Kinda long, but hear me out. I dunno if they'll ever make a really really real sh 5 game. Like canon wise, but I had this really rad idea about how it might go if it were done in true SH/survival horror style. Come, I'll let you use my wu tang style. --SH 5-- So, basically, Heather is now in her late 20's, still overcoming her night terrors and nightmares that kinda stem from her trip a couple years back. She still has hallucinations of all the experiences she saw in the SH 3 timeframe and has trouble distinguishing between reality and her dreams. She has no life. She rarely goes out in public. Furthermore, she still lives in the same apartment that was once occupied by her and her father. Recently, her dreams have gotten the best of her and she decides to stay up long enough to let herself pass out. She'd rather sleep by force than by will. She carries this symptom for months before it becomes something full blown. She's unable to move from her bed. She simply sits and watches as a pulsating red vines creep across her walls and wither away with dawn. She's afraid of them snatching her and dragging her back to the town. But something else threatens her. A man has been searching for her. A fanatic who read a little too far into the sect responsible for the near birth of a god and ended up worshiping them. He went as far as to read on the rituals behind the birthing process. He's looking to employ the use of one ritual in particular, the interitum notitiam, states that once the birth mother rejects God, she must be killed so a new birth mother can be picked. She's forced to get out of her apartment after a few weeks of this guy making attempts on her life. She goes on the run across her hometown, dodging hallucinations and sleep as she attempts to stay one step ahead of the fanatic, who's hot on her trail for the entire game. ------- It feels like it would be a genuinely scary game. I imagine heather running through cramped hallways with the shadow or a full on glimpse of the fanatic constantly on her every move as well as the hallucinations caused by sleep deprivation. ------- I imagine a few creatures so far, One including Wheelmen. Wheelmen are four hands on top and bottom with a television type screen embedded in the torso area that display red lips (A nod to SH3). They travel at quick speeds, flying towards heather in blurry jump/lunge before striking her and rolling ontop of her. Wheelmen's attacks and movement seem to express a love for haste, which is something Heather encounters a lot in this game. Another creature is a boss creature called Dorsal. It's basically a wooden mechanical shark that swims through the sewers. Heather encounters it swimming through small pools during her journey underground, she even has a few flashbacks to Valtiel banging his way through the pipe strewn wall of an otherworld church. She comes upon a giant sump pump room where the shark has been cornered by falling debris. In her effort to climb down the wall to the control room to drain the room and ultimately defeat the creature, Dorsal will lunge out of the water to attack Heather. -------- Otherworld shifts are a lot less dramatic this time around and actually show up in the gameplay as flashbacks to the experiences she had before. However, in this world, there's a greater emphasis on time and death. The player will come across many obstacles unlike the other Silent Hill games, traversing a world that changes at random. The changes slowly appear as things seen out of the corner of your eye or heard off in the distance. For instance, during a return trip through the mall she left behind on her previous journey, she encounters a room full of mannequins. A flashback leads her to believe that the mannequins are losing their heads. However, once she shines a flashlight on them, the heads are returned to their places as if they hadn't even fallen off their shoulders. -------- There is a survival aspect to the game. Heather is trying to preserve her life and make a clean getaway or hasty confrontation with whoever's chasing her. There is still an inventory with which you may stow away multiple items, weapons and other equipment. However, most, if not all, things either break or waste away. Using found objects, the player is able to repair these items with ease and efficiency. One might even be able to make modifications to their weapons. Nothing quite so major, simple additions such as silencers, laser sights or a flashlight/weapon combo. It's all up to the player to choose. ---------- Heather's unfortunately kept to herself for years about her condition. So much so that she hasn't gone to see a specialist on the matter, so she has no way to rid or keep at bay the visions that she has. However, she only seems to have greater visions when in the dark than in the light. If her mind is revolving around her visions, the world will instantly change to the otherworld, a place that is constantly trying to kill Heather at each and every turn. To keep the hallucinations at bay, the player must keep her flashlight filled with fresh batteries. Batteries can be found around in common appliances and tools. The regular world has been frozen, keeping Heather in a fog enveloped state. However, the electricity powering Heather's hometown still runs as if it never changed. Finding fresh batteries shouldn't be hard, if the person seeking them is looking in the right places. ---------- The otherworld can best be described as a series of deathtraps. Exteriors show the surface world as a town with dark stone walls that extend from the roads up into a gray sky. Buildings that were once lush with shoppers and stock have been gutted and marked as condemned. In place of windows, these buildings have steel fences, and their facades are marred by charcoal fire stains above each window. Interior wise, the otherworld is a bunch of building equipment that's been left behind, stacked up against the walls. Scaffolds and ladders inch high up to the rafters, which withhold shadows that play tricks on the player's eyes. Gradually, the shadows along the ceiling will grow darker and darker the more the player descends into the level. From those shadows, glimpses of the shadow world will appear. The shadow world appears in darkened places. And that's only one of the many otherworlds encountered throughout the game. List of otherworlds: "Grinding Heat" world: Tight corridors and pipes that burst forth steam, this primarily "auto-mechanic" themed world takes Heather deep underground as her fear of the unknown kicks in. She attempts to find her way through a sewage system when she begins to have delusions that the ill lit dampness of the underground hides something far more sinister. "Vein" world: At one point, Heather needs to find a way out of the labrynthian world that seems to unfold just outside her apartment. This world represents Heather's fear of being lost in a changed world, which, in her mind, means certain death. The player would need to traverse everything from unstable bridges of skin and deep pools of blood only adds to the haste with which Heather wishes to leave the halls that seem to breathe behind her back. "Silent" world: A dead place, devoid of anything but creatures and growing shadows. This realm represents a fear of lonliness, which Heather felt years before and only amplified more during her journey. There's almost no sound here, just a thick mist that hovers above the ground. The mist moves with a mind of its own as muffled footsteps seem to run through the room with the player. Occasionally, the sounds of muffled screams will peirce through the air and lead Heather into the next realm. "Shadow" world: Simply a transition into another world. The ceilings and walls extend to near impossible heights, producing jet black shadows that prevent you from seeing anything without first shining a flashlight upwards. If you neglect the shadows, they'll begin to play tricks on Heather's mind, which might bring her into the next world. "Fear" world: The name can speak for itself. The fear world is the ultimate otherworld. Wires and gates that line the walls are complete with creatures scouring them in the shadows. Players will need to traverse collapsing tunnels, rooms that suddenly go dark and completely ruin Heather's day. It's basically SH1 but with more pitfalls. ------------------- One idea was to have an endgame boss that's Vincent, attached to some sort of device shaped as a platform or bed, hooked up to vials and IV's in an attempt to keep him alive. This idea would've supported the theory that Douglas Cartland died at the end of SH3, making this boss a manifestation of Heather's guilt for letting so many people die along her previous journey. As she tries to claw the IV's from Vincent's life support, the platform swings around wildly, giving Heather a challenge at making any headway. Once she does, though, she kills Vincent and overcomes her guilt with letting him die. However, after killing Vincent, she catches a glimpse of Douglas, tied to the same sort of device as Vincent was. Here she must choose between killing Douglas or leaving him and letting him live. ------------- I have a feeling that'd be a pretty psychological experience and allows for advancement or closure in the SH canon storyline. It's just an idea though.