The team behind the successful Silent Hill 2 remake has just posted a bizarre 18th-century poem and fans can’t stop speculating

Bloober Team, known for their work on the Silent Hill 2 remake and the horror game Cronos, has put up a cryptic website themed around a bloody rose with a countdown aiming for Feb. 14. Fans are already doing their detective work, as this could be either a new game or a new remake of a popular horror IP.

The website’s URL is total gibberish, or so I think, though it could be some other cryptic message that I have yet to decode. Everything on it is themed around this rose, with an 18th-century poem by William Blake, The Sick Rose, recited when you press the play button at the center. Whatever this could mean, I have no idea, though it could be a fun community-oriented teaser much like what Larian Studios did with that Divinity statue ahead of TGA.

Image via Bloober Team

Fan speculation is running rampant already, though. Some believe this could be a hint toward a potential Rule of Rose remake, given how well-known Bloober Team is for remaking popular horror IPs. It is a 2006 title made by the Japanese studio Punchline for the PS2, itself inspired by Silent Hill. The rose theme permeating the entire teaser and the fact that Bloober has already worked with Japanese studios on a horror remake do give strong indications of this being a Rule of Rose remake.

However, that game has been locked and buried for many years now, nor is it part of a broader franchise with a AAA studio looking to capitalize on it with new releases and use past games as a means to market their new ones (like Konami in the cases of Silent Hill 2 and f). Anything could happen, though, and it wouldn’t be the first time a classic game had been resurrected.

Another theory I saw, and this one could be a little more far-fetched, is that this is a teaser for a Silent Hill 2 DLC. Courtesy of Reddit user “701921225,” the theory is based on the hidden messaging of the background poem, The Sick Rose.

“‘O rose thou art sick’,” the first line, “could refer to Mary,” the user noted. The invisible worm that flies in the night” could refer to a butterfly, which Maria has a tattoo of. “In the howling storm” could refer to Silent Hill‘s fog,” they added.

“And finally, ‘His dark secret love does thy life destroy’ sounds an awful lot like James to me.”

It surely would be quite the code to write into a 250-year-old poem, but it’s not out of the question. Larian truly showed how this style of marketing is very fruitful and leads players to engage with the product in question on a much deeper level. The marketing campaign is itself gameified, and if Divinity is anything to go by, that’s a hell of a tactic if you want to get people talking about your title.

On Feb. 14, all shall be revealed, with Bloober likely to update the site as we get closer to the cut-off point. Whatever it turns out to be, I have no doubt it’ll be a quality experience, whether a remake of a past game or otherwise.