Two former Konami employees who worked on the Silent Hill games shared the news on the upcoming announcements. While some fans think this could be a teaser for their involvement, it’s more likely they know what’s about to be announced.
That’s because the video game work culture in Japan does have a different kind of close knit ties to America, or any other place in the world. These developers do go out drinking with each other regularly after work, as a somewhat informal custom that they are expected to follow. In many cases even developers from rival game companies are close friends outside work, so it stands to reason that former employees also know what their previous employers would have planned. It is also noteworthy these two former employees are respected veterans, so the current staff at Konami would have worked under them and are deferential to them.
One of the people who shared the news was Akira Yamaoka, a composer who worked at Konami for 17 years, and has been working for Grasshopper Manufacture since 2010. He worked as composer of all the major Silent Hill games, but also has musical credits across Konami’s biggest hits and franchises, including Sparkster, Contra, Gradius, and Rumble Roses. Yamaoka’s most recent horror game projects include Bloober Team’s The Medium, Gungho’s survival action game Deathverse: Let It Die, and upcoming Silent Hill spiritual successor Slitterhead. Given that resume, it’s highly unlikely that he’s working on any of these upcoming Silent Hill projects, though it’s not completely impossible.
The other person was Masahiro Ito, one of the artists who worked on the Silent Hill franchise. He stepped up as art director for Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3, and worked on all four numbered Silent Hill games. He also worked on the spinoff manga Silent Hill: Cage of Cradle. Ito also did some work making monsters for Shadows of the Damned and NightCry.
As an aside, Ito recently revealed how Braveheart inspired him to design Silent Hill’s most popular and enduring character, Pyramid Head.
In 2020, Ito tweeted about working on a new project but had not elaborated. He did mention his position as a core member, and this was shared by Yamaoka.
While no longer employees at Konami, both have stuck close to their roots with Silent Hill, working on many similar horror themed projects. Yamaoka has performed in a series of concerts called Silent Hill Live and Ito loves to share tidbits of art from his time at Konami online.
If anything, they join Christophe Gans as some of the non-Konami employees who already have the inside scoop on Konami’s upcoming projects. We won’t have to wait all that long to find out what those projects are ourselves, as Konami’s Silent Hill Transmission is arriving this October 19, 2022, at 2 PM PDT.
Source: VideoGamesChronicle
