Back in summer 2014, much attention was drawn to a mysterious playable teaser for a game which had popped up on the PlayStation Network in early August. This was a scary, pant-wetting teaser for an unknown horror game, which gamers later found out was actually a demo for a new Silent Hill game.
Even bigger news was the fact that veteran Japanese designer Hideo Kojima was going to collaborate with Oscar-winner Guillermo del Toro on this new game, which was to be named Silent Hills.
Alas, Silent Hills was later scrapped by publisher Konami after Kojima’s relationship with the Japanese video game company went south, with Guillermo del Toro complaining bitterly about Silent Hills cancellation after the event.
Also, a consequence of Silent Hills’ canning was the removal of the P.T. demo from the PlayStation Network in 2015, leaving those yet to play the scary teaser a bitter taste in their mouths.
Thankfully though, one enterprising soul who goes by the online alias Qimsar has been hard at work on a PC remake of Kojima’s P.T. demo, the latest version of which has now been made available at GameJolt.
This is still a work in progress, but according to the game’s description is still “fully beatable” even if it’s still lacking some animations, but clearly a complete version of this P.T. demo remake isn’t far away now.
Playing through this recreation of P.T. though, it’s likely quite a few Silent Hill fans might be wondering when we will see another Silent Hill game, given Konami’s admission back in 2015 that the franchise was pretty much alive.
And there’s no doubt that Silent Hill has been one of the best survival-horror video game series of all time, with the original PlayStation game causing a sensation back in 1999, thanks to its creepy setting (the Midwestern town of Silent Hill) which is one of the most memorable video game locations of all time.
Arguably, though, it was Silent Hill 3 that took the series to new heights after Silent Hill 2’s brilliance wowed many back in 2001. This is because part 3 not only continued the Harry Mason story of the original game after Silent Hill 2 took a break from the original’s plot, while Silent Hill 3 also boasted a cool female protagonist (Harry Mason’s daughter Heather), grotesque monsters and the blood-drenched other world you could travel to at some points in the game.
But sadly the Silent Hill series did not end on a high note, and 2012’s effort Silent Hill: Book of Memories, a dungeon crawler game devoid of tension or horror and boasting multiplayer gameplay left many fans reeling back in the day.
Naturally, Silent Hill: Book of Memories’ failure has left many fans wondering whether Konami will make up for it by putting out a new Silent Hill game soon?
The thing is, after Silent Hills’ cancellation in 2015 Konami has not announced another Silent Hill project, besides registering the trademark earlier this year for use in wager-based gaming machines as was reported on GamingBolt.
This could be a pachinko machine based on a Silent Hill game, as Konami did something similar with Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid 3, which became the basis for one of their gambling machines.
Do Konami’s moves spell the end for Silent Hill as a video game series then, with Konami looking to monetize the Silent Hill brand in a different way?
Not necessarily, because despite the fact that Metal Gear Solid ended up in Japanese gambling dens as a slot machine, a new game in the franchise (Metal Gear Survive) was also released this February.
There’s hope left for Silent Hill then, and another video game in the series might be hitting shelves at some point in the future too. And if that’s not the case, at least we’ll always have the old classics to enjoy…
Read more: Ranking the Silent Hill games from worst to best