Silent Hills
Konami’s marketing for Silent Hills was a stroke of genius. Release a free playable teaser, or P.T. for short, for a “mystery” horror game. Let the gaming community band together to discover the game’s secrets, allow the final cutscene to speak for itself, and have news spread on word of mouth.
A new entry in the Silent Hill franchise, Silent Hills, would be produced by the collective genius of Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro —and star Norman Reedus. Konami didn’t have to spend a dime on marketing save for the development costs of P.T. Simply genius.
The fanfare for Silent Hills was unheard of, and the hype only skyrocketed as time went on. And then Konami canceled the game, shortly before del Toro revealed that famed horror manga artist Junji Ito had been tapped for the project, likely to dream up the game’s nightmare fuel monsters.
Konami has yet to recover from this debacle.
While we will probably never play Silent Hills, its legacy lives on through other, rival projects. P.T.’s first-person perspective likely influenced Resident Evil 7’s similar perspective, as the game’s producer Masachika Kawata apparently “loved” P.T.
Numerous indie projects have cropped up to fill the void left by Silent Hills’ cancellation. Plus, Kojima and Reedus have reunited for the highly anticipated Death Stranding.
Had Konami finished and released Silent Hills, the company would have probably produced a must-play contender for Game of the Year. Sadly, since Silent Hills was canceled, Kojima went and created his own promising, potential Game of the Year contender instead.
For once, the universe has constructed a win-win scenario that benefits horror game fans.
