Remember what went through your head when you first saw Pyramid Head? The towering figure dragging its giant blade on the ground, its triangular helmet making it appear as both a torturer and victim.
Like many other grotesque creatures from the Silent Hill series, Pyramid Head is not merely a mindless monster, but a physical embodiment of negative emotions that’s deeply symbolic to the person it torments.
This is a hallmark of Masahiro Ito’s work, whose haunting creations are now once again in full focus following the recent release of the critically acclaimed Silent Hill 2 remake.
Meet Masahiro Ito
Born in 1972, Masahiro Ito is a Japanese artist best known for his contributions to the Silent Hill series. His involvement with Konami’s franchise spans 24 credits for concept art, creature design, art direction, and video editing, among other contributions (not accounting for “special thanks”). Ito was deeply involved in the creation of the first three Silent Hill games, after which he left the Konami-owned Team Silent, citing burnout.
Ito’s designs and art direction played a pivotal role in establishing Silent Hill’s visual identity. They also added to the original trilogy’s psychological depth. Many of his monster designs were envisioned as manifestations of the horrors tying into the games’ themes.
Aside from his profound impact on the franchise, Ito is today known as the only member of the original Team Silent who regularly interacts with English-speaking fans on social media.
Ito’s most iconic Silent Hill characters
According to Ito himself, he designed “about half” of the creatures from the 1999 Silent Hill, and all of the monsters for its 2001 sequel.
Pyramid Head holds a widely recognized and iconic status among Ito’s works. Officially called Red Pyramid Thing, this grotesque creature was created for Silent Hill 2 as a manifestation of the protagonist’s psyche. It has a distinctive, instantly recognizable design, characterized by a humanoid body with a featureless angular helmet.
Compared to many other iconic horror game villains—like Resident Evil’s Nemesis or Outlast’s Chris Walker—Pyramid Head stands out as more of a tormentor than a constant threat. Its methodical movement and tendency to stalk its victims imply the violence associated with it more than it is shown.
Between its origin story, villain role, and unsettling appearance, Pyramid Head became the embodiment of the Silent Hill 2 brand of psychological horror. Its design left a lasting impact on the franchise, being reused in later games and spin-off media, despite Ito’s disapproval.
The Bubble Head Nurse is one of Silent Hill 2’s most infamous creatures, representing the protagonist’s complex feelings about women and sexuality. Its eerie, exaggerated form showcases Masahiro Ito’s talent for blending the disturbing with the symbolic.
Equally haunting is the Lying Figure, a grotesque presence that wears its own skin like a straightjacket, symbolizing themes of entrapment and suffering. It appeared in a scene that few Silent Hill 2 players will ever forget.
No less memorable is Valtiel, one of the few Silent Hill 3 monsters that Ito personally designed. Valtiel takes the form of a featureless humanoid figure wearing a butcher apron. Though not portrayed as a traditional villain, it’s still one of the game’s most disturbing creatures. Valtiel is just as pivotal to its story as Pyramid Head is to Silent Hill 2.
Francis Bacon inspired Ito’s characters
Ito’s art style, which defined his Silent Hill characters, was largely established during his college days in the early to mid 90s. This period saw him draw inspiration from Francis Bacon—a 20th-century British figurative painter, whose work is full of depictions of distorted humanoid figures in unusual, often claustrophobic spaces. Bacon’s style combines abstract shapes with brutal realism, giving it a surreal look and unsettling qualities that Silent Hill fans may find familiar.
Ito also cited Horst Janssen and Magdalena Abakanowicz as influences on his style. Janssen is a German illustrator with a body of work that focuses on blending realism with expressive, near-chaotic elements. He was known to explore themes of mortality and decay—something that’s also true for Ito’s Silent Hill art.
As for Abakanowicz, the Polish sculptor and fiber artist’s influence on Ito’s work is reflected in her fascination with the human condition, specifically its fragility. Many of her sculptures combine shapes and textures in a way that communicates both strength and vulnerability. Ito’s Silent Hill creature designs achieve something similar, appearing equal parts menacing and miserable.
Ito also acknowledged Italian painter Caravaggio as an influence, but mostly on a technical rather than thematic level. Caravaggio’s use of light and shadow (“chiaroscuro”) had an influence on Ito’s college-era works such as the “Strange Head” series of oil and acrylic paintings. These, in turn, became the foundation for Pyramid Head’s design, along with the grim executioner scene from the 1995 blockbuster Braveheart.
Beyond that, Ito mentioned the environmental installations of Christo Vladimirov Javacheff and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon as inspiring the Silent Hill 2 Otherworld. While their work wasn’t used as the basis for any of his characters, its focus on weird geometry resembles Ito’s concept art.
Ito also drew inspiration from various other sources, including BDSM fashion, which influenced early concepts for the Lying Figure and Valtiel. He incorporated elements of fetish wear and surreal geometry to create monsters that embody both suffering and menace.
Will Masahiro Ito return to Silent Hill?
Ito’s involvement in the Silent Hill 2 remake shows that he’s still committed to expanding the iconic horror franchise he helped create. While it’s promising, there’s no guarantee he’ll come back for another game.
After all, Ito himself recently said he almost rejected the offer to work on the Silent Hill 2 remake because he didn’t see a need for it—only to relent at the last moment, after it became clear the project would continue without him.
Two more series entries are currently known to be in the works, NeoBards’ Silent Hill f and No Code’s Silent Hill: Townfall. Ito already ruled himself out of the former, saying he’s not involved in Silent Hill f shortly following its late 2022 announcement. There are also currently no indications that he’s working on Townfall.
Since Ito’s main specialties are concept artwork and art direction, it’s not feasible for him to join projects that are already deep into development. Therefore, if he were to come back for another Silent Hill game, that would need to be a different, unannounced project that’s still in its infancy.