It’s no secret I hold a special place for the survival-horror genre, specifically the Silent Hill series. There have been some bastard children from the franchise, but it still maintains a good fright-fest with a reasonably developed storyline. So when it was reported Konami was going to remake the original, fans were expectantly up in arms with an arsenal of questions. Would it be a straight up remake?  A re-living through a familiar character? Why do this to such a well established classic?

Thankfully, producer Tomm Hulett helped ease some fears pointing out that Shattered Memories will not be a remake, rather a re-imagining. The full interview is on Joystiq. Set for an ambiguous release, Fall 2009, for both Wii and PS2 (with a possible launch on the PSP); I’ll be interested to see how this actually plays out.

Some choice quotes from the interview:

Where do you draw the line between messing around with people’s expectations and completely jumping the shark? There’s a lot of differences, but I wouldn’t say we jumped the shark, because they’re all very calculated, they all serve the story and they’re all surprising.

He’s the guy that’s always there for Silent Hill [Akira Yamaoka]. Every single Silent Hill game, no matter whether it’s The Room, or Homecoming, Akira’s always there. Could you make a Silent Hill game without him? I wouldn’t like to, because I am a fan of the series and I do love his music. I think it adds a special element, it’s kind of the atmosphere of the town. If Akira’s music isn’t there, it just doesn’t sound quite right.

Is it more difficult to make something feel really scary on the Wii — just because I think survival horror games are very dependent on the production value and graphics and sound. …we’ve done some amazing things graphically here. Every object self-shadows with the flashlight that you’re moving around in real time, even the snow flakes. …What we’ve done with the Wii version is you’re interacting with the Wii remote. With puzzles, you’re not coming to a separate puzzle menu where you select options with the cursor, you’re reaching into the game so you’re immersed at all times.

[Joystiq]