In issue 214 of Game Informer, Vatra Games explain how their take on Silent Hill will be more focused on Silent Hill the town instead of previous characters and the events that took place with the native cult group. They explain how throughout the Silent Hill games, the only thing that's been consistent is the town.

This could be a great return to the psychological aspect of the Silent Hill series. The first, third and fourth game were tied to the town's history involving the cult. The first dealt with the cult resurrecting their god with the use of a girl Allesa, who is also the daughter the main character is looking called Cheryl. He enters the town and it transforms from vacant to hellish with monsters running around. The third had the little girl grow up and had to deal with going back to the town and deal with the cult's surviving members. The fourth has a character who is trapped in an apartment that used to be occupied by a child who grew up in Silent Hill's cult group and puts his voodoo knowledge on the room.

The game's in the series all deal with the town's cult and the demons they unleashed except for Silent Hill 2. The game excels on its own because it changes what the town is and what the main character is experiencing. The man known as James Sunderland goes to Silent Hill because a letter from his wife says so. The dilemma is that his wife is dead. He goes through town encountering people and monsters until he discovers the truth he has been trying to hide. Silent Hill 2 has traces of the cult history but the innovation this game has to offer is that the town is James personal hell. It's not a matter of physical pain, but of internal strife. There are theories that the monster's each represent a insight to his guilt. The nurses are his lust for women and the Pyramid Head is his frustrated libido as it is the only masculine character. Some of the people James meet don't seem to see the same things he does. Even among the unique endings you can see the main character taking his delirium into his own hands. Does he continue being in denial? Commit suicide? Move on?

I'm not saying the cult's practices and corrupting a town isn't interesting, but finding out that all the horrors the player and the character are witnessing are actually in the characters head is a lot more shocking. Maybe even not knowing if the characters he meet are real or not.

 In Silent Hill: Downpour, there will be more puzzle elements and Murphy the main character can only carry one weapon at a time and injuries will show in his body. There will be decisions that shape the rest of the game, much like how doing something specific in the previous titles changed the ending.  Vatra games revealed in the preview that Murphy will have no connection to the previous characters, so I'm hoping to see what Murphy learns about the town. Or Himself.

I'm just glad to see another Silent Hill game. Series is slowly being sweeped under the rug for most people, and while the franchise really does have Hell raining down on it with its loss of staff, fans and, well, overall attention from the public, I'm still anticipating this to make a stand for the franchise and bring it up some more.

Maybe if they focus on combat design, puzzle design and, you know, frightening the player this one will actually be good. They can throw in some piss-poor symbolism too, to please the people who have a hard-on for that, but the main things they need to focus on are mechanics (otherwise, just make a fucking movie or something) and horror (the genre isn't called "survival sleep-aid", for fuck's sake), two things the series hasn't gotten right once.

Well, remember that ONE of the endings does involve the cult in Silent Hill 2. I think its still the town, something about it makes your negative thoughts or feelings manifest physically. This is the case in all of them, at least through Silent Hill 4. The fact pyramid head shows up in homecoming irks me a bit though as thats a manifestation of Jame's libedo.