Slitterhead’s body-hopping action makes it “completely different from stereotypical horror,” Silent Hill creator says

Slitterhead isn’t just the body-twisting horror game you’d expect from Silent Hill veterans.

Silent Hill, Siren, and Gravity Rush director Keiichiro Toyama doesn’t think his newest game fits neatly into genre tags like ‘action’ or ‘horror’. “If someone were to ask if it’s a horror game, I would say, yes it is,” Toyama concedes in an interview with Automaton, but that’s not what the long-time director set out to create with Slitterhead. During Silent Hill and Siren’s heyday, players would apparently ask Toyama “What the hell is this?” – and that’s the reaction he was aiming to recreate with Slitterhead. 

Slitterhead officially comes out on November 8, but its recent trailers have definitely attracted some “what the…” reactions already, what with its mission-based city escapades, odd body-hopping gimmick and chaotic third-person combat. “This game may be completely different from the stereotypical horror genre-defining elements of being surprised and scared.” Toyama explained. “The game does have strong action elements, but these are the points in it that I consider horror.”

With Silent Hill, Toyama wanted to make “something that didn’t exist” at the time. Slitterhead’s weird concoction of ideas, fusing action and horror in some zany ways, might be a modern version of the same idea. 

Elsewhere, Silent Hill’s iconic composer Akira Yamaoka, who’s also returning for the latest genre-blender, had similar questions. “What is it, an action game?” he joked. “If I were to put it in extreme terms, it might just not have any horror elements.” Meanwhile, Slitterhead and Devil may Cry character designer Tatsuya Yoshikawa just called it a straight-up action-horror blend. 

Read our Slitterhead interview with Toyama to find out more about why it’s as weird as it is bloody.