Silent Hill Fans React to the Franchise’s Mixed Return

Konami’s Silent Hill livestream showcase event may have been surprisingly short, frustratingly vague, and (for some reason) released way too early, but it hasn’t taken long for fans to share their passionate reactions to the reveals we did get. After all, people have been waiting a long time for something (anything) related to Silent Hill that wasn’t just DLC of varying quality (or slot machines). You’d better believe that people were waiting with their most emotional hot takes ready to go.

So far as that goes, the Silent Hill fan community has not disappointed. Indeed, a lot of the early chatter about the Silent Hill reveal event was focused on the fact that many people were thrilled to have an excuse to talk about anything related to Silent Hill again.

Prior to the reveals themselves, though, you could certainly pick up on the increasingly strong vibe that Konami’s Silent Hill showcase was destined to disappoint. After all, the recent history of the Silent Hill franchise has been…rough, and that was before Konami decided to become an especially greedy and unlikable publisher that once seemed perfectly happy to never release a proper new video game again.

So did the reveal end up being as disappointing as some fans feared? Well, that kind of depends on who you ask and which of the new Silent Hill projects you’re talking about.

Let’s start with the Silent Hill 2 remake that is being developed by Bloober Team as a PS5 and PC exclusive. This was the marquee reveal of the Silent Hill showcase, and the reactions to it so far have been…mixed. To some, the idea of getting to play an updated version of Silent Hill 2 is more than enough reason to reason to be excited about the project. Furthermore, some of the updates that remake will feature may very well bring out the very best of that great game.

However, many early reactions to the Silent Hill 2 remake’s reveal have been focused on its developer, Bloober Team. Simply put, there were already quite a few people who were dreading the idea of Bloober Team working on a Silent Hill game as soon as the rumors of that studio’s involvement emerged. Some of those concerns were based on people’s feelings toward the quality of the developer’s previous projects while others think that Bloober Team’s writing and philosophies don’t gel with the unique needs of the Silent Hill series. However you slice it, the anti-Bloober Team crowd is coming out strong at the moment.

Other fans are simply a little worried about what they’ve seen of the Silent Hill 2 remake so far. James Sunderland’s new character model, in particular, has been the target of quite a few memes and slightly more…passionate reactions.

Comparatively, Return to Silent Hill (a new Silent Hill movie based on Silent Hill 2) and Silent Hill: Ascension (an “interactive video streaming experience” with a kind of communal choose your own adventure set-up) don’t seem to be drawing much buzz at all at the moment. While that’s likely because we really don’t know a lot about either project at this time, those really do feel like the most “Konami” (in a bad way) projects featured in the showcase.

It’s not all bad (or mixed) news, though. In fact, Silent Hill: Townfall (a still mysterious game from Stories Untold and Observation developer No Code) is garnering a lot of positive buzz at the moment. While No Code says they’ve really only begun to develop the game, that studio’s phenomenal horror history suggests they could do something really special with the Silent Hill franchise. As a huge fan of Stories Untold, I don’t mind telling you that this is the upcoming Silent Hill game that I’m most excited about.

Finally, there’s Silent Hill f. At the moment, this seems to be the one Silent Hill game that most fans are the most excited about. While that game’s Japanese setting and vague teaser trailer leave us with a lot of unanswered questions, the involvement of writer Ryukishi07 has piqued a lot of people’s interest. It’s a little too difficult to say for sure so early on, but that project is shaping up to be the one upcoming Silent Hill game that could continue the best part of the series’ legacy while taking it in an exciting new direction.

All in all, it seems safe to say that the Silent Hill presentation was viewed as something of a mixed bag. There is certainly potential for one of (if not all of) those projects to restore the Silent Hill franchise to glory. There’s also the potential for those projects to fall flat on their faces and remind us why the series has struggled to achieve widespread popularity to this point. Whatever happens, it’s nice that we’ll finally be able to talk about the Silent Hill franchise again without having to resort to retrospectives.