Konami does not have the strongest track record when its comes to the treatment of theSilent Hillseries. It was initially born from a lack of oversight, and was then suddenly forced to become a major franchise without much care from upper management. It’s a miracle any of the Silent Hill games were made at all.
Which is why there being a hoard of canceled Silent Hill games is not very surprising at all. Game cancelations are a common occurrence, especially in the early stages, though Silent Hill has had as many games canceled as actually created. Here’s all of them that we know about.
Were Any Team Silent Games Canceled?
The original team behind the Silent Hill games was known as Team Silent. This was a common occurrence in the late 90s to early 2000s where teams were named after the projects they headed. Team Silent was responsible for the initial four Silent Hill games, and were disbanded around the time of Silent Hill: Origins whenKonami decided to put a greater focus on Western studiosdeveloping games in the series.
However, it was not smooth sailing for Team Silent until this point. Indeed, many of the games they did make weredramatically altered from the original vision they hadto fit Konami’s exceedingly demanding requirements mixed with a lack of coordination on what the games should actually be. Here are the games we know about.
Silent Hill 3
While Silent Hill 3 is indeed a game that exists and was made and released by Team Silent, it is a far cry from the initial plans for the game. Originally, Silent Hill 3 was going to pull from similar themes as Silent Hill 2 with a deeper focus on psychological trauma, stepping evenfurther away from the cult machinations of the original Silent Hill.
This ran into two problems -The fans, and Konami itself. While Silent Hill 2 was still quite a liked game, many took issue with the fact thatit didn’t follow up on the story of the very first Silent Hill, dropping it instead for the independent stories of James, Angela, and Eddie. This put a degree of apprehension on the team to stray even further, pushing them closer to what ended up in the final product.
Konami on the other hand, didn’t care about any of that. The company viewed Silent Hill as another money-maker, andSilent Hill 2 was not making them a lot of money. Its proposition was to turn the next Silent Hill game into an on-rails shooter not unlike the later Silent Hill: The Arcade. This was met with fierce opposition, again pushing the team towards continuing the ideas of the original game to appease both Konami and fans.
Silent Hill 5
Silent Hill 4: The Room, went in avery different direction from the games before it.The heavy controls were removed and environments became more focused on the singular room and the cyclical nature of returning to it. It was different, though not perfectly achieved. It suffered, like previous games had, from the need to exist without full clarity as to what it should be.
However, with distance from Silent Hill 3 and the story of the original game, Team Silent felt confident inreturning to the original concept for Silent Hill 3. This story, according to Masashi Tsuboyama, was the darkest they had yet written. They had awareness they would likely have to cut content to get past censors, though the game never got to this point anyway. Konami canceled it in favor of the upcoming Silent Hill: Origins instead.
Nothing concrete exists on Silent Hill 5 beyond answers from interviews, but initial ideas state that the game wanted toshift away from a focus on fog and darknessand instead portray the town of Silent Hill in a more lively fashion. It would deteriorate as the story went on, becoming more twisted with time. The Otherworld was planned to feature sunlight heavily as well, showing how horros can hide in plain sight.
Shortly after this,Team Silent was disbanded, making the concept for Silent Hill 5 their final game.
Who Else Made Silent Hill Games That Were Canceled?
After the disbandment of Team Silent after The Room, the Silent Hill games became very unpredictable. The first to release wasSilent Hill: Origins, a game intended to take place the furthest back in the timeline so far to show some of the events that led the town to become what it is. Yet even this game did not start as a prequel.
Since Team Silent,approximately seven Silent Hill games have been canceledthat we have been made aware of, though it is entirely possible even more have met an ill fate than we will ever be aware of.
Silent Hill: Original Sin
Silent Hill: Origins was made by a studio called Climax Studios. While the final game acts as a prequel to the original Silent HIll, its development was completed by the UK Climax Studio, rather than the LA branch that had started development. Originally pitched as a Silent Hill 1 remake, it quickly became a new game when they realised that creating a game of that scale on the PSP would take much more work than expected.
This is what led to the subsequent development of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, a pseudo-remake of the original game.
As Original Sin, it was initially going to be a much more comedic game, pulling inspiration from the TV show Scrubs, an over-the-shoulder camera, and a degree of crafting by letting you build fortifications to defend yourself from monsters. This version was viewed as lacking clarity, and was later transferred to the UK branch to become Origins.
Broken Covenant
Following on from Origins, Climax Studios pitched a new Silent Hill game to Konami - Broken Covenant. This game never made it past the concept stage, having been rejected by Konami multiple times. It would have focused on Alessa from the original SIlent Hill traveling to Arizona, the curse of Silent Hill coming with her.
Silent Hill DS Games
Of all the platforms in which Silent Hill has been released, the DS was never one of them. WayForward, creators of the Shantae series, made a prototype game for Konami using assets of Silent Hill 2 to prove the viability of a Silent Hill DS game. Konami was not interested in creating a title for the DS though, and so this project went nowhere.
It must have impressed Konami somewhat though, as WayForward later made Silent Hill: Book of Memories for the PS Vita.
Silent Hill: Cold Heart
Another title from Climax Studios, Cold Heart was intended to be a Wii exclusive title, focusing on the usage of motion controls to make you more immersed in the world. The game would have focused around a high school student who got trapped in Silent Hill, having to survive the cold and the monsters within. This game fell through, eventually forming the basis for Shattered Memories.
The Box
This title has very little behind it. It was to be made by Silicon Knights, developers of Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, who had also worked with Konami on The Twin Snakes. It was intended to be an open-world survival horror game, though eventually the game was sold to THQ instead, which then died along with THQ, never to be seen from again.
Silent Hill (2013)
The first Silent Hill game that was intended to be made in Japan since The Room, this Silent Hill also has little information behind it. It was being worked on by Masahiro Ito, with the intent of finally putting an end to Pyramid head in the games. Little is known of the games beyond this, aside from some lighting tests that Ito revealed, with Konami keeping any mention of the project closely under wraps.
Why Was Silent Hills Canceled?
Even those beyond the general sphere of influence of Silent Hill games have heard of Silent Hills. Or rather, they’ve heard of P.T., the Playable Teaser for the Silent Hills game that never was. Directed by Hideo Kojima with the promise of Guillermo del Toro and Junji Ito working alongside him on the game, it sounded like a dream new vision for the Silent Hill series.
It was announced formally in 2014, though not as a Silent Hill game until the game itself was completed. Around this same time, many internal struggles occurred within Konami surrounding Kojima, eventually leading to him leaving Konami with much of his team and his name being removed from the upcoming Metal Gear Solid. For the longest time, Konami refused to acknowledge that the events had occurred at all, with Guillermo del Toro being the first person to state the game had been canceled.
So why was it canceled? Clearly, game cancelations were not a new thing for Silent Hill, though previously many of these games had been reworked into something new. It seemed that Silent Hills, however, was simply too closely linked with Kojima and his collaborators for it to continue without them. This was a major hit for the Silent Hill series, which went into a hiatus until the release of Silent Hill: Ascension in 2023.
