Guillermo del Toro has revealed he’s done making video games following a string of failed projects including inSANE and Silent Hills.
Speaking at the San Diego Comic-Con recently (via Playboy), del Toro, who is perhaps best known for his work on Hellboy and Pacific Rim, explained that the process of working on games was a learning experience to which he’s grateful for, but remained adamant that he won’t attempt to have another stab at the medium.
“I have proven to be the albatross of video games,” he said. “I joined THQ [to make a game called Insane] and THQ went broke. I joined [Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo] Kojima [to make Silent Hills] and Kojima leaves Konami, so I have decided that in order not to destroy anyone else’s life, I will never again get involved in video games. Otherwise, I’ll work with someone and his house would explode or something, you know?
“With Insane we mapped it out, we did the bible, we did the outlines, we did the screenplay,” del Toro added. “We did a bunch of stuff to develop the world. So some of the tricks, or the stuff that I wanted to learn, I learned. And then I went to the side of Kojima-san because he’s a master and I can gladly say we are friends and I love his work, and I will continue learning from him as a friend. But I’m not joining another video game. If I do, World War III will start.
“No, never,” he said, when pressed on whether he’d considering video game development again. “I mean, it was an apprenticeship. I learned a lot from Kojima, of course, and I learned a lot from my experience on THQ. I did. It changed the way I see a narrative. We put two years of work on THQ with Insane. And what we were going to do with Silent Hills was going to be cutting-edge and scary.”
The Hollywood director did, however, say that he’s open to having some creative involvement in the process—he just won’t try be directly involved in developing a title.
“I’m open to having developers make games, and I can hopefully be creative about it and I can be educated about it and talk about it in a way that helps them make the video game, but no, I can’t make the game myself."
Del Toro recently said that despite Silent Hills cancellation, he’s still hoping to work with Hideo Kojima at some point in the future, although in what capacity remains to be seen.
Silent Hills was announced at Gamescom 2014 for PlayStation 4 and received a successful demo in the form of Playable Teaser (P.T.).
The demo was downloaded over one million times, although after Kojima-san and Konami decided to part ways, the game was cancelled and the demo pulled from PSN.