Things aren't looking good for Silent Hills. The highly anticipated game lost one of its two producers: about a month ago, Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima split with Konami, Silent Hills' publisher, and the company quickly removed Kojima's name from Silent Hills' marketing materials. Combine that with the announcement that P.T., Silent Hills' surreal interactive trailer, will be removed from the PlayStation Store in a couple of days, and overall picture looks pretty dismal.

And yet, Silent Hills isn't cancelled - at least not so far. As far as fans know, Konami and acclaimed film director Guillermo del Toro are still hard at work on the fifth installment in the legendary horror franchise; just don't expect Kojima to have any influence. While Kojima says he's still "100% involved" with Metal Gear Solid 5, del Toro announced that Kojima is finished with Silent Hills, and the director isn't happy about it.

The statement came during a question and answer session at the San Francisco International Film Festival, where a fan asked del Toro about the state of the game. Someone in attendance tweeted del Toro's answer, but failed to provide any context, leading to rumors that the game was cancelled. At the moment, the game's status is unclear, but Kojima's involvement is definitely finished. When talking about working with Kojima, del Toro plainly said, "It's not gonna happen and that breaks my greasy heart."

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That's too bad, as Silent Hills' biggest draw was the collaboration between Kojima and del Toro. Aside from P.T., Konami hasn't released much information about Silent Hills, other than the fact that it'll star Walking Dead actor Norman Reedus. A first person "concept trailer" that premiered at the Tokyo Games Show showed off dark and disturbing visuals, but didn't necessarily reveal any gameplay or plot details.

Del Toro is one of the most visually imaginative directors working in the film industry, and he promised "an incredibly intense and an incredibly scary game." However, the director doesn't have much experience producing video games: his previous effort, inSANE, fell apart when THQ filed for bankruptcy. Teaming del Toro with Kojima, who's famous for blurring the lines between films and video games, seemed like a slam dunk for Konami. Silent Hills might be great, but it's going to be difficult to play without wondering how things would've been different under Kojima's guidance - assuming the game ever comes out, of course.

And that seems increasingly unlikely. In response to this news, Norman Reedus sent out a tweet saying that he is "super bummed" about the game's cancellation. It's unclear, however, whether Reedus has new information, or if he's simply commenting on del Toro's original, misinterpreted quote. Konami has yet to weigh in.

Source: IGN