Konami Hired Silent Hill Artist for Metal Gear Survive’s Creature Design

Konami has tapped Silent Hill artist Masahiro Ito for a new game, and it’s not the one fans expected. According to the credits of Metal Gear Survive — the zombie survival crafting spinoff game, Masahiro Ito was hired to develop the creatures in the game. Twitter user Dreamboum noticed this detail and Ito himself Retweeted the image posted showing his name.

Masahiro Ito (Silent Hill designer) was in charge of creature design for Metal Gear Survive pic.twitter.com/uNUgn0D2Yd — Dreamboum (@Dreamboum) February 10, 2018

Without having access to Metal Gear Survive, there isn’t much to say on this other than that Konami and Ito are not beyond still working together for actual game releases. As far as I’m aware, he was not initially on board to work on the cancelled Silent Hills. His last known official involvement with the series was the box art design of the line of Gecco Silent Hill figures. Prior to that, he developed environmental art and the created the creatures for series up until Silent Hill 4. He did paint the box art for Silent Hill: Homecoming and Silent Hill: Downpour‘s Japanese releases — Homecoming‘s Japanese release was later cancelled, though.

Knowing this now, though, has me a bit more interested in seeing just what kinds of zombie-monsters we’ll face in Metal Gear Survive. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen Ito’s designs come to life in a game (NightCry being the last, but the ScissorWalker concept art was better than the 3D model). I hope Metal Gear Survive does his work justice when it releases on February 20 for PC, Xbox One and PS4.