For a while there has been a good number of rumors suggesting a new Silent Hill game is in development, with well known insider, Dusk Golem, suggesting it’s not only true but has been in development for a year and a half.
His post, found here, claims that Konami wanted to do this to help their deteriorating image and KeiichirÅ Toyama, who directed the original, Siren and Gravity Rush, wanting to make a new horror game. The team working on it is Sony Japan Studio, which includes people who worked on previous Silent Hill games like Akira and Masahiro.
If you want to see the full reply, you can find it below:
To my understanding, the situation is a bit of a unique one. Toyama has good standing in the company because he’s polite, professional, talented, and can do a lot with meager budgets. That said, neither the Siren or Gravity Rush games set the world on fire, they did make back money but neither were smash-out hits. Toyama wants to do another horror game, and Sony is completely fine with that, but if it was a new Siren game or a new IP, the actual budget would have to be on the slimmer side due to past performance indicating while both will do fine, neither would probably break out of a niche.
So enter in Konami about two years ago hunting for developers to develop two Silent Hill games. I wish I had a better understanding of how talks even began because that’s a huge missing piece, but somehow or another Sony had the thought and talked with Konami still looking to fund two SH games that they could get in contact and develop a game. Toyama would be able to make a horror game like he wanted, it’d be behind an IP many would like to see Toyama work on and has more market share than Siren or another new IP does, Konami just want a quality SH game to help their reputation get back on track and been shipping around for the “right pitch”. The deal was negotiated in early 2019, Sony Japan Studio is developing it composed of the Siren/Gravity Rush team, but they also contacted a lot of people who worked on Silent Hill previously to help with it, which is why people like Akira and Masahiro Ito are on board as well.
In terms of cost, Sony and Konami are both fitting the bill of development, Sony is making it, Konami gets a share of each copy sold and just partially have to fund development. From Konami’s side having a Sony first party studio develop the game, with them only partially funding development and though they receive a smaller percentage cut from sales, they also don’t have to pay for marketing or anything so they’re cool with it and the quality may help their image. Sony for them I don’t think they expect to set the world on fire, but the actual budget is nothing compared to some other games they fund, the budget is even made smaller due to Konami helping out, and this title has more of a chance as a horror game to succeed with the brand recognition and the demand for a good SH game from horror fans than a new Siren or IP maybe would based on past performance. It also helps many at Sony do like Toyama and his team and want to give them a chance to be able to stand out more and gain more recognizability.
I do hear the plan is the game will be revealed this year, (and at this point it’s nearing being in development for about a year and a half almost), but it’s hard to speak concretely about these things.
I also will add with the SH stuff, I received some word on some other things I’m not sharing which over the course of the next year will confirm or deny to me if what I was shared was true or not ahead of time. Some will feel that’s an excuse I have “things that can prove it I can’t share”, but all I can do for now is be open and honest about it.
Dusk Golem on Resetera
While the last bit about having information he isn’t revealing is interesting, there is probably some truth to this. It has come up enough times from plenty of well known sources to, if nothing else, be true. It’s just a question of when or if anything will come of it.