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Celebrating All Things Spooky: Silent Hill News Extravaganza

 Celebrating All Things Spooky, Video games  4 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Oct 212022
 

What could be more fitting for Celebrating All Things Spooky than the revival of Silent Hill?

I was nervous going into the Silent Hill Transmission broadcast Wednesday evening, but now I’m cautiously optimistic.

Despite my skepticism about the numerous Silent Hill rumors that had been floating around, Konami really did announce multiple Silent Hill projects, the first of which had been widely rumored for a while: a Silent Hill 2 remake.

Silent Hill 2 remake

Silent Hill 2 will be remade by Bloober Team for PS5 and PC.

I’ve played most of Bloober Team’s horror games, and while they haven’t reached the heights of Silent Hill, it’s felt to me like they’ve been dying to make a Silent Hill game for a while now. Between that and the reports that they’re working closely with the original creators, I think the Silent Hill 2 remake has the potential to be amazing.

The trailer looks beautiful, except for James’s face.

I don’t know what it is. Something about his face just looks off to me. He doesn’t look like what I’d imagine James Sunderland in modern graphics would look like. Everything else looks great, so maybe I’ll get used to his face after a while.

Confirmed changes are an over-the-shoulder camera and a rebuilt combat system.

Personally, I’m hoping they keep the story completely intact without any changes and that the gameplay changes retain the atmosphere of the original.

A Silent Hill 2 remake would have been exciting enough on its own, but that was only the first of the projects announced.

Silent Hill: Townfall

The next game announced was Silent Hill: Townfall, developed by No Code and published by Annapurna Interactive. No Code developed Stories Untold and Observation (not to be confused with Bloober Team’s horror game Observer), both of which I enjoyed. I found some aspects of Observation to be tedious, but the way the story unfolded in Stories Untold has me intrigued to see what No Code might do with Silent Hill.

It’s hard to get a good read on what Townfall will be like, but fans have found the secret message “Whatever heart this town had has now stopped” hidden in the trailer.

From my experience with No Code’s previous games, I’d guess Townfall will be more of a narrative-focused game than survival horror, but we’ll see.

Now, Konami actually had even more announcements than those we’ll discuss here. They announced a new movie, new merchandise, and “a new interactive streaming series where the entire community shapes the canon of Silent Hill” called Silent Hill: Ascension, which sounds… interesting, but not like the sort of thing I’d enjoy.

So let’s jump ahead to the last big announcement, which closed out the showcase.

Silent Hill f

They ended by announcing Silent Hill f, a brand new Silent Hill game that some sites are describing as a spin-off but sounded to me like the next mainline title.

The trailer is creepy, but one thing stood out to me more than anything else: Ryukishi07 is the writer.

If you remember my review of the first chapter of Higurashi last year, you’ll know why I’m excited. Ryukishi07 is most famous for Higurashi and Umineko. Seeing his name attached to a major project like Silent Hill was a shock, but a welcome one.

We know very little about Silent Hill f right now, just that it’s set in 1960s Japan. I don’t know how a Silent Hill game set in a different country than the town of Silent Hill will work. I don’t know how, if at all, this will tie in with the rest of the series.

(I saw a couple theories that the flowers in the trailer could be tied to White Claudia and Aglaophotis, which would be an extremely cool way to tie them together.)

I’m also not sure what to make of it being developed by NeoBards, whose biggest claim to fame right now is having developed Resident Evil: Resistance and Resident Evil Re:Verse, but at least I have confidence that the story and atmosphere will be top-notch.

The designs are also being handled by Kera, who worked on NG, so that’s another positive.

So while I have a lot of questions about Silent Hill f, I’m definitely intrigued by it and much more optimistic than I was going into the broadcast.

How do you feel about the recent deluge of Silent Hill announcements? Has Silent Hill truly been revived?

A New Silent Hill Game Was Rated in Korea

 Video games  2 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Sep 262022
 

I’ve nearly stopped paying attention to Silent Hill rumors.

They seem to crop up every month or so, without any official announcements coming of them.

A lot of fans have taken the latest rumors to be fact. Those rumors claim there are three Silent Hill games in development: a main entry from an unknown developer, a Silent Hill 2 remake from Bloober Team, and an episodic series of short games.

I’m still skeptical. I’ll believe it when I see it (and even then I’ll have doubts about whether or not it will be good).

Anyway, now something has happened that’s a bit more than just a rumor. As reported by Gematsu, Korea’s game ratings board rated a game called Silent Hill: The Short Message.

I’m not sure a game has ever gotten a rating and then turned out to not exist, so this probably means Silent Hill: The Short Message is a real game. The title has led some fans to believe it’s part of the episodic series from the rumors. This is on top of other supposed leaks related to the other two rumored titles.

So for all my skepticism, it sounds like something related to Silent Hill really is happening.

I wish I was more excited, but it’s been so long now that I can’t muster up much enthusiasm. I never thought I’d respond to Silent Hill news with apathy. Maybe once one of these games is actually announced, with official details to give us an idea of what to expect, I’ll feel excited about it again.

What do you think Silent Hill: The Short Message is? Do you believe the other rumored Silent Hill projects are real? And most importantly, are you looking forward to this theoretical Silent Hill revival?

Even More Silent Hill Reboot Rumors

 Video games  3 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Nov 042020
 

Henry Townshend from Silent Hill 4At the start of this year, rumors of a Silent Hill reboot were rampant until Konami denied them.

Silent Hill did see a little bit of renewed life last month with the surprise release of Silent Hill 4: The Room on GOG.

(Although unfortunately it appears to still be missing the hauntings that were cut from the original PC version.)

Now the reboot rumors are in full force once again thanks to a few new sources once again claiming it’s real. First we have Robert Serrano, a business analyst who tweeted that a new Silent Hill for the PS5 will be revealed at the Game Awards.

Rely On Horror reported the claim and mentioned that it “lines up with some information [they] received a little while back.”

Although things quieted down a little bit after Konami’s denial of the rumors in March, it didn’t stop entirely, especially after Konami casually created a Silent Hill Twitter account in July for seemingly no reason except to promote the Dead By Daylight crossover. Now more sources are chiming in to say that there is Silent Hill news on the way.

It’s starting to feel more and more like a new Silent Hill game really will be announced, and I’m not sure how that makes me feel.

First, I’m still not clear on what a Silent Hill reboot would even be. A game without ties to the originals’ stories? They’ve already done that. A game that reinvents the Silent Hill lore? They’ve sort of done that with the later games, too. A reimagining of the first game? Yes, they’ve done that, too!

With a series already as fractured as Silent Hill, what does a reboot even look like?

Then of course there’s my skepticism that a new Silent Hill game will actually be good. The series wasn’t exactly in peak condition when we last saw it, and Konami hasn’t earned much good will since then.

Some of the rumors claim Konami is working directly with Sony on this project, however, which would open the door for all sorts of things – a collaboration with SIE Japan Studio to have a new Silent Hill developed by Project Siren/Team Gravity, the division created by former members of Team Silent? That would probably be the ideal announcement.

Well, the Game Awards are on December 10, so we’ll know in just over a month if the latest rumors are true. Final Fantasy XVI’s announcement really happened… maybe Silent Hill is next.

What do you think? Will the rumored Silent Hill reboot be announced?

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