Operation Backlog Completion 2026
Jan 272020
 

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.

Jan 242020
 

The isekai visual novel Ascendant Hearts, which I wrote the script for, is coming to the Nintendo Switch!

It will be available from the Nintendo eShop for $9.99 on January 30.

Ascendant Hearts is a romantic comedy visual novel about a young man who wakes up in a fantasy world where the rules of RPGs govern real life. It parodies a lot of JRPG and MMORPG tropes, and it’s also a galge/bishojo game with three possible romance options.

I’m excited that a project I played a major role in is going to be available on Switch. I had a lot of fun working on Ascendant Hearts, so I hope you’ll take a look if you like romance visual novels.

(Speaking of such things, people responded positively to my social media polls about holding a romance game event in February, so you can look forward to those reviews coming up next month!)

Here is the new trailer for the Switch release of Ascendant Hearts.


(I almost posted another Kingdom Hearts article today instead, since the KHUX team’s announcement turned out to be “Project Xehanort,” an upcoming prequel about Young Xehanort… for mobile devices. I’ve wanted that game forever, so I would be much more excited if it wasn’t a mobile game.

I decided to save that post for once we have more information.)


Anyway, what do you think of Ascendant Hearts and its upcoming Switch release? Let me know in the comments!

Jan 222020
 

Kingdom Hearts III’s Re:Mind DLC is almost here. It will officially be available tonight at midnight.

Ahead of the DLC launch, the 1.09 update is also available.

This update includes adjustments to cutscenes in the main game, mainly along the lines of improving lighting and animations, changing some camera angles, more focus on characters like Riku during the ending, etc. So don’t worry about missing any story content if you’ve already played (although the updated cutscenes can be watched in theater mode).

It also adds Oathkeeper & Oblivion (unlockable if you’ve found all of the Lucky Emblems and finished the game on Critical Mode, respectively), new forms, and new abilities.

But for me, the most exciting Kingdom Hearts III news of the day is the “13 Questions of Darkness” Q&A posted on Twitter and translated by Goldpanner.

After going through some general information about the free updates and Re:Mind, including the decision to put the Final Fantasy characters in Re:Mind’s story and the debate about whether or not a certain member of the New Organization XIII should be included among the limit cut bosses, it moves on to the amount of content in Re:Mind.

According to this interview, while a new world was initially considered for Re:Mind before they decided it would feel strange to add it in, the total content included in Re:Mind is equivalent to “more than one world’s worth of content.”

Then it gets into the most interesting parts of all. Re:Mind’s title screen “serves as a piece of foundation” for the next Kingdom Hearts game, which they’re already working on. There are also two more teams working on Kingdom Hearts in addition to the KH3 and KHUX teams, and one of them has a title “coming surprisingly soon.”

A surprising KHUX announcement is also set for tomorrow.

This has spurred all sorts of speculation about the new title coming out. It’s not a mainline title, but that still leaves open a lot of possibilities. Some people think it’s just a port to another system, while others think it might linked to the KHUX team’s announcement and be a full console version of KHUX.

Personally, that’s what I’m hoping for, since the KHUX story is too good (and important) to be confined to a mobile game forever. Whatever it is, I’m excited for both Re:Mind and all the upcoming Kingdom Hearts announcements!

Update: They’ve also tweeted this new artwork, which suggests the KHUX news might be linked in some way to Young Xehanort.

What do you think the KHUX team is going to announce? What do you expect from the non-mainline title from one of the new teams? Share your thoughts in the comments.