind quickly adapts, swiftly categorizing and sterilizing even the bizarre world Konami created all those years ago. With seven games to its name, Silent Hill has arguably been gathering rust for quite some time.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories did wonders to revitalize the series, though the fresh take on its mythos did little to move copies off of retail shelves. Enter Silent Hill: Downpour, which tries to have it both ways, hewing a bit closer to the series' roots while attempting to offer a new twist on the twisted traditions of Silent Hill.

Being a Silent Hill fan is a lot like watching Eddie Murphy movies. You keep thinking back and remembering the glory days, while quietly thinking that maybe this next one movie will be the one to restore him to Beverly Hill Cop/48 Hrs. glory (or in Silent Hill's case, the days of Silent Hill 2 and...

#silenthill You won't be able to escape the scariest town in all of video games in a few short weeks. Konami's outed the release dates for the upcoming portable, remake and console iterations of their horror franchise and they're all within a few weeks of each other. More »

As we saw back at E3, Silent Hill: Downpour evokes the feel of old Silent Hill games, by sending its protagonist Murphy into the familiar town, where he finds monsters, creepiness, and all sorts of dangerous puzzles. But producer Tomm Hulett says this version of the game isn't just about revisiting the setting of the old titles -- he's trying to collect some new fans as well.

"Bringing Silent Hill into sort of a modern game, for old fans, mainstream, for new fans, whatever, it's interesting," he told us at a recent preview event. "Because you need to keep those classic elements but you need to make them interesting for people who are used to Dead Space or Red Dead."

To that end, Downpour has a few systems in it designed to make sure that the new game not only lives up to the Silent Hill franchise, but allows newer players (and even those who just want a good scare) to experience all the frightening fun, too.

Silent Hill: Downpour is probably not the Silent Hill game you're expecting, maybe even hoping for. Many of the calling cards from previous Silent Hill games, including a score by Akira Yamaoka, heavy exploration elements, and even much of the town itself won't be appearing in the game. Instead, it ...

Silent Hill: Downpour design director Brian Gomez has left the project...

Brian Gomez, design director for Vatra Games' upcoming Silent Hill: Downpour, has left the company in order to pursue other opportunities a little closer to home. "When it was announced that Downpour was being delayed to 2012, my family and I came to the decision that I couldn't keep making the commute between Los Angeles and Brno for another 4 to 6 months," Gomez said in a letter to the Silent Hill Historical Society.

Gomez reassured the Silent Hill hopeful that his absence will have no adverse effect on Downpour's development, as it is nearly completed. Gomez also implied creative differences between his vision and Konami's, although he did not cite them as a reason for his departure: "There's a lot of things I still want to do in this genre that Konami simply didn't let me do."

Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic, is a solid 6,049.2 miles away from Los Angeles, which is a fairly substantial commute for any family man. Silent Hill: Downpour is still slated for a 2012 release, come rain or shine.

Originally slated for Fall 2011, Silent Hill HD Collection is now heading to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on January 24, 2012. Konami is also putting Silent Hill's first PlayStation Vita outing, Book of Memories, in the handheld's launch window of February 2012 (Vita itself hits retailers on February 22).

Rounding out the survival-horror trio of launches, Silent Hill Downpour falls to retail sometime in March. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game was pushed back to the murky "Q1 2012" earlier this month, but it seems that Konami has cleared things up. Here's hoping you're ready for a surprisingly macabre beginning to 2012!

#silenthill Last we heard, October was going to be a big month for the Silent Hill fan. We'd expected Silent Hill Downpour and the Silent Hill HD Collection in time for Halloween. We'll how does a dark and spooky St. Patrick's Day sound? More »

Please disregard initial forecasts for Silent Hill: Downpour. The launch emergency has been downgraded from 2011 to the first quarter of 2012, giving us all more time to fill bags with sand, collect tin cans full of preserved meats and, of course, panic over what the hell we're going to do about Pyramid Head.

MCV broke the news earlier today, confirming the new launch window with Konami. Though the publisher has yet to release an official statement, several outlets have confirmed Downpour's going back in the oven. That's a good thing, probably: how else is protagonist Murphy supposed to dry his clothes?

Silent Hill: Downpour was always going to be scary; this we knew. What we didn't know was that it would be 90s quasi death metal turned Christian rock band scary. The latest trailer straight out of Tokyo Game Show gives us a look at the atmosphere in Downpour, accompanied by the tonal tunage of Korn. Downpour is the first Silent Hill game to not include music by Akira Yamaoka, and is instead composed by Jonathan Davis Daniel Licht, the man behind the music of Dexter.

I'm worried about Silent Hill: Downpour. As a longterm fan of the series I was slightly concerned about Downpour when it was first announced that development duties on the survival horror sequel would be handled by the relatively unknown and unproven Czech studio Vatra Games, and since going hands o...

Konami's media offerings at Gamescom include a new look at the upcoming Silent Hill: Downpour. After the break, you'll find a gallery full of new screens that are creepy, dark, atmospheric, and dark.

Konami also included new screenshots of all three updated games in the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection. You can really tell the difference between the graphical capabilities of Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 when both have been amplified! There's also new media for Metal Gear Solid 3D, Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights, and more.

Oh, and keep an eye out for a surprise guest appearance by Megadeth!

Vatra Games design director Brian Gomez doesn't feel that his studio's upcoming survival-horror title, Silent Hill: Downpour, is being too adversely affected by the absence of longtime series composer Akira Yamaoka. "I was worried when we lost him, we lost him really early on in Downpour. But I was a big fan of Dexter already, so I'm happy we got Daniel Licht," Gomez told me this morning after a GDC Europe panel on the SH franchise. "It was the closest to Akira but also brought something new to it," he added.

Back in 2009, Downpour producer (at Konami) Tomm Hulett told us, "If Akira's music isn't there, it just doesn't sound quite right. And I'm sure that there are people out there who could emulate the sound and try to get it close, but there would be something missing." But time heals all wounds, and Gomez thinks the game will still fall in line with the franchise's established standard of audio. "As much as I would've loved the honor of working with Akira, I don't feel that we're missing out by not having him."

That said, it's clear that Gomez wants Yamaoka back at Konami, and back on the Silent Hill franchise. Speaking to the ongoing friction between Yamaoka and his formeremployer, Gomez added, "I think this whole feud between he and Konami is just *crag*ing stupid. Everyone needs to calm down, and bring him back in, and do something."

Gomez had yet to play Yamaoka's latest work, the critically acclaimed (but commercially ignored) Shadows of the Damned from Grasshopper Manufacture and EA. "I've just been too busy with Downpour, unfortunately."

With action horror games like Dead Space, survival horror titles like Amnesia: The Dark Descent and outright bizarre experiences like Tale of Tales' The Path, there's no shortage of options for the modern gamer that likes frightening interactive experiences. For the latest title in the Silent Hill series, Downpour, design director Brian Gomez explains how Vatra Studios is trying to adjust the trajectory of the franchise and contribute to an evolving genre...

#silenthill Silent Hill fans will be soaking in terrifying blackness this fall with the release of the Silent Hill HD Collection and Silent Hill: Downpour, two titles shooting for release by October. More »

Grab anything at hand and try to beat back the shadowy forces that threaten your life and steal the very light from the sky.

Solve fiendish puzzles and watch the world warp into the horrors of Silent Hill in this direct-feed gameplay from Comic-Con!

Silent Hill: Downpour protagonist Murphy Pendleton is holding a flashlight in most of the game's latest screenshots. We could definitely see where a handheld illuminator would come in handy in the rain, though we'd happily trade it in for an umbrella. Or a poncho! Or some rigid, classy galoshes.

#konami I liked what one of the developers of the next, creepy Silent Hill recently had to say about guns. His team's new game will have guns, but not the way most games have guns. More »

Noisy trade show floors are notoriously bad places to preview survival horror games. You can try to preserve crucial atmosphere with headphones, but even then it's hard not to be at least a little distracted. As such, it's hard for me to compare the overall feel of Silent Hill: Downpour to that of its moody brethren, but I can at least offer a technical rundown.

I managed to snatch a few minutes with Silent Hill series producer Tomm Hulett at E3 this year. The convention played host to an uncharacteristically large amount of Silent Hill news. Between Silent Hill: Downpour, Silent Hill Collection and Silent Hill: Book of Memories, series fans are in for an embarrassment of riches. As a responsible journalist however, there was only one choice for my first question: Why Korn?