Sony Backed Silent Hill Reboot and Silent Hills Revival Rumors Recap
My “another day, another Silent Hills rumor,” line is proving more and more true. It wasn’t two days ago that I was reporting on Norman Reedus mentioning he was working on a thing. It’s 1 a.m. as I’m writing this, so I’ll just get to the meat of things. The rumors today come from two primary sources: Rely on Horror and Twitter user AestheticGamer. While I’m generally not inclined to believe even the most reliable of Twitter sources, Rely on Horror has proven themselves to be… well, a source that you can rely on. Here’s the rough and dirty of it…
The AestheticGamer thread starts with the above Tweet about his previous claims that they were working on not one, but two new Silent Hill games. He starts by stating that two years ago, he heard from people he knew close to Konami that they were pitching studios for two new Silent Hill games. One was a soft reboot, the other an episodic title. According to him, they had reached out to Supermassive Games (makers of Until Dawn) at that time. Around this time, he also heard rumors that Sony was working to mend relationships between Kojima and Konami. His hypothesized reason for doing so was to allow Hideo Kojima to once again helm a Silent Hill project. During this time, he also heard rumors that Masahiro Ito was working on a new Silent Hill project:
Jump forward to the present day. AestheticGamer reports that he started hearing rumors through the grapevine about Silent Hill and Sony’s Japan Studio. He claims that he was able to confirm some of this through receipts provided to him by a confidential source. He states for the record that these are not Konami employees, but contractors working with the company. He mentions that these receipts will be confirmed soon, based on the fact that these claims came in conjunction that there was something new for Death Stranding in the works. He also claims these sources showed that Kojima is working with horror author Junji Ito on a manga together. AestheticGamer claims that if these associated announcements come in recent months then the veracity of the claims is more certain.
He further goes on to state that Sony did not buy the IP, as he also has seen evidence that Konami is currently shopping the game for other Silent Hill media. This claim would seem to be true, as director Christophe Gans has confirmed he’s working on a new Silent Hill film. He further claims that Sony is in talks with Konami to split the bill for publishing Kojima’s Silent Hill game. He then states that the Kojima game is still in talks. However, he claims that the Silent Hill reboot is not only in development, but is an “open secret” in Japan.
He goes on to clarify that though he has seen these receipts and believes them to be true, none of this is verifiable. According to AestheticGamer, he’s willingly acting as a lightning rod of controversy to announce the secrets others can’t share with us. He does not provide any written evidence, nor does he name any sources. Which I can definitely understand. If what he’s saying is true, whoever provided him with the information is breaking some major NDAs here. Still, take what you will from it. If you want to read the whole thread yourself and find any bits I missed, you can find it by clicking the link here.
Rely on Horror has also reported from a different source (or possibly the same source, it is impossible to verify) the details of two Silent Hill projects. They state that a Silent Hill reboot is in the works by Masahiro Ito and is being backed by Sony. They go on to state that a separate source has indicated that Keiichiro Toyama and Akira Yamaoka are also working on the game alongside Ito. The state that SIE Japan Studio is one of the developers in some capacity. They claim it has been in the works for about a year.
They then go on to mention that a second title was in the works, but are far less certain of it. They do mention that their first source did confirm that Sony was working on patching up the relationship between Kojima and Konami. They speculate that this means the second title is the fabled Kojima Silent Hills. They then state that the source confirmed the game will use next-gen PlayStation VR for the PS5. They allege that the game was pitched to Kojima as a Telltale/Supermassive style narrative game. They emphasize that the game is, “not yet a done deal.” However, they do claim that Sony is not looking to buy the IP, but is working with Konami on this.
Okey dokey, folks. That’s all I got. Hopefully, this was a good distillation of rumors flying around. Personally, I’m not sure what to make of it anymore. I’ve become the Fox Moulder of the Bureau of Wild Speculation and Insidious Rumors. I want to believe so badly. That being said, with Cristophe Ganz stating he’s working on a new film, we know that the Silent Hill IP is still open for business. Let’s just hope we get something solid soon.
