Let’s Discuss the Silent Hill Reboot Rumors

Last week, rumors began circulating about a potential soft reboot for the Silent Hill series, with two new games supposedly in development.

Eurogamer reported about how a leaker on Twitter known as AestheticGamer had tweeted about these projects.

According to the tweets, Konami reached out to developers a couple years ago with pitches for two Silent Hill games. One would be a soft reboot for the series, while the other would be an episodic spin-off in the style of Until Dawn or Telltale’s games.

This revelation caused a flurry of speculation, especially since Silent Hill art director Masahiro Ito is working on a new game. People already wondered if he might be involved with Kojima’s in-development horror game, and so now of course some fans are theorizing that Konami and Kojima might be working together again on the next Silent Hill game.

Since then, AestheticGame has clarified that this information comes from Konami approaching the developers a couple years ago, so it’s only speculation that the games are actually in development. However, Rely on Horror has also reported an independent source saying Konami has a Silent Hill game in development.

Konami responded to Eurogamer to say they are “considering ways to provide the next title.”

I don’t know how to feel about these rumors. As much as I love Silent Hill, I’d pretty much given it up for dead… and even if they do have new Silent Hill games in development, I don’t have much faith.

Let’s talk about the rumored main entry, the soft reboot for the series. What does a soft reboot of the Silent Hill series even look like? Several of the games already stand on their own well enough, and Downpour was so far removed from everything else in the series it could almost be a soft reboot itself. Then again, some people felt Silent Hills would be different enough from the previous games to be a soft reboot, as well.

Aside from my confusion over the nature of the reboot, though, I just don’t have confidence that they will make another game that feels like Silent Hill. I’m worried it will try to mimic the past games without understanding them, or try too hard to explain how the town works (a criticism I had of Downpour).

As for the spin-off, I don’t know. I’m sure it would be fine as a spin-off, but planning a spin-off at the same time as the next mainline game just makes me wonder what they have in mind for the series.

Of course, a lot of this depends on which developers they got to work on the games, too. Who knows? Maybe they’ll surprise me. For now, however, I’m not holding my breath about Silent Hill making a proper return.

What do you think? Are the rumors of two new in-development Silent Hill games true, and do you think they’ll do the series justice? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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