Silent Hills got a lot of attention last year due to the unusual way it was announced. A mysterious game called P.T. was revealed during Sony’s GamesCom conference in August. Eventually, gamers solved the cryptic puzzles from the teaser in order to discover that the downloadable title is actually for Silent Hills.
The latest Silent Hill project has some big names attached to it with Hideo Kojima, Guillermo del Toro and Norman Reedus. Unfortunately, it looks like the game has been cancelled as Hideo Kojima will be leaving Konami after the completion of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain later this year.
Instead of letting Silent Hills be cancelled, however, Sony should consider saving the development of the game in one form or another. Doing so will benefit the PlayStation 4 (and the PlayStation brand as a whole). You can find a list of reasons as to why we believe that it makes a lot of sense below.
Team Gravity
If Sony need some development help with Silent Hills, the publisher do not have to look too far. Keiichiro Toyama, the creator of the survival-horror series (along with others from the team responsible for the first game), left Konami in 1999 to join Sony. He would go on to create the Siren series in addition to the Gravity Rush franchise (including the upcoming Gravity Rush 2). So, if Sony can’t get Kojima Productions to develop Silent Hills, they have the internal resources to build a more than component team.
Hideo Kojima
Of course, Sony could also hire Hideo Kojima to work on the project. The creator behind the Metal Gear Solid series is one of the biggest names in the game development industry. Up until recently, his name has been appearing on the box arts of his games.
Aside from Kazunori Yamauchi (who is known for the Gran Turismo series), Sony doesn’t have anyone as iconic as Hideo Kojima from the Japan side of their first-party studios. So adding the creator to their Japan Studio team would be a great coup.
Building the List
Sony has been riding a big wave of good public relations since the PlayStation 4 launched. In addition to promising that PS4 games won’t have any DRM, the company also partnered with Double Fine Productions to remaster Grim Fandango and Day of the Tentacle. Not to mention that they were able to help bring Suikoden 2 and Yakuza 5 to the PlayStation Network in the U.S. region.
Saving a potentially cancelled project like Silent Hills would further help Sony be perceived warmly, especially from hardcore gaming fans.
Complement First-Party Lineup
Adding Silent Hills to the list of exclusives also complements Sony’s first-partly lineup very well. The company likes to keep a diverse lineup that includes kid-friendly games (such as LittleBigPlanet, Ratchet and Clank in addition to Tearaway) in addition to mature-rated experiences (such as Bloodborne, God of War and The Last of Us).
Thus, adding a true survival-horror game, something that is missing from Sony’s lineup for some years, would help further diversify the library.
Project Morpheus
For the uninformed, P.T. takes place from a first-person perspective. While Silent Hills may end up being different, the playable teaser ended up being very well received by both fans and critics alike. As scary as the experience is, it should be even creepier when playing the potential game by using a VR headset.
Sony is currently planning to launch Project Morpheus in the spring of 2015. In order to get gamers to buy what will presumably pricey add-on, they will need a killer app. Something like Silent Hills would get the attentions of both the mainstream media and hardcore gaming community.
As you can see above, Sony has plenty of incentives to save the Silent Hills project, whether by working with Hideo Kojima (which will most likely mean that the game will be under a new name), Konami or both.