Summary
It’s easy to compareSilent HillandResident Evilbased on how seminal both IPs are in their respective horror subgenres, and yet there are even larger distinctions between them that make them completely unalike in many ways. Original entries in either franchise were really only similar based on gameplay, and even thenResident Evilhas always been more eager to let players wield firearms and combat the enemies they come across, whileSilent Hillhas always been more of an exploration of a protagonist’s psyche. Rather,Silent HillandResident Evil’s settings have also differed immensely.
Silent Hillhas a bit more of a challenging predicament to consider when it comes to environments due to the eponymous town almost always needing to be portrayed in some way.Silent Hillhasn’t always needed to be rooted within the same precise location, though, at least not in terms of how the town looks or is perceived by the protagonist who inhabits it.Resident Evilhas no such rigid structure to its setting and has since abandoned its iconic Raccoon City for much more diverse locales, but that doesn’t mean its second and third installments were any less scary or intense thanSilent Hill’s early entries.
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Silent Hill’s Psychological Horror is More Terrifying in Elusive Towns
Silent Hill’s fog-saturated tourist townis an essential character in the franchise and how it can still appear to affect individuals has become more intriguing and mystifying. Protagonists seem to no longer need to actually visit Silent Hill in order for the town to affect them, which on the one hand creates a laundry list of loose-thread questions.
On the other hand, this change in direction allows for installments that don’t need to simply regurgitate the same iconography while attempting to be unique. It’ll be exciting to see how Konami juggles this, especially with regard toSilent Hill fapparently taking place in 1960s rural Japan. Moving away from Silent Hill’s town could be to the franchise’s detriment, though, since it is so iconic and allows for particular imagery that has been effective in belovedSilent Hillgames.
Towns and cities seem effective forSilent Hill, whether Murphy Pendleton stumbles into the actual town or Henry Townshend experiences the same psyche-exploiting effects of Silent Hill while living in South Ashfield Heights Apartments in Ashfield. Indeed,Silent Hill 4truly amplifies the horrors of Silent Hill while keeping players detained within an apartment suite for a lot of it, aided further by these sequences’ claustrophobic first-person perspective.
Resident Evil’s Survival Horror Lets Cities Feel Apocalyptic
Meanwhile,Resident Evildoesn’t actually get to enjoy the neon- and rain-soaked environment of Raccoon City for long before the entire city is nuked to oblivion. The franchise was arguably better for making this decision because it would lead to diverse locations it might not explore otherwise, and it made sense from a narrative perspective in a linear series to not spend entry after entry in the same city filled with the same enemies.
UnlikeSilent Hill,Resident Evilcan’t behave like an anthology franchise where new protagonists have different experiences that can be completely unrelated to previous events, which meant it would need to abandon the city eventually. But evenResident Evil’s original installment wasn’t set in a city, and having that claustrophobic feel was a boon for it, too.
Either way,Resident Evilthrived in Raccoon City when Jill was able to traverse garbage-laden streets and explore nooks and crannies in alleyways between destinations, where the franchise felt much more post-apocalyptic. The franchise has dissociated fairly far from that tone to indulge in rural European fantasy since, where it has become truly distinct, butResident Evil’s return to a contemporary city or townwould also be a welcome one.
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