Fans of Silent Hill have recently gotten the unexpected news of it crossing over with the hit asymmetrical horror title, Dead by Daylight. This crossover brings the infamous monster, Pyramid Head, as the game's newest killer and protagonist of Silent Hill 3, Cheryl Mason, as the newest playable survivor. With this news, it seems that Konami wants to bring attention back to Silent Hill.
There have been many rumors spiraling around the possible continuation or reboot of the famous horror franchise, but most agree that the next title would have to appear on the upcoming Playstation 5. However, there were also many Silent Hill fans who had given up on anything past pachinko machines pertaining to their favorite series.
Silent Hill's Future
Konami in the past couple years has become infamous among fans and developers alike with its treatment of staff and franchises, making these fans lose their hope. This can also be coupled with the mostly broken HD rerelease of Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3 that had to be completely remake from scratch due to losing the original source codes. Of course, the cancelling of the widely praised Silent Hills cemented the complete loss of hope.
Even with the rumors flying about a new Silent Hill title, the new crossover with Dead by Daylight means something is most likely coming for Silent Hill's future. With Dead by Daylight's popularity, Konami must be planning to do something with the series and could be using Dead by Daylight to help rebuild fan-interest in the series. The possible sale numbers of the upcoming DLC could also help Konami gauge the fan-demand for something new.
Considering the recent Resident Evil titles and remakes as well as the demo for Silent Hills, gameplay for a new game would likely be different than any other Silent Hill title from to past to help the game survive in a modern market. The horror market and horror game scene has changed completely from the late 90s and early 2000s where Silent Hill peaked. While the atmosphere and nightmarish visuals are timeless, the gameplay that lends players to being scared is always evolving.
One of the most important aspects about Silent Hill, however, is that many of the games serve as character studies of the main character or another important figure. The basis of the town has the various monster abominations representing aspects of the characters' lives, whether it be their regrets, fears, or memories. In order to make a new Silent Hill game that stands up to the absolute classics, it has to tell a compelling story or show interesting characters that grow among the nightmares as well as the past darkening horrors.
However, a theory that many have is that a new Silent Hill title may serve as a possible reboot of the franchise. This would allow the writers to start from scratch and ignore any lore established in previous Silent Hill games. While this may allow for a sense of freedom for developers, this would definitely upset many of the long-time fans. This would also not be necessary for the most part, as the Silent Hill games in general don't require knowledge of anything that happened in previous games in order to enjoy the story due to the games being more character focused.
Pyramid Head's Popularity
There is one way that could justify a sort of reboot and possibly satisfy fans and that would be remaking and rebooting the original games themselves in a new universe. This would allow for many classic Silent Hill monsters to return while also having brand new monsters to represent even more parts of the protagonists. With Pyramid Head coming to Dead by Daylight with his original Silent Hill 2 design, this could mean his appearance in a remake or re-imagining of Silent Hill 2.
While rather polarizing to some players upon release, Silent Hill 2 rose to one of the most popular games in the franchise due to the complexity of the main character, James Sunderland, as well as the introduction of the infamous monster, Pyramid Head. This title focuses less on the town of Silent Hill and its lore involving cults, gods, and sacrifices, and is more focused on James and his struggles with coping with the death of his wife, Mary.
As James searches Silent Hill to find his wife after receiving a post-mortem letter from her, he encounters many other characters that are each also dealing with their inner demons. While players go deeper into the story told in Silent Hill 2, they find that their most subtle of actions affect how the story ends and that they shouldn't trust everything that the game tells them. Blindly playing through this game has impacted many players throughout the years and it do so again through a remake, as the game is extremely hard to find physically and play legally.
Due to the lack of connection Silent Hill 2 has to other titles in the series, it may be the best one to reboot and test the waters with as it could stand on its own well if no other games were to come out afterward. A reboot or remake of Silent Hill 2 could also greatly benefit from the strange ways the Silent Hills demo performed to mess with and disorientate the player.
Now with the possibility of a reboot or remake coming to the PlayStation 5, fans may worry about there being too many changes to the story to try and appeal more to a modern audience. Many characters in the Silent Hill franchise are morally grey characters that can do and have done horrible things that leave the players up to how they want to see them. It could be possible that some of these controversial characters could be rewritten to become more obviously good or bad.
However, it is unknown what kind of team would work with the franchise. There are teams that want to work on Silent Hill as an outsource, but currently no concrete information is out, except for Behavior and its crossover.
There is currently no new information on when or if a new Silent Hill title is coming out.