“You’ll probably hear something to be announced this summer,” Yamaoka said via a translator before adding, “and I think it’s the one you’re quite hoping to hear from.”
Let’s not smear any words here. Yamaoka is best known for his work on the Silent Hill series, where he was an original member of Konami’s Team Silent development team. A new Silent Hill game has been producing the internet rumors for years since the cancellation of Hideo Kojima’s PT and is easily the ones most excited to learn more about.
In the years since PT was set up, rumors of a new Silent Hill game being developed have surfaced several times. In 2020, a leading gamer announced that two Silent Hill games could be in development, one described as a ‘soft reload’, and the other an episodic game similar to Telltale titles.
The original Team Silent art director, Masahiro Ito, also tweeted in 2020 that they were working on a new title “as a core member”, adding: “I hope the title is not canceled.” This last line was interpreted as a reference to PT which led many to believe Ito was teasing a new Silent Hill game.
However, Team Silent director and former Sony Japan member Keiichiro Toyama recently left Sony to start their own company Bokeh Game Studio with Gravity Rush designers Junya Okura and Kazunobu Sato.
According to an interview with IGN Japan, Toyama’s project is a horror-action-adventure title.Meanwhile, Konami has confirmed that it has not closed its game development action after a corporate fluctuation, and has said in the past that it is always evaluating its entire IP portfolio for future game development.
Things are very unconfirmed at the moment, so if you want to keep your hopes in check, assume Yamaoka is talking about a new ESPN MLS GameNight reload.
MattTM Kim is a reporter for IGN. You can reach him @lawoftd on Twitter.