Early code from the critically panned 2012 horror game Silent Hill: Downpour recently leaked, and although the newly revealed cut content is of historical significance for the genre, it’s actually the expletive-laden rant from a disgruntled dev that I’m interested in.
As broken down and analyzed by Dusk Golem on Twitter, the leaked Silent Hill: Downpour code is from a 2011-era build, right around a year from release, but there are references to content plans as early as 2009.
Of course, it’s not at all unusual for very early builds to reference conceptual ideas that would never see the light of day, but it’s fascinating nonetheless to imagine how dramatically different a game could’ve been if some of these things were implemented. For example, this Silent Hill: Downpour code has several references to online co-op and playable characters beyond main protagonist Murphy Pendleton (it seems Murphy and Anne would’ve been the playable characters).
There are also multiple references to a “Psychologic profile” for Murphy that would seemingly measure your Honesty, Temper, Sanity, Logic, Drugs, and Sexuality. It seems like this would’ve been similar to the Psych Profile mechanic from 2009’s Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Most mysteriously, several references to an enemy called ‘The Ferryman’ were uncovered, but there’s nothing else in the code to suggest what type of monster it was nor where it would’ve appeared in the game.
The lengthy thread of newly uncovered scrapped content is worth a read for horror historians, but my favorite part is a pair of messages coded into the game file that seem to be airing some grievances. One is just some entertaining sass from a developer jokingly reacting to the Screamer monster’s special action. “ooooh soo special,” it reads.
But this one. This one. Yeesh, this poor game developer must’ve been having an absolute Day. “Why do these ASSHOLES use Euler angles?! Why do these ASSHOLES don’t know, what’s object hierarchy and export everything as one baked fucked object?!?! Why these ASSHOLES are such ASSHOLES?!?!?!?!?”
I won’t try to understand what this dev was so upset about, but it was clearly bad enough that they felt compelled to immortalize their frustrations in the game’s code, likely suspecting very little people would ever see it. Well, today, anonymous Silent Hill: Downpour dev, your voice has been heard, and I hope you have to deal with far fewer Euler angles and, uh, baked fucked objects in your life today.
In the meantime, here’s everything we know about Silent Hill 2 Remake.
