Slitterhead

About Slitterhead

Slitterhead is the debut of Bokeh Game Studio, which Keiichiro Toyama, the creator of Silent Hill and Siren, formed in 2020 after leaving Sony. Toyama directed and wrote it, Akira Yamaoka, Silent Hill's composer, wrote the music, and the monsters were designed by Siren designer Miki Takahashi. It came out on November 8, 2024 on PC (Steam and the Epic Games Store), PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4 and Xbox Series X|S; Spike Chunsoft publishes it on Steam.

It is set in Kowlong, a dense, chaotic city drawn from 1990s Hong Kong and the former Kowloon Walled City: a giant slum slated for demolition, a neon-lit pleasure district run by criminal gangs, and a commune in the mountains called the Echoes of Love Society. You play the Hyoki, an entity with no memory and no physical form whose one purpose is to wipe out the Slitterheads, brain-devouring monsters that mimic people and hide in the crowds.

Because Hyoki has no body, he takes one. You possess the people in the street (and the occasional dog), jump from host to host to cross the city at speed, slip through barriers and take on someone's identity to get inside dangerous places. Hosts are fragile, so in a fight you burn their life force and shape their blood into weapons, and when one is badly hurt you move on to the next. A parry slows time for a counterattack. Special humans called Rarities, among them a hooded girl named Julee, a surgeon who hunts at night and a homeless former boxer, keep their minds when possessed and bring their own skills; you take two on each mission and talk with them between missions.

Missions are roughly half an hour each, and Toyama put one run of the story at about 15 hours. Reviewers note that it reuses the same city blocks and some missions as the story goes on, that there is no map or waypoint to guide you, and that only some scenes are voiced. The spoken dialogue is in English, with subtitles in ten more languages.

The horror is in the monsters and the idea behind them: anyone on the street might be one, and the transformations are bloody and grotesque. It is less frightening than Toyama's earlier games and plays more like a detective story with fights. It suits players who want action with a strange, grim story and a Silent Hill creator's eye for the uncanny, more than those who want to hide from something they cannot fight.

How to play Slitterhead

1. Start the story as Hyoki and learn to possess the people around you.
2. Jump between hosts to move through Kowlong, get past barriers and follow leads.
3. Investigate each mission's area to find the Slitterheads hiding among people, then fight them with weapons made from your host's blood.
4. Parry an attack to slow time and hit back, and switch to a new host when the one you are in is badly hurt.
5. Take two Rarities into each mission for their stronger attacks and skills, and talk with them between missions.
6. Follow the story to uncover the mystery of Hyoki and the Slitterheads.

Tips

• Use a controller; the Steam store recommends one.
• Treat ordinary hosts as expendable in a fight, and keep the Rarities for when you need their skills.
• There is no map or waypoint, so take note of landmarks in each district before you push on.
• There are four difficulty settings, from Easy to Nightmare; Toyama says enemy attacks hit harder and more often on each step up.
• Try the free demo first on Steam, PlayStation or the Epic Games Store; the store says its progress and difficulty setting carry over to the full game.

Questions