Contributed By Lushark
In February, Masahiro Ito, creator of Red Pyramid Thing, tweeted, “I wish I hadn't designed fxxkin pyramid head.”
Ito himself refused to explain the tweet. Some fans even bought the long-abandoned “Silent.com” domain name and displayed Ito's tweet on it.
Fans often criticize Konami's poor management of the Silent Hill series, and most would see this tweet as Ito’s complaint about Konami - that even after so many years of the series being silent, they are still greedily exploiting the commercial value of Pyramid Head.
In the past decade, Silent Hill has not had a new title, and the talks about this iconic franchise have always been on players’ lips. In 2014, Hideo Kojima created the demo for a spiritual sequel named P.T., showing how this god-father of horror games could look with modern graphics. The P.T. demo kindled the interest of fans, but all hopes were in vain after the dire separation between Konami and its most decorated director-developer. Some fans even claim that Konami killed the last chance to revive the series.
コナミデジタルエンタテインメント様の『SILENT HILL f』のクリーチャーおよびキャラクターデザインを担当しています。よろしくお願い致します。#SILENTHILL https://t.co/e2eFmHOe2k
— kera (@kera_2) October 19, 2022
However, when Konami announced a new Silent Hill in the works during a summit on October 20th, we saw one of the biggest reversals in terms of corporate and franchise reputation. Fans showed genuine interest in the game, and even Ito retweeted Konami’s new art designer's self-introduction, which is seen as a gesture of support for Konami working on the series once again. How did this happen?
It’s fair to say that Komani had no one but themselves to blame for the downfall of the Silent Hill series.
After the great success of Silent Hill 2 in 2001, Konami distributed the series, originally led by a Japanese production team, to more small and medium-sized studios in Europe and the United States for mass production. Although these spin-offs also had a few fair reviews, they eventually undermined Silent Hill with their inconsistent style.
Silent Hill started to go downhill in terms of revenue, and after exhausting the potential of the series, Konami finally chose to give up on Silent Hill after 2011, leaving frustrated fans waiting in pain.
This was when Hideo Kojima stepped onto the scene. At the time, being the vice president of KDE, Kojima decided to make his version of Silent Hill in collaboration with famed filmmaker Guillermo del Toro.
In August 2014, a free demo called "Playable Teaser" (or P.T.) was released on the PlayStation Store. The demo had a distinctive Hideo Kojima style, with cinematic camera movement and fragmented narrative; players could even use the microphone on the controller to solve the puzzle. This is the P.T. that will be mentioned a lot by players in the future, and the Silent Hills behind it was naturally considered to be a work that only Kojima could complete.
Calling Hideo Kojima’s separation from Konami a “fiasco” is a bit of an understatement. The arguments and debates involved fans and industry leaders all over social media. Everyone has their opinion, but eventually, most people have gone over to Hideo Kojima’s side based on a few main points: Kojima’s resume as a developer is impeccable, and Konami’s corporate greed was shown clearly in the franchise-ending Metal Gear Survive.
In this atmosphere, it’s not hard to understand why many fans would feel that Konami giving up the rights to Silent Hill to Hideo Kojima would be the best move for the series. P.T. was a demo with great potential, and backing Kojima to develop a new Silent Hill title just feels like the right thing to do to show support in this ongoing fiasco of Kojima vs. Konami. Every slight hint has been interpreted as Kojima planning a new Silent Hill game, either with Sony and Konami or on his own. If you just look at social media, you would believe that P.T. is the de facto “next silent hill”.
Silent! He said silent!
Nearly 20,000 players wish Kojima to make another Silent Hill
However, the voice of opposition has always been there. This act of tying Silent Hill and Hideo Kojima together was not welcomed by the OG Silent Hill fans. The community is far more divided than it looks.
Despite P.T. being an intriguing display, fans of the original Silent Hill don’t really believe the demo captured the true essence of the series. And Hideo Kojima taking all the credit for Silent Hill is just not fair to the developers of the old series, many of who still work for Konami.
In these players’ eyes, Konami still has its own problems, but over-exaggerating one guy’s contribution and using it to overshadow the talent of the others is taking things too far.
When Konami announced Silent Hill F on the 20th, it was a big surprise. Its demo greatly captured the spirit of what makes Silent Hill-esque Japanese horror intriguing in the first place. We’re not sure if the developers at Konami have seen the talk online and felt the pressure, but they certainly got to work with a sense of their pride on the line.
What’s even more interesting is that Ryukishi07 was featured as the lead screenwriter. Being the creator of the indie visual novel sensation When They Cry-Higurashi and players certainly believe his obscure and twisted narrative style fits the atmosphere of the original Silent Hill.
Ryukishi07 was in charge of the famous Higurashi series
When the trailer came out, for a while, everyone seemed to forget about P.T. and the feud between Hideo Kojima and Konami. Geoff Keighly posted a picture of P.T. on his Twitter the day before the summit, but players seem to be putting aside the complicated past of Silent Hill and are now focused on the future of the series.
— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) October 20, 2022