Legendary horror dev says the whole time he was making Silent Hill 1, 2, 3, and "a cancelled title, I never had any girlfriends. Coz I had no time for it"

Silent Hill 2 Remake
(Image credit: Konami)

Legendary Silent Hill artist Masahiro Ito had to abstain from romantic relationships earlier in his career simply because he didn't have time for them.

Ito was art director on Team Silent and served as creature designer for Silent Hill, art director on Silent Hill 2 - a role in which he came up with the iconic Pyramid Head monster - and art director on Silent Hill 3. He also played an active part in the development of the recently released and highly acclaimed Silent Hill 2 Remake.

According to Ito, in all the time spent studying art and then creating some of the most nightmare-inducing monsters the gaming medium has ever produced, he never once had a girlfriend.

"As a side note, all the time I was attending my art university or was developing Silent Hill 1/2/3 & a cancelled title, I never had any girlfriends," Ito offered up on Twitter. "Coz I had no time for it."

Frankly, the fact that Ito made this substantial sacrifice for the sake of straight-up defining PS1 and PS2 horror is iconic and makes him even more of a legend than he already was. Ito is fairly private about his personal life, but he's very outspoken when it comes to his work. He recently affirmed his GOAT status when he took Silent Hill weirdos to task over their criticism of some of the character models in Silent Hill 2 Remake, saying, "I really wish they were not children but adults".

Ito originally didn't want the Silent Hill 2 Remake to happen, but decided to cooperate to "make sure the core was preserved".

Jordan Gerblick

After scoring a degree in English from ASU, I worked as a copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. Now, as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer, I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my apartment, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.

Read more
Silent Hill f
Don't ask Pyramid Head's creator what he knows about Silent Hill f: "I didn't work on it"
Silent Hill 2
Famed Silent Hill artist Masahiro Ito, creator of Pyramid Head, says scrapped concepts of freaky creatures "still exist in my mind" and "their children may be" used in future titles
Pyramid Head stands in the rain in the Silent Hill 2 remake.
Silent Hill 2 remake director had no choice but to make Pyramid Head "more aggressive and faster" during his iconic fight: "We've been losing something, but we've been gaining something, too"
Silent Hill f
Famed Higurashi When They Cry creator Ryukishi07 says he worked so hard on the Silent Hill f story that "I don't think I would mind if it was the last thing I ever wrote"
Silent Hill f
Silent Hill f writer says many of the franchise's female characters experience "a great deal of suffering," so he wants his protagonist "to be able to make her own decisions, for better or for worse"
Kemuri
Horror game legend Ikumi Nakamura swaps her love of gore for true romance by helping dev use custom sidequest as real-life proposal: "Moments like this remind me how lucky I am"
Latest in Silent Hill
Silent Hill f screenshot showing the protagonist
Silent Hill f hasn't actually been banned in Australia, but it's not out of the woods yet
Silent Hill f art showing a person covered in plants
Silent Hill f has been pre-emptively banned in Australia, with no reason given for the 'refused classification' rating
Silent Hill 2
Famed Silent Hill artist Masahiro Ito, creator of Pyramid Head, says scrapped concepts of freaky creatures "still exist in my mind" and "their children may be" used in future titles
Silent Hill f: A close-up on Hinako Shimizu's face during the reveal trailer for the new Silent Hill game.
Silent Hill f: Everything we know about the new survival horror game
Angela holds a knife in Silent Hill 2 remake
Silent Hill 2 remake dev says he was "afraid there might be no good way" to rebuild the classic game without "archaic solutions and mechanics"
Silent Hill 2
After Silent Hill 2 helped Bloober Team redeem itself, is the once-controversial studio poised to become horror's latest darling?
Latest in News
Pillars of Eternity
10 years later, in a post-Baldur's Gate 3 and Avowed world, Obsidian is giving its own throwback CRPG Pillars of Eternity a turn-based combat mode
Destiny 2 Lightfall
When Destiny 2 "weekly active users dropped lower and faster than we'd seen since 2018," Bungie assembled an A-Team to put out some fires: "We needed to do something"
Velma, Daphne, Fred, Shaggy, and Scooby-Doo looking at a giant key which is also a clue
Netflix is rebooting Scooby-Doo as a live-action series from the producer of Supergirl and The Flash centered around a "supernatural murder" at a summer camp
Astro Bot
Astro Bot went through 23 pitch iterations before its director promised PlayStation "happy gameplay" and "overflowing charm," though it did once end with robot decapitation that made "some people really upset"
Tomb Raider
5 years after Avengers, 2 years after its last layoffs, and who knows how long before Perfect Dark and Tomb Raider return, Crystal Dynamics announces another round of layoffs
AI Limit
"AI is not as effective as it might appear": Dev of AI-focused Soulslike RPG says they didn't use any AI-generated content and it can't match "genuine creativity"