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Yes, yes, time to break out your Skepticals while you read this, but there’s a little more to this Silent Hill rumor than the usual vague “no dude trust me” source. During an interview with GamesIndustry.Biz, Bloober Team CEO Peter Babieno spoke at length about the company’s history with psychological horror games and their future. Babieno took the opportunity when referencing the studio’s plans for what’s next, to extrapolate on one project in particular:
“In fact, we’ve been working for more than a year on another gaming project, another horror IP, and we’re doing this with a very famous gaming publisher. I can’t tell you who. I can’t tell you what the project is, but I’m pretty sure when people realize we’re working on it, they will be very excited.”
For a while now, there have been rumors that Konami has been shopping the Silent Hill IP around, trying to get two new projects off the ground — specifically, a more traditionally styled title that would serve as a reboot, and a narrative-focused ‘Tell-Tale’ style game. Bloober would be following up multiple iterations of Silent Hill inspired ventures (most obviously Layers of Fear and this year’s The Medium). Of course, that doesn’t lock this in at all. There are any number of ‘famous Japanese publishers’ and IP they could be working with, from Capcom and Resident Evil to Nintendo and Fatal Frame (which is actually sort of up their ally as a slower-paced, more exploratory-focused series). They did, of course, just work with prominent Silent Hill alumni Akira Yamaoka and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, so they have a closer in with a new Silent Hill project (in theory) than other potential IP.
Babieno also explained that they want to make more games like The Medium, leaving behind first-person and exploring more action and complicated mechanics, which is exciting as a lack of true combat has been one of the main criticisms of their games, with the difficult to master keep-away flashlight mechanic from 2019’s Blair Witch possibly being their closest to date. Silent Hill‘s combat was never quite its focus, of course, but it was diverse and had dozens of weapons to chose from in the original trilogy titles, with Shattered Memories being the only title to drop combat altogether (not counting the GBA spin-off).
We’ll see one way or another, but it’s worth noting that Akira Yamaoka confirmed a few weeks ago that he’s working on a new project that’s to be revealed this summer. Dominos continue to line up, it just remains to be seen if we’ve all been lambs led to the slaughter disappointment once again.
[Source]
