Masahiro Ito

Masahiro Ito is a video game designer, born in Saitama, Japan in 1972. He is an art director and illustrator most known for his monster and background design for the first three Silent Hill games. Even after Team Silent (the team behind the games) split, he continued assisting in the design of many Silent Hill games. He also created art for Metal Gear Solid 4.

Some of his most notable work includes the creation of Pyramid Head and all the other monsters in the Silent Hill series, taking inspiration from Francis Bacon, Horst Janssen, and Magdalena Abakanowicz. His designs of the enemies have humanoid features, but they also have different aspects that are distorted in order to highlight the symbolism behind human wrongdoings and each character’s innermost guilt and regret. His contributions towards the art direction of the games contributed to Silent Hill's eerie and unsettling psychological environment.