How Hollowbody’s developer is building on Silent Hill’s legacy to create a new generation of horror films

There are a ton of exciting games planned for release this fall, including upcoming current-gen remasters and remakes of survival horror favorites. Rise dead And Silent Hill 2. For my money, though, I’m less excited about the standard AAA tentpole releases and more intrigued by the relatively smaller, but no less ambitious, indie passion projects carving out their own unique niche this fall. For example: Hollow bodythe latest sci-fi survival horror game from UK-based developer Nathan Hamley.

Inspired by early 2000s horror titles like Kuon, Spooky ground, Rule of the roseand yes, the Silent Hill series, Hollow body casts players in the role of Mica, a black market trader in the future who embarks on a personal mission to an abandoned zone of a city that has been walled off due to a mysterious crisis to rescue her partner, who was last seen there and never returned. However, she gets more than she bargained for when her hovership malfunctions and crashes into the exclusion zone, leaving her stranded in a run-down neighborhood filled with more than its fair share of ill-conceived horrors.

“I’ve always had a fondness for traditional survival horror games, the older stuff like Silent Hill, KuonAnd Project Zero,” Hamley told Polygon via email. “I grew up playing a lot of graphic adventure games, and that eventually expanded into other puzzle and story-driven games. (…) There’s a connection to those genres that I think a lot of people miss.”

For Hamley, Hollow body represents the culmination of everything he has learned as a game developer so far, with his previous titles On-call servicea sci-fi fantasy graphic adventure game inspired by classic LucasArts games, and Hunting for static electricitya first-person horror game with audio-driven gameplay mechanics inspired by electromagnetic voice phenomena.

“When I finally (On-call service) I looked at other titles that I found inspiring and decided to make something that was inspired by Silent Hill but had its own identity to stand out,” says Hamley. “Because I was completely new to 3D game development at the time, I quickly found that making a third person game was difficult, and I ended up with a kind of compromise – a psychological horror ‘walking simulator’ with puzzles. That game would eventually become Hunting for static electricity. So I guess you could call it Hunting for static electricity a proto-Hollow body of a sort. It’s all been part of my personal development as an indie, doing this full time I have to learn on the job and by the time I was done developing Hunting for static electricity I felt confident in re-exploring the idea of ​​making something closer to a traditional survival horror, with a third-person perspective and all the bells and whistles.”

After six months of initial prototyping, Hamley was able to start development of the Hollow body via a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2022, surpassing its initial goal of £15,000 (approximately $16,675). Since then, Hamley has thrown himself into the game, drawing on inspiration from its genre predecessors and his own personal background to create an experience that is both new and surprising, yet still closely adheres to the design philosophy of previous horror classics.

“I think the aspects of horror that appeal to me are the creepy, the unknown, and the idea of ​​what lurks just outside your sight,” Hamley says. “I love slow burn horror, Heir is one of my all-time favorites, and I’m a big fan of dark, atmospheric films like Outside the black rainbow, Under the skinAnd The Witch. A lot of these films don’t necessarily classify themselves as horror, but they contain aspects of horror that I enjoy. What’s interesting is that I would say Silent Hill also falls into this category, a lot of the monsters in the series aren’t exactly gory, but lean more towards the creepy and leave an impression that’s hard to shake, you’re left wondering how these monsters came to be and it’s hard to understand what exactly you’re watching.”

Hamley’s appreciation for the more gruesome, unclassifiable elements of horror is evident in the design of Hollow body‘s environments, with its abandoned apartment buildings overrun with an inexplicable corrosion of biomechanical pustules and inhuman rot, which swallows up metal and oozes out into the cracked asphalt of deserted streets. The game’s fixed camera angles only serve to heighten the eeriness of these spaces, framing otherwise innocuous rooms and passageways from perspectives that feel haunting, if not tragic, and seemingly foreshadowing even greater challenges and horrors yet to come.

Response to Hollow body has already been lavish. Hamley released a demo of the game on Steam earlier this year, prompting players and critics to characterize the game as an independent alternative to Bloober Team’s upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake, which features several controversial overhauls to the mechanics of the 2001 game, in addition to the obligatory graphical improvements. For Hamley, the development of Hollow body is not so much about competing with contemporary trends, but more about creating an experience that comes purely from the heart.

“I can’t say exactly what it’s about Hollow body that seems to have resonated so well with audiences, but I’m a big believer in making something that you’re passionate about and that you would want to play if you saw it was available,” Hamley said. “I’d wager some of that comes through in the final product. There’s a distinct lack of survival horror games that closely adhere to the design philosophy that so many early 2000s titles employed, (and) I wanted to rectify that.”

After more than three years of development, Hollow body will be released on PC later this September. When we asked Hamley what he most hoped for from players getting their hands on the game, his answer was as modest as his expectations: “I went into this wanting to make a game that felt new, but still familiar to anyone who’s played its inspirations, a bit like going back to your hometown after 20 years. So I guess that’s it, I’m hoping I’ve captured enough of the DNA from those games to make something new that people who love that stuff will enjoy.”

Hollow body will be released on September 12th for Windows PC on Steam and GOG.