Silent Hill, as a franchise, is finally getting the revival that players have been waiting years for, thanks to the efforts of Bloober Team’s SH2 remake and the upcoming Silent Hill f. However, the popularity of PT and subsequent cancellation of Silent Hills remains a bitter moment for the franchise, especially when you consider how fascinating PT was for a series that had been in a rough spot for years by that point. As a result, Silent Hills‘ cancellation and Hideo Kojima leaving Konami were rather heartbreaking events for players who finally had hope for the future of Silent Hill.
With Kojima being the mastermind behind Silent Hills, it’s not exactly surprising that the game was canceled in the aftermath of his departure from Konami. While having PT being made available to play would be huge since it’s now delisted, it would be even better to have Silent Hills revived. Of course, there would need to be some changes made with Kojima no longer being involved.
Konami Needs to Still Make Silent Hills
Since it’s part of the Silent Hill franchise, Konami owns Silent Hills, whether or not the game was crafted by developers no longer with the publisher. With that in mind, it’s not impossible for the company to start the project again, possibly under a different name to separate it further from Kojima. The only issue would be any agreements made about the game and the ideas that were planned for it that might’ve been made between Kojima and Konami that aren’t public knowledge.
Bloober Team has already proven that its developers are capable of tackling the eerie world of Silent Hill with their remake of Silent Hill 2. Silent Hill f also looks promising with the team designing it having its own unique horror and mystery style. Both of these teams would be more than capable of turning Silent Hills into their own creation using the basis of PT as a foundation.
Judging by PT’s gameplay style and heavy emphasis on puzzles—many of which included difficult-to-find solutions that you don’t usually see—it seems like Bloober Team would be a better fit to take on the monumental task of reviving a game that so many players hoped to see reach its release date. This is primarily because the remake of Silent Hill 2 is rather focused on puzzles as well.
So far, it seems like Silent Hill f is going to be more action-oriented compared to a game like SH2, which is why the development team working on it might not be the right fit to bring Silent Hills back to life. From what was shown in PT, you reach the end of the experience with the feeling that Silent Hills wouldn’t have much combat. Of course, that doesn’t have to be the case. PT was a small sample of what was to come, so it’s possible that the end product could’ve had a fair amount of combat, and that it was simply not important for the experience Kojima wanted to give players in PT.
Beyond the style of the game being less focused on action or slower with a focus on puzzles, Konami and the team—hypothetically—assigned to Silent Hills would have to make other decisions about what elements they should keep. It would be understandable to see Norman Reedus not be involved in the revived project, as his participation was likely linked to Kojima being the creator of Silent Hills. Since recasting and changing characters isn’t unheard of in the development process, the developers could use this opportunity to create their own protagonist to lead players through the mysteries of Silent Hills. In the end, it would be another way that the original concept could be recreated by the new team as it continues to become something uniquely its own that’s inspired by PT, but not a copy of it.
Silent Hills doesn’t need to be revived in the form that Kojima had imagined it would take when he was working on the title. Every team has a different style and ideas, so handing off a project doesn’t mean that it would be identical to what Kojima planned. When you give the same basis to different teams, you rarely get the same results. For a game like Silent Hills, reviving it would give it a chance not just to see the light of day, but to be reimagined through the eyes of a new set of developers, and that could lead to fascinating results.
Do you think that Konami should choose to revive Silent Hills? Or should the project forever be left in the past? Let us know in the comments section!
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