It's been a month since we heard last from Silent Hill Origins, but now the silence is broken with details of PLAY Magazine's interview with Climax Studio's William Oertel, details which reinforce the hope that not only is SHO still on track, but progressing well enough. And the details were reported by GameFront.de, which means more wonderful weblator and Engrish adventures in lost translations.

So far, the game's at 70% completion, Oertel tells PLAY - and they're also looking forwards to a February 2007 European release date. Release dates can change, true, but these should help form some rough estimates about how the game's going, and when we're likely to see it.

Now for some gameplay details. The original version of the game was supposed to feature "barricades" that players could use to block off monsters. Climax decided to scrap this during the dev process because it was too time-consuming and complicated. And besides, "one wants to make a great Silent Hill play and no great barricade play". Okay, that's the weblator talking, but the idea could not have been said more perfectly.

Here's where it gets confusing: mention is made of inventory management. "The player is to have had to however always deposit everything not somewhere with itself and objects in crates, to which he must run back then." We understand this as inventory deposit boxes in fixed areas a la Resident Evil, but the "however" in the weblation threw us for a loop.

Here's another one: "The flashlight participates again also, the radio with some changes will again emerge: In the discussion is a visual announcement." We're curious: what "visual announcement" with the radio? Climax is also implementing a new aiming mechanism for the game (the laser sighting had been removed), but no details were revealed in GameFront.

This one was clear as day, however - unless the weblator's screwy again: "The producer would make Silent Hill also gladly for the PS2."