Many people know that the Silent Hill series began as an exploration of American culture and horror from the viewpoint of a Japanese development team. What they may not know is that the team was actually able to explore the United States, not once, but twice; and the second trip for the much-beloved Silent Hill 2 may have been more than just a boring business trip for the young game developers.
Even in the early stages, the KCET (Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo) developers always felt they needed more experience with a real American town to make their game authentic. To that end, the father of the series, Keiichiro Toyama, took a trip to the United States back in 1998, when such a trip wasn’t the norm. Haruhiko “Harry” Inaba, translator and voice acting director, encouraged it, and Gozo Kitao, newly assigned producer to the team, eventually approved it.
It led to Toyama heading to E3 in Atlanta, followed by a short trip to Chicago, because of the location of Konami offices there. Toyama brought a camera and apparently recorded video as well. Unfortunately, it was a quick and rather lonely adventure, as Inaba was called away by work and Toyama, unable to speak English, had to explore on his own. (You can read all about it in my upcoming book, The History of Silent Hill Part 1 from Taylor & Francis!)
It wouldn’t be the last time the team explored America; fans have known for years that parts of San Bruno, California were near identical to early versions of the streets in Silent Hill 2, to the point it seemed impossible the team hadn’t seen them firsthand (this was very close to Konami offices in Redwood City). Lake Tahoe also appears in game resources. Confirmation of and details about this road trip were sparse, however, until a few fun pieces of information appeared online via a magazine interview and some Twitter/X posts.
The article was actually an interview with former Western SH developers Sam Barlow and Neale Williams, in a 2020 discussion titled “Reinventing Silent Hill” from Retro Gamer UK magazine issue 214. In the article, former lead artist of Origins and Shattered Memories comments on some data he received from Konami during development:
Neale, however, does recall getting a hard drive with a dump of the Silent Hill 2 database on it. “Much of it was indecipherable, but there were also weird things like work trip photos,” he recounts. “There was this weird voyeuristic experience of looking for textures of [Silent Hill 2 protagonist] James Sunderland only to find pictures of guys sitting in motel rooms in T-sħirts and underpants drinking beer.”
That paints a fun picture! Back in 2000, the team behind Silent Hill 2 were all pretty young, probably in their early to mid 20s. Drinking with co-workers isn’t all that strange in Japanese culture either, where it’s seen as a way to lower social barriers and become closer without worrying about hierarchy or work problems. But what was this trip and who were the people in these photos?
The answer is easy to find with a little digging. Only twice did the original KCET team – the folks behind the first four Silent Hill games – head to the United States. Toyama and Inaba, during the first game’s development; and a small team of Silent Hill 2 developers during the second game’s development, who went to visit San Francisco. The photos appearing on a drive with SH2 content reinforce the association: it must’ve been this team, on the second trip, who had a wild time.
But who were they, and where did they go? We can piece some of that together, too. In fact, it’s not that hard since Masashi Tsuboyama, director of the game, appeared on twitter/x years ago and began talking about his experiences. One tweet mentions who was with him: Masahiro Ito, monster designer and art director, as well as Hiroyuki Owaku, writer and drama programmer:
SH2/References/the Winchester Mystery House The mental state of the owner is reflected in the architectural structure.The house had lost its function. I learned the English word “spooky.” I visited the site with Mr. Owaku and Mr. Ito. It was a unique trip.
The Winchester House is in San Jose, very close to San Fran. Another series of tweets goes into the details of his memories of the road trip [tweet 1] [tweet 2]:
I remember going to San Francisco in 1999 to cover Silent Hill 2! There was a suspicious Japanese man wandering around a residential area with a camera. That’s us [ninja emoji] Then he asked me, “What are you guys doing?” I know exactly how you feel #silenthill
This was before Google Map, so I mainly used photos and movies as references. I also looked up floors in rental magazines Movies were the most effective way to get a three-dimensional, spatial understanding of a place. That’s why there are a lot of familiar places in SH.
It’s obvious in retrospect, but back in the early 2000s, the ability to access information globally, which is so easy today, would be so much harder. It’s no wonder a lot of places and people in Silent Hill reflect American television, movies, and pop culture, and why it was so important for the team to go to the States and really see it for themselves.
One place in particular had a powerful impact on Tsuboyama [tweet]:
A shooting range san francisco 1999. It was that simple. The handgun and ammo were handed to me in a shopping basket. There were no dividers between the lanes. When I picked up the handgun I felt a fear that I cannot describe.
Anyone thinking about that gun found in the shopping cart, in the shot-up apartment? It really feels like the visceral fear at both the power of the gun and the ease with which he received it probably inspired that scene in Silent Hill 2. It also seems relevant to mention that Alcatraz is in the same area, and given the references to it in the game and the heavy focus on imprisonment, I’ll bet the team took a stop there, too.
Later, he discusses a night the team had to hit the road and spend the night in a motel [tweet]:
We got on the highway and headed for Sacramento maybe. We ended up spending the night in a cheap motel. There was one bed missing. We made a bet on where we would sleep. And the next morning, the Scenario writer Owaku and I woke up in the same bed
While on this trip, they might have paid a visit to a local friend. Takayoshi Sato, CG Director of the game, moved to California in late 1999, as part of his desire to study and design American characters. He set up SATOWORKS, a CG studio that would work on all the CG of Silent Hill 2 around a team of about 5 or 6 artists and technicians. Sato was still closely involved with the Japanese team via the internet and phone. Masahiro Ito’s twitter/X confirms that Sato was in the area [tweet]:
His outfit was designed by Takayoshi Sato, and he was working on SH2 at Konami San Francisco back then (we were working on that at KCET in Japan). So I’m not sure.
While it doesn’t seem like he went on the road trip with Tsuboyama and gang, they might have visited him during their trip. These locations – San Bruno, San Francisco, Sacramento, and San Jose – are all within about an 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours of each other, making it very plausible the team traveled through these places over the course of a short trip to the States. Lake Tahoe is a bit further, not impossible at about 3 to 4 hours from San Fran.
So the team might have arrived in San Francisco, flying into the San Francisco International Airport, the second biggest in the state. From there, they took some local sightseeing in – possibly Alcatraz, the gun range, wandering some ‘residential areas’, visiting Sato and his team. San Bruno seems to be an area of San Fran itself, so it was likely the “residential” area Tsuboyama is talking about.
From there, San Jose is about an hour drive south, making it a sensible second location to head to for the Winchester house. It’s two hours to Sacramento, and from Sacramento to Lake Tahoe, another two. Then, if they were heading back to hit the airport and fly home, that might make it a four-hour drive that could have been when the fun-filled motel night took place. The details, given the many years that have passed, are probably blurry… for more than a few reasons.
What might the team have done in Sacramento? That is also less clear, with major confirmed locations they visited not being in that area. There are some local places considered “haunted” that might have caught the team’s eye, or they may have simply been looking for more residential areas to explore.
I’d love to see the images on that Silent Hill 2 drive – not the personal ones, but the behind-the-scenes information about SH2‘s development. If that drive is still around, Neale, now would be a great time to share it! Just be sure the more incriminating evidence finds its way to the Recycle Can first.
