[COLUMN] Silent Hill Is Back…Maybe…Hopefully | by Marty Sliva

The title of this column will either age pretty well, or extremely poorly. Regardless, at this moment in time, I feel something about the Silent Hill franchise that I haven’t felt in the better part of 20 years – optimism…kind of.

Last Thursday saw Konami hold the latest Silent Hill Transmission showcase, this time focused on the upcoming Silent Hill f (their lowercase, not mine). Everything the presentation showed off looked excellent to me – a beloved writer behind the story, a unique setting, and some genuinely spooky vibes throughout the trailer.

But of course, this is Silent Hill, so there’s always an Other World to cast a dark reflection on this optimism. And a lot of that stems from what we don’t know about the game yet.

Silent Hill f was one of five projects revealed at the first Silent Hill Transmission showcase two and a half years ago. We’ve already seen some highs in Bloober Team’s excellent Silent Hill 2 remake, and some lows in the mess that was Silent Hill: Ascension. We’re still waiting to hear more about Silent Hill: Townfall from developer No Code and publisher Annapurna, as well as the upcoming film adaptation of Silent Hill 2. And though it doesn’t have a release date or even window yet, a recent ESRB rating certainly points to Silent Hill f being the next project on the docket, hopefully sooner rather than later.

As for the game itself, the fictional mountain town setting of Ebisugaoka back in ‘60s Japan is a sharp contrast to anything we’ve seen from the franchise to date, which I absolutely think is a good thing. There’s a lot of potential to explore new narrative terrain by taking the series to Japan for the first time, and the developers emphasized a focus on “Japanese horror,” for this one. And with a story written by Ryukishi07, the renowned author of visual novels like Higurashi and Umineko, it seems like this will explore some heavy themes familiar to fans of the series, and others that it hasn’t ventured to yet.

But as I mentioned before, there are some questions surrounding the upcoming game. For one, the developers mentioned that this installment will play unlike any other that came before it in the franchise, without really expanding on exactly what that means. Though there’s been a lot of speculation around that, my guess is that given your role as high schooler Hinako Shimizu in ‘60s Japan, you probably won’t be finding random firearms and ammo scattered about the town. We see her wielding a pipe of some sorts in the trailer, but maybe combat will take a back seat, instead focusing more heavily on puzzles and avoiding confrontation.

The other big question from me has to do with the developers themselves. This one’s being helmed by NeoBards Entertainment, and if you aren’t familiar with that name, you’re probably not alone. Their output so far has been mostly as support for various Capcom ports, remasters, and compilations, as well as some work on Marvel’s Avengers. That said, I’m not taking this resume as a sign of doom and gloom – Bloober Team’s output prior to Silent Hill 2 was lacking, and they ended up making an absolute banger. Just another one of those things where we’ll have to wait and see.

As for the rest of the Silent Hill franchise beyond f…well, that’s shrouded in a bit heavier fog. As I mentioned before, Ascension was a complete bust, but that was a mess from the ground up. We also had Silent Hill: The Short Message revealed and released on the same day back in February 2024. It wasn’t great, but thankfully it also wasn’t all that long either.

Beyond that, we haven’t heard anything from Townfall since that original October 2022 reveal, but hopefully that changes in the near future. And the Silent Hill 2 movie…well, at least it’s still fun to go to the theaters.

Of course, the big recent success has been last year’s Silent Hill 2. Following the critical and commercial success of the remake, Bloober Team and Konami are partnering up on another project, and again it’s based on a Konami IP. While it hasn’t been confirmed what that might be and whether it’s an original game or another remake, it feels like running it back again with another one of the classic PS1 or PS2 installments of Silent Hill is the safest choice. Maybe a combo of 1 and 3, given their story ties? Or going back to the horrifying oddity of The Room and bringing that to a more modern audience?

Of course, it’s possible it’s in an entirely different franchise as well. Konami has brought back Metal Gear Solid with the upcoming Delta Snake Eater remake, and we just got the Suikoden 1+2 remaster as well.

The other big franchise missing here is Casltevania, and given the success of the anime on Netflix and the booming popularity of the gaming genre it helped create., it feels like that’s a series due to make a big return. I just can’t imagine that’s what Bloober Team is working on, given how combat has never been a focus in their games.

Silent Hill is in a strange spot right now. The influence of its original four installments is evident across the indie horror space, including Signalis, Hollowbody, Crow Country, and Post Trauma. But for Konami, the series currently resides in a bit of a holding pattern following the success of SH2. Will they be able to do what Capcom did with Resi 7, and steer a beloved franchise back on course? Or will the fog roll in and claim yet another victim, starting our cycle of suffering over anew?