Guillermo del Toro confirms he will not be collaborating with Kojima on Silent Hills

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I see more positive than negative about the game and it's the best selling Castlevania game iirc. You're obviously welcome to not like it, but, I feel like your personal feelings toward it are overriding the reality of it. http://www.destructoid.com/lords-of-shadow-is-the-most-successful-castlevania-ever-253848.phtml

The second one both sold and reviewed like shit though.

It was a third tier action game, and a shitty Castlevania game. What was supposed to impress me about it? It couldn't even stand in the same universe as the action genre big boys like Bayonetta and Devil May Cry, which it so desperately wanted to be. The combat system had a fraction of the depth of the major players. Many of the bosses were just sad concepts abused from other games. It had some decent art direction at times and good music, that I'll grant.

And in all ways a Castlevania game is supposed to be a Castlevania game, it just up and said "fuck it."

Notice in the article they did not say the sales of the game, would not say what they were. If you make a Castlevania game that looks and plays like, say, Aria of Sorrow, it's going to cost X amount to develop and so you need Y amount of sales where "Y" is not that much compared to most AAA games. If you make a game like Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, the budget explodes and you need to sell exponentially more to make it worth it. So, pure unit sales is not the full story or even close. Look at what they said they want to hit for Lords of Shadow 2: 3.5 million. That was as good a hint as any that their entire strategy was broken.

That's what happens when you focus on presentation over gameplay and understanding the roots of the franchise you're trying to reboot. It's the sad treadmill of "AAA" game development.
 
It was Kojima who wanted to make people crap their pants with this game, to really push it. Not Toro or Konami. It wont be the same.

No, actually they both wanted that.

"Originally, we were thinking of making a game that would make you pee your pants," Kojima said at Gamescom today. But after further discussions with del Toro, Kojima said, "we are aiming for a game that will make you shit your pants."
...
"So be it. We don't care," Kojima said. "We are aiming for a game that will make you shit your pants. So please make sure you have a [change of clothes]."

http://www.polygon.com/2014/8/13/5999507/silent-hills-hideo-kojima-details
 
Im sorry but do people not understand how this works? kojimas ideas are already there, im confident this game will be fine.
 
It was a third tier action game, and a shitty Castlevania game. What was supposed to impress me about it? It couldn't even stand in the same universe as the action genre big boys like Bayonetta and Devil May Cry, which it so desperately wanted to be. The combat system had a fraction of the depth of the major players. Many of the bosses were just sad concepts abused from other games.

I'm not questioning your personal opinion about the game, never did. You just said that Castlevania was dead because of MercurySteam, but the series has had bad games before and their first one was the the most successful in their eyes, whatever their gauge may be. I'm not equating the sales to quality, but they certainly didn't kill it. The second game was very disappointing, but it's still just one game. They didn't kill it because Konami could turn around and give it to another developer and make a great game. Things are only dead if you don't do anything with them.
 
Im sorry but do people not understand how this works? kojimas ideas are already there, im confident this game will be fine.

Without knowing exactly how far into the design process it's hard to say. However- with Del Toro out, I would think core concepts that they created would be scrapped
 
Im sorry but do people not understand how this works? kojimas ideas are already there, im confident this game will be fine.

What ideas? A piece of napkin he scrawled on? From what it sounded like, Silent Hills was barely a concept yet since Kojima was still focused on getting MGSV out the door. PT wasn't an indicator of how Silent Hills would actually play.
 
I'm not questioning your personal opinion about the game, never did. You just said that Castlevania was dead because of MercurySteam, but the series has had bad games before and their first one was the the most successful in their eyes, whatever their gauge may be. I'm not equating the sales to quality, but they certainly didn't kill it. The second game was very disappointing, but it's still just one game. They didn't kill it because Konami could turn around and give it to another developer and make a great game. Things are only dead if you don't do anything with them.

Let me ask you a simple question:

Do you think Konami is going to take another big risk with Castlevania any time soon?

See Konami has TONS of franchises that are technically not dead, in that Konami hasn't issued a press release saying they'll never come again. But how many of them are basically effectively dead? Most.
 
It's important to note del Toro was speaking only on collaborating with Kojima, not whether or not the game has been cancelled. "You'll have to go after Konami for those answers," our source said.

well, let's wait.
 
Do you think Konami is going to take another big risk with Castlevania any time soon?

Another big risk? Unlikely. However, even if they didn't take another big risk with Castlevania, that doesn't mean they couldn't still release more good ones down the line. I'd hardly call the Metroidvania games risky but people loved them. From a budget sense we probably won't get anything on the scale of Lords of Shadow, but that still doesn't mean it's dead. If anything, I think it'd be a good thing.

I would love to see some of these franchises just dial it back a bit and go back to more traditional game design instead of the focus on making AAA shitfests.
 
What ideas? A piece of napkin he scrawled on? From what it sounded like, Silent Hills was barely a concept yet since Kojima was still focused on getting MGSV out the door. PT wasn't an indicator of how Silent Hills would actually play.

I'll eat crow if I'm wrong, but i still believe the core was there, pt was just a vital ad, not indicative of gameplay, but the teaser showed the engine in place and mocap already done, so they had to be somewhat into it.
 
I'm not questioning your personal opinion about the game, never did. You just said that Castlevania was dead because of MercurySteam, but the series has had bad games before and their first one was the the most successful in their eyes, whatever their gauge may be. I'm not equating the sales to quality, but they certainly didn't kill it. The second game was very disappointing, but it's still just one game. They didn't kill it because Konami could turn around and give it to another developer and make a great game. Things are only dead if you don't do anything with them.

Mirror of Fate and LoS2 were two games, and even though the first LoS was a solid game(story and gameplay-wise) and sold the most of the series, seeing how the follow-ups were handled, it makes the first game seem like it was lightning in a bottle that could never be replicated. It seemed like one of those rare occasions of "all the right things happening at the same time with all the right people behind it", including Kojima(even though he was hands-off, he still gave criticism). I honestly don't think MercurySteam could've done such a great job on the game alone without Kojima peeking in. Oddly enough, not only Kojima, but David Cox(Konami Europe, the guy who acted as one of the big producers of LoS series) wind up leaving Konami too(despite some people's "belief", Cox wasn't a member of MercurySteam, which I wonder how people ever got that idea?).

I would love to see some of these franchises just dial it back a bit and go back to more traditional game design instead of the focus on making AAA shitfests.
I think you have an excellent point here. It would be nice to see big studios work on many different sized projects, not just AAA all the time. I think the logical approach would be to have smaller sized projects that can be made and turned out faster(yearly or every two years) that would bring in money to fuel larger projects. Always have something to fall back on. That doesn't seem like a logical step these companies want to head towards, though. It's all or nothing, which seems far more "risky" than anything else. For being afraid of taking risks, a lot of these companies are living life on the edge of a razor blade. It's no wonder companies like Konami are in the state they are right now.
 
Mirror of Fate and LoS2 were two games, and even though the first LoS was a solid game(story and gameplay-wise) and sold the most of the series, seeing how the follow-ups were handled, it makes the first game seem like it was lightning in a bottle that could never be replicated.

I'm just arguing that it's not dead because of MercurySteam. They did a different interpretation that some liked and some disliked. They can go on to make more games. Like Amir0x said they probably won't ever dump a big budget on it again, but a handful of bad games isn't enough to sink a long-time series like Castlevania. Not doing anything at all with it would kill it.

For what it's worth, Lords of Shadow 2 had really good art, music, and combat. Your quote about how the first one was probably lightning in a bottle... well, the director of the game is supposedly responsible for coming up with a lot of the elements about the game, such as the stealth, that nobody liked. Do I think they could have made it as good if not better than the first one wihout that guy around to plague it with bad decisions? Yeah, probably.

I think you have an excellent point here. It would be nice to see big studios work on many different sized projects, not just AAA all the time. I think the logical approach would be to have smaller sized projects that can be made and turned out faster(yearly or every two years) that would bring in money to fuel larger projects. Always have something to fall back on. That doesn't seem like a logical step these companies want to head towards, though. It's all or nothing, which seems far more "risky" than anything else.

Hell I would be fine with downloadable stuff if it meant that the company wasn't losing a bunch of money and fans were happy.
 
Another big risk? Unlikely. However, even if they didn't take another big risk with Castlevania, that doesn't mean they couldn't still release more good ones down the line. I'd hardly call the Metroidvania games risky but people loved them. From a budget sense we probably won't get anything on the scale of Lords of Shadow, but that still doesn't mean it's dead. If anything, I think it'd be a good thing.

I would love to see some of these franchises just dial it back a bit and go back to more traditional game design instead of the focus on making AAA shitfests.

Well let's just say I'm skeptical we'll see Castlevania for ages, even if on paper it's technically not dead. Remember the Metroidvania games weren't doing so hot for Konami either anymore, and the Mercury games were their attempt to make the series relevant again. What's the path for them?
 
No, actually they both wanted that.

They may have both wanted it, but I doubt that one or the other on their own could deliver on that promise.

Even then, of those two I'd trust Kojima more to deliver an experience like that and..well...he's gone.

Good question! I dunno if they'd go that far though.

...actually hang on, I just thought about this for another few seconds, and yes, they would.

DAY ONE PATCH!!
 
No, actually they both wanted that.

It's pretty normal for developers (even the big names like Kojima) to speak for the team and therefore using the term "we". I've visited multiple game presentations from devs (even with the studio heads) and they never used the term "I". It's a form of paying respect. So I would'nt read too much into it
 
Well let's just say I'm skeptical we'll see Castlevania for ages, even if on paper it's technically not dead. Remember the Metroidvania games weren't doing so hot for Konami either anymore, and the Mercury games were their attempt to make the series relevant again. What's the path for them?

I don't know man, I just want shit to be awesome again. These people saying that Konami should just sell off their IP's to other companies that give a fuck, I'd agree with that. Silent Hill was born on Playstation, and I think along with the likes of Resident Evil, helped shape the overall picture of that console, and Silent Hill 2 did the same for the PS2. I'd be comfortable with Sony picking it up.

As for Castlevania, I honestly wouldn't mind it going to Nintendo. I don't know what they'd do with it, if anything, but I would feel slightly better about it. Same for Mega Man.
 
I don't know man, I just want shit to be awesome again. These people saying that Konami should just sell off their IP's to other companies that give a fuck, I'd agree with that. Silent Hill was born on Playstation, and I think along with the likes of Resident Evil, helped shape the overall picture of that console, and Silent Hill 2 did the same for the PS2. I'd be comfortable with Sony picking it up.

As for Castlevania, I honestly wouldn't mind it going to Nintendo. I don't know what they'd do with it, if anything, but I would feel slightly better about it. Same for Mega Man.

Damn Nintendo would make a banging Castlevania game. Now I want that badly :/
 
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