User:Darkknight2149/Silent Hill (2023 game)


 * The following is a draft for a rumoured upcoming title; until there is official confirmation, information is subject to change or be debunked altogether

Silent Hill is a soft reboot and the ninth installment of the Silent Hill video game series, developed by a Japanese studio and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment and Konami. It sees the return of Masahiro Ito, the art and creature designer who worked on the first three installments, and longtime series composer Akira Yamaoka.

Early leaks and pre-announcement
Since the Silent Hill series concluded with Silent Hills: Playable Teaser in 2015, Konami had shifted focus away from AAA console gaming, focusing their video game divisions more on mobile games, rereleases, and annual sports simulators. However, the company told GamesIndustry in 2019 that high-end console games are "most important" to their future, adding that "We challenge for innovative ideas and technology within our console games, so we will continue to put effort into [them]. We also plan to increase our portfolio. In addition to the multi-device titles for PES and Yu-Gi-Oh, we plan to work on projects with other globally known IPs in the near future."

On June 6, 2019, Silent Hill 1-3 artist and creature designer Masahiro Ito tweeted that he had finished a creature design for an upcoming project that he hoped would not be cancelled, while preparing to create creature designs for a second project that had also not been announced. Konami Digital Entertainment renewed the Silent Hill trademark for video games and computer games on July 25, 2019, which was set to expire on December 6 of that year. On January 4, 2020, Ito officially announced that he was serving as a core member on an upcoming title, but again expressed concern over a potential cancellation.

Later that month, insider Ryan Stanford (known by the monikers "Aesthetic Gamer" and "Dusk Golem") reported that Konami had been looking for Silent Hill pitches in 2018, namely for a soft reboot and a Telltale Series-styled spin-off. According to Stanford, a soft reboot involving Masahiro Ito went into development in early 2019 from an unidentified studio in Japan. In March 2020, publication Rely on Horror similarly reported that Konami and Sony had partnered on a Silent Hill soft reboot outsourced to a third party developer, with Keiichiro Toyama involved to some degree.

On February 5, 2021, series composer Akira Yamaoka told Al-Hub in an interview that a major project of his would be announced that summer and that "I’m quite sure it will be the one you've been hoping to hear about". Al-Hub removed the interview soon after publication, complying with a request to take it down. Following news headlines, Konami released a statement denying that they were the party who asked for it to be removed.

Stanford stated the same month that the marketing rights to the game were owned by Sony and that a trailer was being sent to their worldwide studios to be translated into different languages. Video Game Chronicle were next to report that a Silent Hill game was in development, elaborating that it had been outsourced to a prominent Japanese developer. They described it as "something of a departure from past Silent Hill games".

Trivia

 * Masahiro Ito's manga Acid Bufferzone was put on hold due to his work on the game.