I’m concerned with Silent Hill, again

The masterful Silent Hill 2 remake and the adventurous Silent Hill f had fans hopeful that the franchise would find new life. Konami has recently revealed that Silent Hill will indeed continue, but in a manner worthy of great concern.

In a recent year-end interview with Japanese website 4 Gamer, series producer Motoi Okamoto revealed that Konami is committed to Silent Hill, and that they want to make it a yearly thing. Currently, Konami is employing different studios to work on the announced Silent Hill games, Townfall, and the remake of the original Silent Hill game. That’s the right approach.

The dawn of a new era? Screenshot by Destructoid

They have a higher chance of meeting the high-quality standards of fans, as opposed to having the same studio continuously trying to meet short deadlines to release a fresh and authentic-feeling title. Still, we can look into so many big franchises like Harry Potter, Star Wars, and the MCU to realize you can easily have people fatigued through relentless output.

The original Silent Hill completely changed the gaming landscape because it was allowed to. Konami didn’t originally know what to do with the members of what would become “Team Silent,” so the company tasked them with doing whatever they wanted, however they wanted, so long as it would result in a horror game. Konami knew that Resident Evil‘s massive success ensured that every subsequent survival horror title would turn a profit. What it didn’t know, however, was that the team was also cracking the code on how to make a great game.

While Konami is currently fulfilling everyone’s Silent Hill needs, that hasn’t been the case for quite a while. After the incredibly promising Silent Hills got axed in 2014, we had one entire decade where the only official Silent Hill outings were pachinko machines. No, really. The new course correction lands the series at the opposite end of the spectrum it had inhabited for the past decade. Are we about to find out that longing for Silent Hill was better than just seeing it become another product aimed at just profiting on all fronts? Motoi Okamoto’s statement, “In the future, the number of merchandise items will increase, so I think there will be even more fun outside of games,” seems to point to the less-desired outcome.

Silent Hill’s wider future

Silent Hill features companion products, such as a novel that expands on the game’s lore, a practice I’m not keen on. I believe everything about a game’s background should be contained within the game itself. This way, you have a full experience, not something whose supposed incomplete state can be exploited by a company to extract extra money from fans.

Konami is also trying to expand Silent Hill in more conventional ways. After the abject failure of the second Silent Hill movie, Silent Hill: Revelation, and the terrible Silent Hill interactive series, Konami is having a more serious go with Return to Silent Hill. It’s a live-action retelling of Silent Hill 2, the series’ trump card, but it has already been met with criticism. The first released trailer drew the ire of so many fans that the studio decided to remove it a couple of hours later.

I like what they’re going for, a reimagining of SH2 instead of another straight-up remake, though I fear the production may not have as much budget as they probably needed to realize their ambitious vision. I just could do without the trailer hammering that it’s “Based on the visionary game Silent Hill 2” twice.

Either way, Cristophe Gans is a great director. Chances are, you know he directed the underrated first Silent Hill film, but did you know his Brotherhood of the Wolf film directly inspired the hunters from Bloodborne? Bloober Team definitely had a weaker track record before doing Silent Hill 2 Remake, and they sure did pull it off, so let’s give the man a chance.

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