For the delight of fans of this genre, the survival horror hiatus is no more. With games like Outlast, The Evil Within, Alien Isolation and upcoming ones like The Order 1886 and Resident Evil Remake Remastered, it seems like we are going to see a lot of horror coming to this generation. Most of the big hitters are going to have an appearance including a new Fatal Frame game for the Wii U (if it makes it to our shores), but up until now there is one that has been missing in action and hasn't shown any concrete signs of it making a come back. It was the Resident Evil direct competition back in the day and a very good survival horror game, Silent Hill.
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| The HD version of Silent Hill 2 had some classic cutscenes removed because they were seen as "inappropriate". |
The reasons why this game franchise hasn't made an appearance on this generation can only be a matter of speculation right now and even though we are not completely in the dark about it, details about the future of the franchise have been a little thin. One of them is that
Hideo Kojima has set his eyes on the franchise since 2012 because he thought and commented about how good it would look on the
Fox Engine. These comments were only based on Kojima's experience watching the latest
Silent Hill movie at the time, so it only lifts a small speck of hope at best. Even in the best case scenario, if Kojima decided to work on the franchise it would be something that would be releasing at 2016 or something because he has been too busy finishing and promoting Metal Gear Solid V. It is most likely that even if he has any real interest on Silent Hill, the ideas must still be on paper and not even funded yet.
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| Robbie the rabbit is a staple of the series and he became really popular after Silent Hill 3. |
Another piece of information is related to Climax, which are the developers that made Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. The studio CEO said in 2013 that they are working on 3 new titles, 2 for the PS4 and one for the Xbox One and even boasted about how they were the most "next-gen" experienced studio to ever work with that type of technology. The thing is that rumors state that they are working on a Prince of Persia type of game and a new horror IP. This leaves a 1 out of 3 possibility of having a new Silent Hill game coming from them and if we take into account that one of the rumored games in development is a NEW horror IP, the possibilities get even smaller. Besides, their take on the Silent Hill series was more of a strange reboot in which you did not fought any enemies at all and that wasn't so hot with fans of the franchise.
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| Did you know that Silent Hill 4 was not going to be a Silent Hill game at all? |
Some of the oldest Silent Hill fans say that the best thing to do with the franchise is to go ahead and reunite the original Team Silent. We have to admit that at the time when they were still together, they were the survival horror "dream team" with a group entirely composed of horror-oriented developers and artists. Now back to the reality, we have to accept that reuniting this once powerful team is too difficult right now as many of their former members are scattered all around and even if some of them are still working for Konami, important members of the team like Keishiro Toyama (Silent Hill director), Akira Yamaoka (Sound director for the series) and Takayoshi Sato (creator of the first 2 Silent Hill games) are too difficult to reach because they are either working for another company or on personal projects, so making a Team Silent reunion has become something a little too complicated to do right now.
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| Silent Hill Downpour was an good game, it's only real fault was having bad battle controls. |
Wrapping it up
A new Silent Hill game is not an impossible thing as the fans want it and it has been 4 years since we last played a real one and no, the HD Collection and Book of Memories doesn't count. Up until now all we have are rumors and wishful thinking, but a new entry on the franchise can happen as long as this horror trend keeps up. The best thing we can do is to vote with out wallets and support the genre so that the higher ups at Konami see that they can give the franchise another chance and decide to give it a go and make a new full scale Silent Hill project. Once again as I have said before, it is up to us.
Update (8/13/2014): Its funny how 3 days after this blog entry, we get the surprise of Silent Hills through the P.T teaser demo. I'm like super hyped about it as the demo itself was pretty neat.
Sources:
GamesRadar: Hideo Kojima Expresses Interest in Silent Hill (2012).
VideoGamer: Silent Hill Shattered Memories Dev working on 2 ps4 games and 1 Xbox One game (2013).
GiantBomb: Team Silent
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