Slitterhead combines an intoxicating ‘90s Hong Kong atmosphere with shocking body horror

Horror is often about wresting control away from its victims, whether that means taking the lives of screaming casualties on-screen or making viewers involuntarily jump from their seats. With its possession mechanic, Slitterhead puts a unique spin on that awful sensation of control slipping away: You’re the one causing it.

You play as a wayward Hyoki spirit, an inhuman force with no memories or urges other than vanquishing the murderous Slitterheads plaguing the city. To do so, you’ll need to possess countless citizens of Kowlong—a fictional East Asian city closely modeled on ‘90s Hong Kong—as you delve into the city’s neon-bathed alleys and slums in search of paranormal secrets.

At Gamescom, I sat down with game director Keiichirō Toyama, who created the first Silent Hill before directing the Siren and Gravity Rush series, to talk about Slitterhead. Toyama said possession gave Bokeh Game Studio a unique opportunity to ask players to examine perspectives beyond their own—in the most unsettling way possible.

“This might be existentialism in some way, but one day I was wondering who I really am,” said Toyama, outlining his approach to nature-versus-nurture as applied to a disembodied spirit. “People are born, you're the same human being, but if you're born in a different country or a different place, live a different life, it's a completely different perspective, a different person."

"I thought it'd be interesting if the protagonist was a spirit who has no memory but can travel through bodies and interact with the human host," Toyama continued. "The spirit would be swayed by how they looked at the world, their lives, and their opinions.”
 

A possessive streak

My preview session began with this disorienting POV-switch, taking command of a stray dog and tracing a nearby Slitterhead—parasitic insect- or worm-like creatures who walk about disguised as regular people. Quickly feeling unwelcome as unsympathetic civilians insulted or avoided me (or even barred my passage entirely), I had no alternative but to take control of a nearby human. Then another, and then another.

Need to cross to the other side of a fence? Vault to a 10th-floor apartment balcony? The answer is always the same: line up your sights and swoop into an unsuspecting person’s consciousness.

There are no shortage of options in the game’s simulation of Kowlong’s crowded nighttime streets—really, take your pick, it’s like paranormal Hitman! After a momentary shudder of resistance, their will melts away and you become that person.

In third-person games it’s perfectly natural to want to protect your character. Slitterhead challenges that self-preservation instinct. At one point I climbed to the roof of a building and needed to descend to the street quickly—there was no time to waste finding the stairs. Out of options, I leaped off the ledge, leaving the helpless elderly woman whose body and mind I’d hijacked a confused and broken wreck on the street. I’d escaped, possessing another passerby before she hit the ground.

Clearly, these mortal vessels of flesh and bone are disposable in the eyes of an uncaring spirit. My first encounter with a Slitterhead took this cruel concept even further. It was a scrappy affair of three-hit combos, directional blocks, and persistence. Attacks can be dodged. All you have to do is—you guessed it—possess another human, usually cowering on the sidelines, sometimes brave enough to join the fray. It’s a fascinating design, pulling me into emotional conflict with the Hyoki’s detached disregard for human life.

After the Slitterhead took enough damage, its next transformation shifted the balance. It erupted from what had been a (mostly) human body into the form of a fleshy praying mantis. Battered bodies and pools of blood were strewn across the alley, clubbed with inescapable force by swinging tentacles.

But in the act of possessing a teenage girl, seemingly on the verge of death, I uncovered a "Rarity," one of eight humans in the game capable of going toe to toe with the Slitterhead once possessed by Hyoki. In this case, the girl sprouted long bloody claws from her fingernails like a teen Wolverine.

Rarities, with their heightened skills, have an important role to play in rooting out the Slitterheads. With these characters, the game transforms from frantic survival horror combat to pure character action. Each Rarity sports their own set of acrobatic moves and special abilities, including healing from pools of blood generated by attacking enemies or mass-reviving the incapacitated for more meat shields. With an expanded move set and new strategies at-hand, I could finally decapitate my first Slitterhead and move on to the second part of the preview.

The next section took place later in the game. The Rarities invaded a mafia-run tower block to chase down Slitterheads who left a trail of bodies in their wake—a familiar setup that would seem at home in any number of Hong Kong action flicks, or in the Yakuza series. But instead of hordes of machete-wielding goons, you’re faced with Slitterheads. Any surviving mafia members serve as unwilling allies.

Combat presented a real challenge here. I died several times on my way to the summit—often thanks to mismanaging the Time Bomb ability, which turns a human into a powerful walking explosive. You’re meant to activate and then evacuate to another body. Instead, I activated and stayed locked in combat—dead by my own foolish detonation.

A boss fight awaited at the building’s summit, or at least the first stage of one. Following a battle that ripped apart the mafia boss’s office, I gave frantic chase across the rooftops of high-rise apartments, the Hyoki leaving the Rarities behind in pursuit, swooping from human to human to catch up. I even found humans with new skills—one let me swing like Spider-Man by flinging out bloody tendrils.

The final stage of the battle took place on a distant rooftop. It began as an imposing battle against another insectoid Slitterhead. I marshaled the decidedly non-superheroic skills of residents enjoying a late-night smoke on the roof, buying enough time for the Rarities to catch up and giving myself a fighting chance.

It was a fantastic showcase for the combat system’s full potential. With multiple Rarities in action, the dynamic flipped. It ceased being a game of cautious attacks followed by possession swaps to lure the boss after my just-vacated host. Now it was a coordinated assault. The Blood Well ability formed a gravity well to hold the Slitterhead in place, allowing me to safely land katana swipes with one Rarity. When it broke free, I switched to another for projectile attacks.

Combat became a dance of positioning, timing, and calculated management of Kowlong’s most ample resource—its people, whose bodies protected me and whose blood fuelled my most effective moves.

As we finally took our foe down, "victory" achieved with a pile of dead Kowlongers, I was left feeling like Slitterhead will be a harrowing action-horror game—and like nothing I’ve seen before.
 

In the Mood for Blood

Toyama makes unforgettable settings that are remembered for years (or even decades) after. His track record is rivaled by few, between the fog-shrouded American suburbia of Silent Hill, the sinister Japanese island-towns of Siren, and Gravity Rush’s globetrotting environment designs.

Speaking to Toyama after the preview, he emphasized the importance of Slitterhead's locations. “I place my games on the setting first, then start to think about characters and game design,” he said.

For Slitterhead, fond memories of a bygone era drew Toyama to recreate the towering buildings, claustrophobic streets, clamor, and sense of lawless danger associated with ‘90s Hong Kong.

“I liked the theme of nostalgia,” Toyama explained. “These chaotic cities could be seen especially in the ‘90s—and they were kind-of obscene in some ways, with a lot of criminal activity going on. These cities evolve into the modern world that we see today. They gradually disappeared from the world…I remember how the ‘90s were in East Asia, and I wanted to bring that longing into my work.”

It’s no surprise to hear a studio named after a cinematography effect has an enduring love of cinema. (Bokeh is the name for a famous out-of-focus lens technique, once regarded as an amateurish mistake, now seen as an artistic flourish.)

Toyama says the intrusive nature of possession, and above all his glamorous depictions of the streets of Hong Kong, made the films of Wong Kar-wai a natural inspiration. The influence of Kar-wai's arresting depiction of Hong Kong, the narrow alleys and sumptuous lighting that defined the cinematic look of the city in modern classics like In the Mood for Love, are clear in the colors and framing of Slitterhead's Kowlong.

It's also seen in Slitterhead's appetite for intimate views into private lives—only with less of Tony Leung’s warm smile and more of Kowlong’s garish body horror and gory blood-based superpowers. Toyama also drew on Fruit Chan, a director whose dramas focus on Hong Kong’s everyday life and star amateur actors to enhance realism.

Toyama also hopes Slitterhead can share his enthusiasm for Japanese adult manga with international audiences too. One particularly close to his heart is Tokyo Ghoul—Toyama intends for Slitterhead to channel Tokyo Ghoul's dark antiheroes, with characters who exist on a disturbing spectrum between the human and the monstrous, and its unsettling sense of unrelenting dread.

Monsters are a crucial part of any horror title, and the Slitterheads may well be the star. Toyama explained how they dreamed up the writhing figures of the Slitterheads with the help of the next generation of talent. “Japan is famous for Kaiju films and I’m very fond of those films," he said, "But there's a new wave of sculptors in Japan, younger sculptors who are creating realistic fictional creatures, and I wanted to bring that into the game.”

Bokeh were drawn to one sculptor in particular. Slitterhead’s monster designs are produced by the up-and-coming artist Keisuke Yoneyama, whose demonic work displays a clear eye for the macabre, with gothic bodies full of flayed and withered skin, exposed organs, and stained protrusions of vertebrae.

Honestly, Yoneyama toned it down for the Slitterhead designs, judging by what I’ve seen so far—or at least, I hope so. If I’m wrong, I may just find my ability to sleep snatched from my control once I see the unknown horrors lurking in Kowlong’s disturbing shadows. Then again, the guilt I feel after possessing innocent Kowlongers may keep me up regardless.

Slitterhead releases on the Epic Games Store on November 8. Make sure to check out all of our Gamescom coverage here.