If there is one big name is survival-horror video games, it’s “Resident Evil.” If there are two, the second would be “Silent Hill.” Whereas the former Capcom title focuses on science-created zombies, the latter Konami franchise focuses on psychological horror and demonic entities. The contrast in themes helped make “Silent Hill” its own, very distinct, series and not just a knock-off of another popular game. Unfortunately for fans and the gaming world in general, Silent Hill has been dormant since 2014. Now though, Konami is hinting at some kind of revival via a “transmission” that will be coming in just a couple days.
The last we heard from Silent Hill was 8 years ago in the form of “P.T..” Standing for playable teaser, the puzzling first person horror title was meant to be a coded mystery. The end result was a trailer that showed Norman Reedus, Guillermo Del Toro, and Hideo Kojima collaborating to make a new Silent Hill game, “Silent Hills.” As we know now, it was not meant to be. Konami had a large falling out with Kojima’s internal production team, rendering the famed director persona non grata. “Silent Hills” was scrapped, production on “Metal Gear Solid V” was cut short, Kojima’s name was removed from the box art, and he eventually left to form his own production company.
The fate of not just “Silent Hill” but all other Konami franchises was left in limbo for some time as it seemed the company was giving up on major game production virtually altogether, shifting focus to mobile games, pachinko machines, and slot machines. Side-note here, I can personally attest to Konami’s involvement in slot machines. Having worked in casino/hotel resorts for years, not only have I seen how much money these machines rake in, but I’ve also personally checked in and out of hotel rooms, Konami employees who were installing machines on the premises.
Slowly but surely though, Konami has started to come back to console games; mostly in the form of re-releases. Over the last few years they’ve released compilations of Castlevania, Contra, and most recently their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle titles from the NES, Game Boy, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and arcade machines. Rumor has been circulating for a while now that they might be licensing out a company to work with their intellectual properties and we might just see the results of that.
On October 16th, the official Silent Hill Twitter announced a transmission was coming on October 19th, at 2:00pm (PST). No further information was given, but it’s the first official news of anything happening with the franchise in years. Rumors have indicated Polish game developer Blooper Team was working with Konami on some kind of project. Given the previous games the team worked on included “Observer,” “Layers of Fear,” and “Blair Witch,” speculation was they’d be working on something Silent Hill related. Again, nothing has been confirmed. There was a possible title spotted on a Korean rating site, but that was quickly removed.
We eagerly await whatever this transmission may be and will follow-up on Wednesday. Here’s hoping we can all make a trip back to that “special place” and see what mysteries await within the fog.
