Silent Hill is a beloved video game franchise that got its start on the original PlayStation. A team of developers known as Team Silent over at Konami got to work on a new horror title which put players into a terrifying atmospheric world. It released and became a hit leaving the developers to go back and create additional installments. In fact, with the original Team Silent at the helm, we got a total of four titles and most often, fans of the franchise feel that those original four titles were the height of the franchise in general.
After Team Silent was disbanded and Konami attempted to give the franchise a chance with western developers, the charm of the series was never the same. However, after we got the announcement of Silent Hills, a new installment which would be worked on by famed Japanese developer, Hideo Kojima, things looked as if they were turning around for the franchise. Fans were thrilled that the developer would be working on the game and with the help of filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, this title could bring back the terror and atmosphere that the past few installments missed out on.
Well as I’m sure you already know, that never came to fruition. Disputes happened between Hideo Kojima and Konami and as a result, Kojima left to form his own studio. Konami didn’t allow any other developers or teams step up and take over the project but instead canceled it. All that remains are a small teaser trailer and a demo which is only accessible officially by those who managed to get the download before it was taken off the PlayStation storefront.
“Once the Silent Hills meeting was over, we went to karaoke. I didn’t hear anything after that. I heard that the plan got scrapped through outside sources. I have seen Kojima and Del Toro since. I never started designing monsters. Nothing exists. There are no roughs or sketches.”
— Minovsky (@MinovskyArticle) May 10, 2019
Despite not getting the full game, news still trickles out from time-to-time about the game and it looks like there were some fans who were hoping to get even more information this past weekend. During the Toronto Comics Art Festival, Japanese horror manga artists, Junji Ito was present who was previously working on the designs for monsters and characters for Silent Hills. Unfortunately, when asked, it looks like nothing was ever drawn up. Instead, there were some casual meetings but nothing progressed any further. In fact, it was outside sources that told the artists about the game cancellation.
This is a shame as it would have been interesting to see the artwork and designs that would have been used for the game. As it stands right now, Konami has yet to announced any new installments to the franchise while Hideo Kojima is currently developing his first video game under his own studio, Death Stranding.
