PixlBit

As the game goes into the final stretch, a key player bows out.

Silent Hill: Downpour is expected to hit stores next March, as part of Konami’s major push for the horror series. With the game reaching that final crunch period, it was announced that the design director, Brian Gomez, has left the project. But the sudden departure isn’t from overwork or creative differences, but something more personal.

Gomez had spent the development time on Downpour commuting between Los Angeles and Brno, a city in the Czech Republic where his family lives and where Vatra, the games' developer is housed.

Brian Gomez addressed a letter to the Silent Hill Historical Society, an enthusiast website for the game series, and gave further details. “When it was announced that Downpour was being delayed to 2012, my family and I came to the decision that I couldn’t keep making the commute between Los Angeles and Brno for another 4-6 months,” he said. While that may seem like a crucial point in time to leave a major game project like Silent Hill: Downpour, Gomez went on to allay any concerns from fans: “Downpour is so close to completion, there’s not a lot more that I can personally do for the project that Devin, Tomm, and Marek Berka cannot handle on their own.”

Moving forward, Gomez stated that he would like to work in the horror genre again, though he could not comment in depth on projects he’s looking at. “You can rest assured that some of the projects I’m looking at are survival horror related. There’s a lot of things I still want to do in this genre that Konami simply didn’t let me do.”

Downpour comes out March 2012, right after the releases of Silent Hill HD Collection and Silent Hill: Book of Memories for the PS Vita.