Speaking during an interview with Bloody Disgusting, Guillermo del Toro, co-director behind the now-canceled survival horror title, Silent Hill, has again expressed his disappointment at Konami’s decision to scrap the project.
Del Toro, who was collaborating on the game with legendary Metal Gear creator, Hideo Kojima, lamented the project’s demise and said that the game’s cancelation "makes no sense."
“It was curious,” he said. “We had a great experience and had great story sessions with hundreds upon hundreds of designs. Some of the stuff that we were designing for Silent Hills I’ve seen in games that came after, like The Last of Us, which makes me think we were not wrong, we were going in the right direction.
“The thing with Kojima and Silent Hills is that I thought we would do a really remarkable game and really go for the jugular. We were hoping to actually create some sort of panic with some of the devices we were talking about and it is really a shame that it’s not happening. When you ask about how things operate, that makes no sense at all that that game is not happening.
“Makes no sense at all. That’s the randomness that I was talking about,” he added.
Silent Hills was announced at Gamescom 2014 by way of a short demo known as P.T., or Playable Teaser, for the PlayStation 4. Developed of the project began in 2012 when Kojima-san was approached by Konami to develop the next entry in the venerable psychological horror series, with Kojima Productions’ proprietary game tech, the FOX Engine, used to power the title. It was clear early on that the studio had high ambitions for Silent Hills, with Kojima-san describing the game as ‘pure horror’ and hoping that players will ‘sh!t their pants.’
P.T. would go on to become quite a success for Kojima Productions, with the demo notching up over one million downloads not long after its release. Not much else was revealed on the core gameplay, although it was rumored Silent Hills may have gone down an open-world path, with a 2016 release apparently being targeted. Kojima-san himself also indicated it may have been episodic-based. Del Toro wasn’t the only big name attached to the game either; Norman Reedus, best known for his role as Darrel Dixon in The Walking Dead, was to portray Silent Hills’ mysterious protagonist.
Sadly, Silent Hills wasn’t to be. Amidst the controversy surrounding Kojima-san’s falling out with Konami bosses, the Japanese video games giant confirmed that the game had been canceled; something which both Reedus and del Toro expressed their disappointment at on numerous occasions. To rub further salt into the wound, Konami also revealed it was pulling P.T. from the PlayStation Store indefinitely. As for the future of Silent Hill as a series, Konami has assured fans that it remains committed to the brand in addition to the likes of Metal Gear Solid, despite reports surfacing that the company is done with triple-A software development.
What did you think of Silent Hills? Were you impressed with P.T.? Do you want to see the franchise continue? Shout out in the comments section below.