Silent Hill Series Discussion/Speculation thread

[Princess Garnet]

I wanted to make a thread about this for anyone who wanted to talk about/speculate on the series due to recent developments (see below).

Brief History of the Series:

The original Silent Hill was developed and published by Konami in 1999 for the PlayStation, establishing the series.

Silent Hill 2 and 3 followed for the PlayStation 2. Silent Hill 2 was its own thing, and then Silent Hill 3 was a direct sequel to Silent Hill (1).

Silent Hill 4: The Room later released. It was again its own thing, and it was a bit of a departure from the series up until that point. It was last time Konami's own in-house development team, "Team Silent" developed a game.

After that, there were a number of other titles in the series, always developed by an external studio, but the series generally started falling out of favor as fans said what once made the series had been lost.

In 2014, a teaser trailer for a new entry called "Silent Hills" (note the "S") was shown, and this became known as "P.T." It involved Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid series) and featured Norman Reedus (where does that combination sound familiar from!?). It would have been far different from anything in the series before, but fans were excited as it looked promising... until it was cancelled. Kojima (without Konami this time) would instead go on to release another title featuring a protagonist based on Reedus called Death Stranding.

Konami hasn't done much with the Silent Hill series in about a decade outside of perhaps gambling machines in Japan.

The State of the Series Today:

That changed a few years ago, when news of a Silent Hill 2 remake came about. Often considered the best in the series, Konami must have felt it was a safe best for testing the waters with all the successful remakes in this day and age.

The remake for Silent Hill 2 would be developed by Bloober Team (Layers of Fear series and the Medium), not Konami.

The Silent Hill 2 remake released late last year and was (as far as I know) considered a success. Personal remark here, but I consider it the best title of 2024 and one of the best entries in the series (maybe the best). It reached a million sales in less than three days, and has sold at least two million up until today. It released to the PlayStation 5 and PC platforms so there's still the Xbox market it hasn't released to (the console exclusivity period probably lasts a year I would guess). To put that number into some perspective, the highest sales total confirmation I know of for a past entry in the series is... two million for the original release. And prior to the remake, the series as a whole is said to have had about ten million sales. Konami never stated what their expectations were with the remake, but unless they were shooting for the moon and expecting something like half the sales that the series collectively has made out of a single remake after a decade of the IP being unused... then I'd say it's relatively safe to guess this was considered successful enough.

And we may have some hints of that...

The Future of the Series:

We already know another one or two entries in the series are coming. Those are "Silent Hill f" and "Silent Hill Townfall".

"Silent Hill f" is taking place in 1960s Japan and will probably be the nest to release. It is expected that it could release in 2025. Here's the teaser trailer from that around two years ago.

Also, Konami has a "Silent Hill transmission" coming up where they plan to "share the latest news on the Silent Hill series" (note that last word), although it says it will "focus on the upcoming Silent Hill f". That will be Friday, March 13th at 3:00 PM PDT (this is the time the news post in Steam gave me so you'll have to convert to your local time, and note that daylight time just took affect in the US).

Less is known about Silent Hill Townfall.

Here's where things get more interesting.

Bloober Team released a roadmap of upcoming projects a while back. They included (perhaps among others) "Project C", "Project G", and "Project H". It is now speculated that Chronos: The New Dawn is likely Bloober Team's next release, and that is suspected to be "Project C". The others are in a "pre-production" phase.

Source below.

Bloober Team confirms 7 games in development, plans to open two new offices

Poland-based studio Bloober Team has announced its expansion plans. This year, Layers of Fear and The Medium developer will open new offices and move to a larger stock exchange.

wnhub.io

A couple of weeks ago, Bloober Team has also recently announced that they are collaborating with Konami again.

Source below.

Bloober Team and KONAMI Continue Their Collaboration

Bloober Team, the Polish masters of horror, and the Japanese giant Konami Digital Entertainment (KONAMI) are continuing their partnership, announcing the signing of a new agreement for a joint project. Following the massive success of the remake of one of the most highly...

blooberteam.prowly.com

"Following the massive success of the remake of one of the most highly anticipated psychological horror games—SILENT HILL 2—the developers are now focusing on a new game based on KONAMI's IP"

"Of course, we can't reveal too many details at this time, but we are confident that fans will be just as excited about our collaboration as we are. We can't wait to share something truly special with players when the time is right."

Now this doesn't confirm it's a Silent Hill game they are developing... but unless Bloober Team, a developer that is mostly experience in survival horror and is on the tail of a successful Silent Hill 2 remake release, is making the next Metal Gear Solid or an entirely new IP, well... draw your own conclusions.

People are speculating what "Project G" and "Project H" could mean. If we assume the project letter references the title or game in some way, as "Project C" is likely Chronos: The New Dawn, the "H" could refer to either Harry or Heather, the protagonists of Silent Hill and Silent Hill 3 respectively. Also, as Silent Hill 3 is a direct sequel to Silent Hill 1, remaking the former seems less likely without remaking the latter. Could... could both be a possibility here!?

Lastly, there was a supposed claim late last year, about a month after the Silent Hill 2 remake released (so, before confirmation came from Bloober Team that there was more collaboration with Konami) that a Silent Hill 3 remake was in development. This came from a random source with no real credibility it seems, but... given everything else, it may have indeed been real all along. The timeline would match up; Konami saw the success of the remake for Silent Hill 2 and decided to go forth with more.

With the other two titles that aren't remakes also coming, might Konami be using Capcom's strategy of alternating new entries with remakes? (SquareSoft Enix, please join them in this strategy...) Is Silent Hill back?

Personally, I'm excited. While Silent Hill 2 is the better entry, my favorite was Silent Hill 3, and I loved Silent Hill 4: The Room despite its flaws. I'd love to see that remade too eventually, because it had a great concept but stands to improve the most from better execution and some changes. Silent Hill f looks promising too. Typically set in America, this one is in the recent past of Japan. I'm getting Fatal Frame series vibes from its setting and I'm excited for it. (Also, Silent Hill: Homecoming wasn't great... but besides the strange insert of Pyramid Head, I thought the story was fine and I consider it the best non-Team Silent developed entry before the recent revival.)

Anyone else here follow the series?

 

[Klemc]

I loved first, 12 times in 1999 on PsX...

... i liked third and didn't know it was tied to first in the first place.

I hate fourth, also second because i feel nothing while playing it (bland, the worst if there was not fourth that's not to be compared to any videogame tho) and it's been exact same feeling with remaki lol.

Five is good, not on the same exact tone, i won't want even play the XboX one btw looks bad overhaul in all aspects.

I hope the F will be something, and next remakes will be 1-3.

 

[Princess Garnet]

I played Silent Hill 3 before playing the original, so I missed out on context since it is a sequel of it. While Silent Hill 3 still "works" on its own, you'll be missing a lot of context and back story (and it makes the part I won't say in the middle of the game lose some impact if you haven't played the original).

Silent Hill 4: The Room was definitely disliked in its day, despite being developed by the original team. It's one of those games that people seem to have warmed up to over the years, but I always liked it back then. Not as much as 2 or 3, but it was alright. The execution didn't land perfectly, namely...

Spoiler

The second half of the game becoming an "escort Eileen through the same levels you've already been through for passing, and oh, there's some unkillable ghosts now"

...Were the common complaints I noticed, but I thought the story was great. And the whole room concept...

Spoiler

That slowly haunts more and more over the course of the game

...Was also fantastic. So it would make a great candidate for a remake specifically because the material is great and it just had some execution flaws. The later revisit/escort portion needed to be shorter, and in turn, expand the locations and have the initial time through them longer (that way it's not merely cutting content out of the game).

But I think a remake of 4 before 1 or 3 is unlikely, so those who don't care about 4 probably don't need to worry much yet. And there's non-remakes coming so there's a ton of alternative entries.

See, that's the good thing about what Capcom and seemingly now Konami is/might be doing. By remaking entries as well as making new ones, and doing it at a reasonable pace, if a single entry isn't that good, it doesn't sour fans as much. This is why, say, Final Fantasy VIII being disliked in its day wasn't hated as much. It still had its fans, and people had IX, X, and XI coming which were all different. Instead of trying to please as much people all of the time, they put out more releases faster and made them more unique back then. So while a certain entry might not hit it off with you, there was a chance at least one or even many would. But modern Square Enix is putting them out at such a low rate, and the remakes they do put out feel so changed that they may as well be new games, that it means unless you really like what they are making, you feel like they have nothing to offer. So I applaud what Capcom/Konami is doing and would love to see Square Enix move more in that direction too (for example, the pixel remasters were great, and so was/likely will be the Dragon Quest I through III remakes, so more remakes/remasters and smaller scale/faster development main line titles would get them there).