Bokeh Game Studio (Bokeh) recently did a Q&A session where they answered questions from social media about their upcoming game Slitterhead and more. The session included the studio’s three founding members: Keiichiro Toyama (CEO, Creator), Junya Okura (CTO, Game Director) and Kazunobu Sato (COO, Producer). Toyama is probably most known for creating the first Silent Hill video game back in 1999. Okura and Sato both have worked with Toyama on the Siren series. Okura also collaborated with Toyama on another series called Gravity Rush.

The trio reunited in 2020 to create their new independent studio. Upon establishing the studio, Toyama announced that they were developing a new game projected to come out in 2023. What started out as, “about four or five [ideas] at first”, ended up turning into the trailer we seen at The Game Awards at last year’s end. Many of the questions, coming from an Ask Me Anything started in January, that Bokeh answered were focused on Slitterhead. Still without a release date yet, the team gave us some details about what we can look forward to.

Inspired by the energy from Hong Kong and how Forbidden Siren could be reinterpreted they, “ended up with the base for Slitterhead“. Even though the game will be, “close to what we’ve done before”, Toyama insists that it is not a direct repeat of their past. If anything is replicated directly it will be the team’s, “experimental”, approach. When discussing the alleged, “hassle”, in their design process, the three developers started laughing and asking each other, “Why do we end up always trying to make things we’ve never done before”? There collective answer turned out to be that,

Its just that there’s no point in imitating something that’s been already made. In the end we end up trying new things [that start] with us getting excited because it’s new…We want to make strange things, in a good way.

What us as players can get excited about for Slitterhead is the new mix between action and horror that the game brings. Toyama went on to clarify that the game, “spans over multiple genres where horror is expressed”. This broad diversity in genre will also be found in Slitterhead’s combat. Okura explained that there will be, “elements that many players are already experienced with…[but also something] to make the players surprised upon discovering them”.

With a 3rd person camera, that may take on multiple POVs, “[a] focus on entertainment”, and a theme, “about conflict of the mind”, Slitterhead looks to be an interesting first title from Bokeh. Part two of the studio’s Q&A is set to be released this week, so check back here for more details soon.