How Return to Silent Hill’s director influenced FromSoftware’s best game

It was recently revealed that Return to Silent Hill – a new movie based on Silent Hill 2 – has finished filming. Yeah, even though it has flown a bit under the radar, a new Silent Hill movie based on the events of Silent Hill 2 has been in the works for a while, and I’m cautiously optimistic about it.

I know that getting two re-tellings of Silent Hill 2 in such a short timespan will probably strike many as weird, but the good news here is that they’ve brought back Christophe Gans, the French director responsible for the original Silent Hill film — the one that kinda owns, not the awful 3D one.

On top of my belief that Gans is a talented director with a strong artistic vision, I also trust him to helm the project because, well, he’s had a good influence on gaming even without knowing it. You see, back in 2001, Gans directed Le Pacte Des Loups, which came out in the West as Brotherhood Of The Wolf.

The film tells the story of two hunters trying to track down the beast of Gévaudan, a supposedly supernatural predator that stalked the French province of Gévaudan and killed over one hundred people in the eighteenth century.

Even though its story is somehow based on actual historical accounts, you can probably tell by now that Brotherhood Of The Wolf sounds a bit like Bloodborne. And, wouldn’t you know it, it also looks a lot like Bloodborne.

That’s not even mere hearsay. Elden Ring and Bloodborne director Hidetaka Miyazaki had no problem admitting that he based a lot of the looks of Bloodborne on this film in a long-lost interview with IGN Brazil. The interview is naturally in Portuguese, and that’s how not too many people know about the direct influence.

Image via FromSoftware

Still, those curious can use a translator, check out this accurate translation on Resetera, which we first discussed all the way back in 2019.

Another thing you should trust me on is regarding the film itself. Even though it’s maybe just a bit too long, it still absolutely rocks.

Neither Return to Silent Hill nor the Silent Hill 2 remake have an official release date, but they’re both set to come out this year.