It has been well over five years since Konami announced and promptly cancelled the return of their beloved horror franchise, Silent Hill. A full five years later and fans are still livid over the cancellation of the game and firing the game's director, Hideo Kojima. However, it now seems that Konami might finally give the fans what they want.
Silent Hill is a genre defining series that, along with Resident Evil, laid the groundwork for the future of horror in gaming. Back in August of 2014, Konami was planning to release a new game titled Silent Hills that would feature Norman Reedus as the playable character and Hideo Kojima as director, along with collaborations from master horror film director Guillermo del Toro and famous horror manga author Junji Ito. However, the company had a falling out with Kojima that led to him getting fired from the company and Silent Hills getting cancelled. Since then, all kinds of new details regarding Silent Hills started to leak, which caused the fans even more aggravation.
Recent reports have claimed that within the last couple of years, Konami has reached out to a plethora of game developers, inviting new ideas in terms of how they could revitalize the Silent Hill franchise. These rumored game ideas included a soft reboot of the franchise and an episodic horror series reminiscent of Until Dawn or TellTale Games' The Walking Dead. According to a Konami spokesperson, the company is actively listening to customer feedback.
There is also a prevailing rumor online that Konami has gotten in touch with Hideo Kojima and is thinking of including him in the development of a new Silent Hill game. Supposedly, Konami would let Kojima "borrow" the Silent Hill IP and let him and his fellow developers at Kojima Productions be the ones primarily working on the game. The game would also feature high profile actors, not unlike Death Stranding.
Honestly, if any one of these rumors are true, then this is terrific news for Silent Hill fans. Not counting the release of P.T., the last official Silent Hill installment was released back in 2012. In light of this recent news, it seems abundantly apparent that the studio has not given up on its IPs and is ready to develop new games.
Then again, Konami has not exactly had the best track record when it comes to developing new games. The Silent Hill HD Collection was a financial and technical embarrassment that Konami still has yet to fully fix. Not to mention that many considered Metal Gear Survive to be a gross insult to the critically acclaimed franchise. Wherever the Silent Hill IP ends up, hopefully the next game meets the standards that P.T. had set.
Source: Eurogamer.net