Well, for this article in my series about horror videogames, I thought that I’d look at how the classic “Silent Hill” games (1999-2004) use subtitles. Like with the classic “Resident Evil” games (1996-2004), these games were made in Japan and set in the US – with the only voice-acting recorded for the games being in English.
This was probably – in part – a money-saving thing (since the US was a larger market for these games), but also probably something of a stylistic choice that helped to emphasise the US settings of these games too. From everything I’ve seen on Youtube, the original Japanese editions of these games added Japanese subtitles to the English dialogue – presumably to give the impression of watching a Hollywood movie.
Yet, whilst the classic “Resident Evil” games seem to ditch the subtitles (either removing them completely or not activating them by default) in English-language editions, the classic “Silent Hill” games keep English subtitles turned on by default in English-language editions:
Here are examples of subtitled English dialogue in the first four “Silent Hill” games (1999-2004).
Whilst this is obviously good from an accessibility perspective, I’d argue that the default English subtitles also improve these four games in a number of other ways too.
First of all, all of the non-voiced observations that the main characters can make whenever they examine anything are usually rendered in the same font and style as the dialogue subtitles. This deepens the player’s immersion in the game by subtly making them think that the main character is speaking even when there isn’t any voice-acting (since I imagine the cost, file space etc… for recording audio for literally ALL of these observations would have been too much) because it looks identical to the dialogue subtitles. This blurring between thought and speech also links in well to the series’ psychological horror elements, where reality itself is often uncertain.
Yes, the classic “Resident Evil” games also include observation text whenever you look at anything, but it seems more clearly separate from the dialogue due to the lack of default dialogue subtitles. It comes across more clearly as a character’s thoughts… which makes also sense on an artistic level, given that this series focuses on a more “realistic” atmosphere and non-paranormal sci-fi horror. Still, the larger difference between observations and dialogue makes the budgetary and/or file-space limitations seem a little bit more obvious (and is perhaps very mildly immersion-breaking too).
Secondly, the subtitles can also set the mood of the classic “Silent Hill” games very subtly. This is something that I first noticed when I compiled the examples for this article – the font for the subtitles in “Silent Hill 2” (2001) looks very slightly more grey and faded than the fonts used in the other three games. Although this could have just been a technical mistake, it also fits absolutely perfectly into the more muted and melancholy atmosphere of this game too. Given that most of this game’s dialogue is a little bit more hesitant and understated, the slightly more muted font colour seems to express this in a very subtle way.
Thirdly, the default English subtitles also help to emphasise these games’ story elements too. One of the major features of classic “Silent Hill” is a greater emphasis on storytelling. Although the main stories of these four games are usually relatively streamlined, there are so many intriguingly mysterious world-building details, hints of side-stories involving other characters etc… too. These are well-written games, and the subtitles help a lot with this. Not only do they help to ensure that players don’t accidentally miss plot details during dialogue segments, but the very act of reading the game’s dialogue also lends each game a very slightly more novelistic quality too.
Fourthly, it is perhaps designed to be very slightly unusual. Although the reality is probably more nuanced, the US has a reputation for preferring dubbing to subtitles for films recorded in languages other than English. There is slightly less of an aversion to subtitles here in the UK, but they are still uncommon and sort of seen as a “sophisticated” kind of thing (seriously, it was kind of a big deal when “Les Revenants”/”The Returned” was shown on TV here in 2013 with it’s original French dialogue). Compare this to, well, most of the world, where subtitles for popular English-language films are a lot more common, ordinary, unremarkable etc…
So, given how unused some English-speaking audiences are to seeing subtitles in films, the decision to add default English subtitles to the classic “Silent Hill” games was a really clever way of messing with these players. It adds a very subtle… strangeness… to these games for people unused to subtitles. Ok, probably not that strange for people who regularly use closed captions for either accessibility reasons or just to be able to watch something “in the background”. But, it goes against traditional expectations – and this plays into the slightly disorientating atmosphere of these games absolutely perfectly 🙂
Finally, in Europe at least, it was probably just an easier choice. Given the large number of languages here, subtitles were probably the quickest and cheapest way to release these games in multiple countries (especially since these games already had built-in subtitle capabilities for their original Japanese release). Since the original voice-acting was in English, it was probably even quicker and easier to just transcribe it – whilst also translating the text into several other European languages too. Although information is difficult to find for some games in the series, the GOG PC re-release of “Silent Hill 4: The Room” (2004) includes English, German, Spanish, French and Italian subtitles.
Even though these are only a fraction of all of the languages spoken in Europe, they are perhaps the most common and/or widely-spoken languages (as either first or second languages). And subtitles are probably especially useful for second-language speakers too, since – if my limited knowledge of French is anything to go by – it’s easier to understand written text in a second language than it is to understand speech.
Plus, given that this European release required five translations, I can certainly see why it was easier to just keep the subtitles on in ALL languages because, outside of the UK, Ireland and possibly Malta, default translated subtitles would be expected in a game with English dialogue.
So, yes, although there were certainly good practical reasons (eg: accessibility, releasing the game in Europe etc..) for why these games keep their subtitles on by default, I’d argue that the default English language subtitles were also an artistic choice as well as a practical one.
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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂
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