There was a Team Silent here. It’s gone now. But Konami are looking to, in some small way, to rectify that by setting up their own Resident Evil-style Silent Hill production team.
Capcom, developer and publisher of the ridiculously successful Resident Evil games has a team which includes several Resi veterans. And, going by this Launcher interview, Capcom has faith in them to deliver. Konami has well.. nothing.
Konami’s Team Silent was responsible for the first four Silent Hill games and while we could have done without SH4’s backtracking, they were excellent games and uniquely Japanese with it. But Konami handed the series over to other, Western developers and effectively shuttered the team.
Now, according to a recent Konami job posting tweet, the company is looking to build a new Silent Hill Team. It won’t be Team Silent, whose former members have gone their own way, but it could be a step in the right direction.
According to Google Translate, Konami’s ‘Silent Production Team’ is “…recruiting artists, planners, engineers, and project managers. Please join us in this work, which has many fans overseas! A chance to be involved in game production in a cutting-edge development environment.”
Layers of Fear developer Bloober Team is handling the unreleased Silent Hill 2 remake. And at least a couple of other developers are working on their own Silent Hills. But it could well be that Konami are looking to develop some Silent Hill titles internally, which has absolutely worked for Resident Evil.
There’s also another possibility, that this could be a Lucasfilm Games-style situation. In their own words, “Working hand-in-hand with world-class studios, Lucasfilm Games creates interactive and immersive experiences.” So while Lucasfilm Games is unlikely to put out a solo title they work with other studios to ensure they’re on-point and on-brand.
At the very least we hope new SH games won’t all be microtransaction laden (we’re looking at you, Ascension). And maybe, just maybe, the series can mean something again.
