Famed director Guillermo Del Toro has spoken about the canceled Silent Hills game, describing plans for the title as enthralling. The Konami game was set to be a star-studded affair with the likes of Hideo Kojima, Norman Reedus, and Del Toro on board, before Silent Hills was canceled in 2015, shortly after its announcement.
While the Kojima-led Silent Hills never happened, some players did get to experience how such a horror game might play out thanks to the P.T PlayStation 4 demo, which stands for Playable Teaser. The demo was originally touted as being from an indie development studio, but those who beat its strange and frequently indecipherable puzzles were treated to a short cinematic teaser that announced it as a Silent Hill game. P.T was pulled from the PlayStation Store when Silent Hills was canceled, and can now only be accessed by those who downloaded it in 2014. Unfortunately, the Silent Hills demo can’t be played on PS5 consoles, which means it will be even harder to access in the future.
Appearing on the Happy Sad Confused podcast (via WCCFTech), Guillermo Del Toro spoke briefly about the canceled Silent Hills while debunking theories that he’d hinted at a new game during The Game Awards 2021. Del Toro teased what horror fans may have had in store, stating: “I kind of just wanted to tickle the ribs of Konami [at The Game Awards] because I don’t understand. That was so perfect, it was so perfect a match, what we were going to do was so enthralling.” While the director didn’t elaborate on what “enthralling” may have meant for the game’s story or features, the words hint that Silent Hills aimed to push gaming boundaries, something players got a taste of with the creative puzzle-solving in P.T.
While players are unlikely to ever see what Silent Hills could have been, it has been claimed that the game would have continued to scare users even after turning off their console. According to one developer, by taking players’ phone numbers and email addresses, Silent Hills would have sent scary messages, and may have even turned off household lights for those with smart home technology. How exactly this would have worked in terms of data and consent isn’t quite clear, and while it’s possible gamers may see similar features from other games in the future, they likely won’t be debuting in a Silent Hill reboot.
A Kojima Silent Hill game aided by Del Toro will now probably never happen, but Silent Hill fans haven’t given up hope for a series revival. Rumors have claimed that a new game is in the works, one that’s speculated to be developed by horror studio, Bloober Team. There’s also many people who still believe a Silent Hill from Kojima is very likely, though due to the developer’s reported issues with Konami, this seems to be merely a pipe dream. Fans will hopefully hear something from the dormant IP in 2022.
