Lucca Comics & Games brings people in comics, gaming and media together from all over the world, and this year, we were able to sit down with Silent Hill director Keiichirō Toyama to discuss his storied career.
From early beginnings with Konami to a long period working with Sony, Toyama co-founded his own studio, Bokeh Studios, in 2020. The studio just launched its first title, Slitterhead, back in November 2024. Though his best-known role was director of the original Silent Hill in the 90s, he also directed, wrote and designed the Siren series, the Gravity Rush franchise, and more.
Through a translator, we were able to ask Toyama about the resurgence of Japanese horror, why he made some of the game decisions he did, and even gained some insight into what inspired Silent Hill all those years ago!
Welcome to Lucca Comics & Games! What do you think of the festival so far?
Keiichirō Toyama: This city has a beautiful historical side, and that side is mixed with a modern culture, with people who love cosplaying. So it’s like being in a dream world, like a carnival.
Silent Hill was very early in your career. What inspired that famous franchise? Where did it start?
Keiichirō Toyama: The inspiration came, of course, from the trend that was set by Resident Evil. So, I knew that I had to make a horror-adventure game, but I didn’t want to do something similar to Resident Evil. I wanted to offer something different, so I decided to play on the light and the dark parts in the game. I wanted to differentiate Resident Evil from Silent Hill.
What’s it like to see something you’ve created in Silent Hill still be loved and growing this many years later by so many people?
Keiichirō Toyama: I’m really thankful for the appreciation at the very beginning for Silent Hill, but also that the game is even more appreciated and loved right now. And I have to be thankful also for all those who worked on the subsequent series of Silent Hill, the staff who worked on the games.
How do you feel about the current market for Japanese horror games and their remakes? Have you been playing any? Are you still following Silent Hill and Resident Evil?
Keiichirō Toyama: At the time, horror adventure games were popular, but right now, this interest is even more popular, and especially for young players. And I think that this is thanks to social media, where news can be shared so easily, so there is this increasing interest in folklore and these kinds of games.
You’ve had many roles across your career, like director of Silent Hill, director and writer on Siren, graphic designer on Snatcher and more. Is there a role that is special to you or that you prefer to do?
Keiichirō Toyama: What I love is not specific to a role, but I love creating the background and creating the general world for a video game. I really like thinking about the whole thing, the overall setting of the video game, and then this becomes like a Bible, the basis. And then everything comes naturally, so the vision and the history.
You’ve covered different genres in your work, like action-adventure with Gravity Rush, but recently came back to horror with Slitterhead. Do you prefer working in horror, or do you enjoy working between different genres?
Keiichirō Toyama: Slitterhead was the first work to found my company [Bokeh Studios], so I didn’t choose that genre because I especially liked it, but because it was the most ideal one for the team who was working on that video game, because those were employees coming from Sony. I thought that that was the right genre that was most ideal for the abilities of the people working there.
You mentioned Sony. You’ve worked for major companies like Konami and Sony. What’s it like to now have your own studio with Bokeh Studios and work on what you and your team want to work on?
Keiichirō Toyama: At the very beginning with Konami and Sony, we were all young. It was the beginning for us all. The companies were developing, and we could do whatever we wanted. But then things changed when those companies started growing. And of course, marketing was connected with business as well, so we were not able to do whatever we wanted [laughs].
And then I founded my company and everything changed, and I came back to the way it was at the beginning, because I feel free. I feel I can do whatever I want.
Thank you so much.
