Buoyed by the impassioned response to the terrifying appetizer P.T., Kojima Productions was on course to overhaul one of gaming’s more illustrious franchises with Silent Hills. History has taught us that such a reboot will never materialize though, with Konami opting to shut down the game early in development after it parted ways with esteemed Metal Gear developer Hideo Kojima.
It was a series of unfortunate events that even had Guillermo del Toro – originally attached to produce the horror reboot – proclaim that he would distance himself from the video game industry entirely out of fear that he would doom another nascent project. Now, a few months later, the filmmaker has touched base on Konami’s decision to pull the plug, why it made “no sense at all,” and even how Silent Hills bore some similarities to Naughty Dog’s adorned PlayStation exclusive The Last of Us.
Speaking with Bloody Disgusting, here’s what del Toro had to share on the subject at hand.
It was curious.We had a great experience and had great story sessions with hundreds upon hundreds of designs. Some of the stuff that we were designing for Silent Hills I’ve seen in games that came after, like The Last of Us, which makes me think we were not wrong, we were going in the right direction.
The thing with Kojima and Silent Hills is that I thought we would do a really remarkable game and really go for the jugular. We were hoping to actually create some sort of panic with some of the devices we were talking about and it is really a shame that it’s not happening. When you ask about how things operate, that makes no sense at all that that game is not happening. Makes no sense at all. That’s the randomness that I was talking about.
Despite our overwhelming disappointment that Silent Hills was canned just as it was beginning to take shape, the fact that del Toro empathizes with the fans is just about the only thing worth taking solace in.