The three speakers first explained the team's composition. While 'SILENT HILL' is a console series with a long history, they revealed that over half of the current team members are in their 20s. While veterans who worked on past series exist within the company, they are not part of the current team. This is the result of building a team from scratch after Producer Okamoto joined. Development partners are also mostly overseas studios, including NeoBards (Taiwan), Bloober Team (Poland), Annapurna (USA), and No Code (Scotland).
Of the 15 team members, only about 20% are native English speakers, while the remaining 80% do not speak English.
In this process, they established 'story guidelines' based on user surveys from five countries worldwide, defining psychological horror, the fog/otherworld, and creatures, and compiled these into an internal bible. He noted that they placed particular weight on depicting 'intrinsic reactions'—emotions stemming from within, such as trauma, self-esteem, beliefs, and existential feelings—rather than relationships with others.
Work was also done to create a common language for the IP. Since a significant portion (about 90%) of 'SILENT HILL' revenue comes from overseas, the appeal of the IP was already well-understood by overseas developers. KONAMI also created a bible analyzing global user awareness and past works to share with development partners. By having both sides confirm what each location symbolized in the story, they were able to stay within the core framework during the review process.
Producer Okamoto also revealed the background for setting 'SILENT HILL f' in Japan. He diagnosed the cause of the decline in the series' revenue as fatigue from the same setting and story, and redefined Silent Hill as a 'phenomenon' that could occur anywhere in the world, rather than a specific city. After focusing on horror themes in the Asian region, they decided on Japan to align with their identity as a Japanese company.
The scenario was written by 'Ryukishi07,' known for Japanese horror works. Producer Okamoto expressed his philosophy that one must read a significant number (over half) of an author's works before commissioning them, and mentioned that he encourages the scenario team to read extensively (100–200 books per year). The theme set by Ryukishi07 was the horror of viewing outdated values surrounding marriage through the eyes of a modern woman, which was also reflected in the creature design. In terms of gameplay, he stated that action elements were strengthened to increase the contrast between horror and combat.
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