On Wednesday, Konami will officially kickstart Silent Hill with “the newest updates” on a series that has been dormant for a decade. It’s a moment that material-starved admirers have been ready for for yrs. But what will be proven?
We essentially have a good plan, as the rumor mill has been extremely active all over Silent Hill for the finest portion of two years now. So lively, in reality, that it’s develop into relatively puzzling, with various initiatives mooted, and numerous builders explained to be concerned — some new to the sequence, some not.
In this article we do our ideal to kind as a result of the reporting out there and compile it into 4 most important prospective customers. (Unless it is 3…)
Table of Contents
Silent Hill: The Shorter Concept — a playable teaser?
The most concrete indicator of Silent Hill activity in the lead-up to Konami’s expose event was the Korean sport ranking body’s classification of a video game referred to as Silent Hill: The Quick Message. The publisher is Uniana, which, as mentioned by Gematsu, on a regular basis publishes Konami titles in South Korea.
The title indicates a short working experience, and matches up with reports of a playable teaser in the fashion of P.T., the notorious demo for the Kojima Productions’ canceled series reboot, Silent Hills. Video Online games Chronicle said that this teaser, codenamed Sakura, “is intended to be introduced as a no cost digital title to develop anticipation for the larger sized [Silent Hill] assignments.” It is not crystal clear if it is a absolutely stand-by itself working experience or a preview of a new Silent Hill sport.
VGC also connected the teaser to a sequence of photographs purporting to be from a new Silent Hill activity which leaked in May 2022. Konami created a copyright assert in opposition to the photos in an work to take them offline (which both equally failed in its aim and verified their authenticity, as these kinds of promises tend to do).
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Picture: Masahiro Ito/Konami
The images are supposedly from 2020 and present a messy, dilapidated and trash-strewn place a woman’s facial area styled like a collage of scraps of paper, some scrawled with messages like “I dislike myself” a screenshot of another messy area with text overlaid and two visuals of a hallway plastered in put up-it notes, with a determine lined in blossom lurking at the stop.
Just one of the latter illustrations or photos is signed by Masahiro Ito, the art director and monster designer who labored on the very first three games and designed the well-known Pyramid Head character. Ito has mentioned he is performing as portion of the main progress group of a new, unnamed match, and also retweeted the official announcement of Wednesday’s Silent Hill update
The art is mysterious and evocative, while it’s critical to recall that factors may possibly have altered in the previous two yrs. This stays the most concrete prospect for Wednesday’s reveal, however. Immediately after the sensation induced by P.T., repeating the trick with a new teaser makes perception, and we can even hope for a simultaneous release for The Brief Concept this week.
A new, mainline Silent Hill sport — made in Japan?
It’s rational that Konami’s initiatives to revive the franchise would finally end in a continuation or reboot of the major Silent Hill sequence. Many experiences advise that this is happening, although it’s not the only Silent Hill undertaking in the performs. NateTheHate, Jeff Grubb, and VGC all report listening to that a “mainline entry” is in the will work along with other jobs.
That is about all that is identified about this project… except the illustrations or photos stated higher than are really connected to the complete new game somewhat than the teaser, or the video game and the teaser are closely linked. Both of those of these are distinctive opportunities.
In February 2021, VGC documented that Konami had outsourced a Silent Hill venture to “a prominent Japanese developer.” This would seem most very likely to be the home of the new mainline video game, whilst VGC noted that the Japanese undertaking was “something of a departure from past Silent Hill video games.” It would also be a issue of curiosity simply because Konami turned to a collection of Western builders to make Silent Hill video games right after 2004’s Silent Hill 4: The Home, with blended success.
As well as Ito, standard Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka has shared the announcement of Wednesday’s party. In 2021, in a considering that-deleted online video job interview, Yamaoka stated his following challenge would be “the a single you are hoping to hear about.” It would seem as however Konami is building an effort and hard work to spherical up at least a several critical associates of first developer Crew Silent for its new Silent Hill assignments.
A remake of Silent Hill 2 — from Bloober Team
Polish developer Bloober Crew, the horror professional that produced Levels of Worry and The Medium, has been closely joined to the Silent Hill collection since very last 12 months. Speculation started when CEO Peter Babieno instructed GamesIndustry.biz “we’ve been doing the job for additional than a yr on an additional gaming task, a further horror IP, and we’re accomplishing this with a pretty well known gaming publisher. I cannot inform you who. I just can’t explain to you what the challenge is, but I’m fairly certain when persons notice we’re working on it, they will be pretty enthusiastic.”
That the IP would be Silent Hill was much more or fewer confirmed a number of months later on when Bloober declared it was entering a partnership with Konami. Bloober was also recognised to be operating with Yamaoka on a new game, following he had contributed to the soundtrack for The Medium.
For a while, Bloober was assumed to be main Silent Hill reboot or continuation, until eventually the experiences from NateTheHate, Grubb, and VGC in May this 12 months all linked the developer with a remake of 2001’s Silent Hill 2 — which is felt by most lovers to be the finest game in the series. If reports are exact, it will be an extensive reworking of the sport, with numerous new endings and revised AI, animations, and puzzles. Some stories recommend the sport will be a timed PlayStation distinctive.
Some pretty bad good quality photos purporting to be of the Silent Hill 2 remake appeared on Twitter in September. Peering by means of the murk, they did surface to match several aspects of the game. Allegedly they are taken from a pitch demo Bloober built ahead of the task was even greenlit, and really don’t replicate its ultimate good quality.
An episodic sequence of “short stories”
There is a 3rd, or fourth, Silent Hill venture that could or may perhaps not be in creation, but the evidence for this a single is slighter.
Leaker Dusk Golem — liable for the big image leak from the teaser or mainline recreation in Could — said that he had heard as early as 2018 that Konami had been soliciting Silent Hill pitches from studios for two projects. A person was a “reboot,” the other an “episodic match.” In May perhaps of this yr, NateTheHate described “side ‘stories’” as a task in improvement, and VGC referred to “a smaller, episodic collection of ‘short tales.’”
It is been documented that Until Dawn and Darkish Pics developer Supermassive Game titles took portion in this pitch procedure, but was ultimately rejected. Another identify connected with the episodic sequence by VGC’s resources was boutique publisher Annapurna Interactive.
This is the vaguest prospect — and it goes devoid of declaring that none of these tasks is confirmed, and they could all have been canceled or changed, even if they are real. One particular factor is specific, while. With this much rumor and claimed activity, there has been a whole lot heading on driving the scenes on Silent Hill for some time. Konami appears decided to convey the collection back in a big way, performing both equally with external studios and some of the series’ originating abilities. Here’s hoping it will have a thing substantive to demonstrate for its initiatives this week.