Slitterhead Producer Talks Dehumanizing Players

An extended look at gameplay from Bokeh Game Studio’s upcoming horrorSlitterhead was showcased during the Summer Game Fest’s opening ceremony, and the title exists nicely among the Silent Hill hype – even though some fans were not impressed by Pyramid Head’s “action figure” aesthetic in the new movie, Return to Silent Hill.

The creator of Konami’s pioneering anthology series, Keiichiro Toyama, is behind the new action-adventure game that’s being compared to Siren and Gravity Rush, and it’s set in the fictional city of Kowlong. Players will pilot the entity “Hyoki” as he attempts to abolish an invading wave of the titular monsters that disguise themselves as humans, and players will have to leave their humanity at the door if they want to succeed in gameplay.

Slitterhead Devs Believe Players Will Care Less For Humans As the Game Progresses

In an interview with IGN, Slitterhead creator Toyama, producer Kazunobu Sato, and game director Junya Okura discussed the possession mechanic where humans become hosts for Hyoki’s spirit to battle enemies – a concept evolved from Siren. Toyama noted that his game proposal initially had every person in the city as a playable character, but in the name of game design, that number was limited.

In Slitterhead, every possessed human has their own background with attacks to match, such as a homeless person who used to be a professional boxer or a civilian with a background in Chinese martial arts. However, Okura made it clear that “the game expects you to dispose of the bodies you have controlled”, and explained this decision “works in your advantage to sacrifice them as you play.”

Understandably, this dehumanizing mechanic left test players uneasy, as Toyama revealed many “found this hard to get used to.” After the interviewer suggested players would feel immoral controlling an old lady and then discarding her, Okura added, “Yes, you get attached to them and try to keep them alive. But actually, sacrificing them works to your advantage.”

Sato referenced the game’s tutorial, which makes it abundantly clear that “it’s Ok to sacrifice bodies”, and thought it was “interesting to see players trying to protect the lives of the characters they control at first, and how they start to care less and less as they get used to the game.”

Speaking bluntly about human physicality and how it compares to a powerful spirit like Hyoki or the Slitterheads, Toyama explained that the “human body is weak and should be disposed of as you fight. This is something that Okura implemented in the game very well.”

Using humans as puppets to gain the upper hand on the battlefield may be an immoral mechanic to grapple with for some players, but horror fans should have no problem exploring this bleak concept.

Slitterhead is scheduled to be released on November 8, 2024.

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