20 Mind-Blowing Facts You Didn't Know About Silent Hill

3. ...And Horror Authors

Whilst the environment of the second game is said to be loosely based on the real-life town of San Bruno, California, to a some extent, the topography of Silent Hill in its initial incarnation is entirely made up. Not only that, but in its streets (and on the map you piece together as you play) of the town are full of references to horror authors. Where the shout-outs to its major movie influences come in visual gags hidden throughout the game world, for the more literary inspirations can be found in the street names of Silent Hill. The first go around had no pretensions of, say, taking the plot of a Dostoevsky novel as it starting point. It did, however, feature roads named after Ira Levin (author of The Stepford Wives and Rosemary's Baby), Richard Matheson (who penned I Am Legend and a bunch of early, classic Twilight Zone episodes adapted from his own short stories), Robert Bloch (the guy who introduced Psycho to the world), Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451) and Richard Bachman (a pen name used by Stephen King).