“Following the release of Silent Hill 2 in October 2024, we were able to deliver Silent Hill f in September 2025, and the Silent Hill series is now back on track,” series producer Motoi Okamoto told Famitsu. “We aim to release about one title per year, including both announced and unannounced titles. We’re not sure how far we can achieve this, but we’ll do our best as the producer of the Silent Hill series. Ideally, we’d like to keep the buzz around Silent Hill constant.”
One new game per year sounds like a steep challenge, but Konami’s initial plans for the series’ revival may already have them set for at least the next two years. Konami first announced Silent Hill: Townfall, from Annapurna Interactive and BAFTA-winning Stories Untold developer No Code, during the big Silent Hill broadcast in 2022. Complete silence has surrounded the project since then, though a now-deleted retail listing from department store giant Liverpool Mexico suggested Townfall would launch in March 2026.
They’ve got nothing so they have to reboot and remaster a 30 year old IP. OK fine. They want to make it ongoing…meh, but I get it. They say Annual…proving why they haven’t been a player in the industry for decades.
“Don’t ask questions, just consume product, then get excited for next product.”
So… now that we’ve got our series to finally get the love it deserves, spent 3+ years polishing and making the game the way the fans have all been clamoring for for years. We are now ready to mass produce, copy/paste the formula until we kill the franchise so spectacularly no one asks us to make another.
Line must go up! Until the brain-dead who just buy annual releases without thought begin to pay attention, studios will continue to do this.
I’m still in shock that EA is not going to do an F1 26. They said they want to do better with the next one, so they’re skipping a year.
Nothing screams quality like releasing to an arbitrary schedule rather than when the games are finished, eh?
Who needs quality if it makes lots of money?
Nah didn’t you see Marvel? They have some schedule and a multiverse and make all the money. They wouldn’t make money if they delivered ugly CGI slop would they now? 🙃
Annual releases made the Madden franchise into what it is today!
And once again Konami proves they have no fucking clue what horror fans actually want.
These companies keep trying to grab both bones, completely failing to realize the second bone is a fucking reflection.
They have tapped some genuinely competent studios for this comeback of the franchise, but tightening the screws, like, at all, and this shit will blow up. Setting up four games from the start may already have been a mistake.
If Konami wants more, they don’t need to make more Silent Hill. They have so many alternatives.
FFS, they are sitting on fucking Zone of the Enders, despite Armored Core showing there’s plenty of appetite for that kind of game.
Or how about a modern Castlevania? Anyone?
Or, get this, publish for some small indie studios with neat ideas for completely new stuff, as a low cost way to discover new potential franchises?
Both Zone games had awesome soundtracks.
It’s like resuscitating a dying animal, just so you could kill it yourself.
Oh man, and they’re gonna want to release in autumn, too, to be in time for spooky season. So, if it isn’t done at that point, they’re likely to release in an unfinished state rather than delay by a whole year…
Not that I clicked on the article, but the quote given by OP actually doesn’t worry me too much. It feels too me like there is an appropriate level of caution here. I don’t get the impression they’re trying to do an Activision.
Resident Evil was near annual for a bit, and only the 3 remake do I really hear people complain about.
It’s post-Kojima Konami. They’ll find a way to screw any leftover IP up.
I mean, I don’t have a ton of skin in the game here, as I don’t care much for horror games either way.
But yeah, I just assume that they say they’re cautious to calm the fans, but they actually can’t be cautious, since well, they can only really delay by a whole year at a time, and if they do that, then they have two games in the year afterwards.They did only pre-plan a handful of years, so maybe they can just delay the following games by a year each, too.
But yeah, it still just sounds like the decision-making here isn’t driven by logic or what allows publishing good games, but rather by
I think it’s important to consider that, if you had some aim to release something annually, but without taking any oblique compromises on quality, how would you announce this to people without pissing them off? Because a lot of people are going to hear the word ‘annual’ and just immediately seize.
I think, and I’m not saying this is true per se, but I think that they’re signaling an aim or a hope, and not that there will be a CI pipeline that auto releases the next Assassin’s Creed to stores no matter what state it’s in.
If they can’t keep pace with yearly releases, the language used tells me they’re willing to slow down, kind of exactly like how Resident Evil has.
I will be disappointed if it turns out Konami can’t keep their cock in their pants, of course, but SH2, SHf, and what I think I’ve heard about MGS3 all tell me that there is some effort to produce things that are worth seeing here, which I’m fine with.
Remember a few years ago, around the time they made that MGS3 pachinko machine that updated the cutscenes to be on the FOX engine and pissed off fans hoping for a FOX engine remaster of the game, and Konami said it was leaving the video game industry to focus on pachinko machines?
Whatever happened to that? 🤔
Good thumbnail, exactly my feelings.
Back on track? It sucked.
Maybe they should figure out why silent hill used to be good.
They made a game, but not a good silent hill game.
Hard disagree.
What parts of Silent Hill did you reflect on? What parts made you think, this is a really good Silent Hill game?
Or as other people have put it: If it had a different name, would it have mattered? I am not discussing if it is a good game or not, but is it a Silent Hill game?
Um, the part where it was fun and creepy? And drenched in symbolism. I don’t know what you’re asking.
I think you’re implying that they made a game called f and then called it Silent Hill f, but I don’t think that’s even remotely true. I don’t even know where to go with that.
We may as well ask if Ocarina of Time isn’t a good Zelda game because the 3D elements stray too far from the core experience of having crazy pink hair. Would it have mattered if that game was instead called “Golden Billy Wets His Willy in Medieval Japan”?
Yes they basically made a game called f. Really nothing to with Silent Hill. Not the game play, not the story, not the presentation. No inner narrative horror, no lynchian underpinnings. It switched from internal to external pressures for the character.
In a way, I suppose that’s fine. Its a story in a different lens, not really a Silent Hill lens, but ok lets go with it.
Then they changed the gameplay. This is not a silent hill style at all. Forced repetition and combat loops. Stamina. Arena style game play. Well there goes the psychological and horror aspect AND they didnt even do it very well.
If you want to compare old video games, it is like Doki Doki Panic. Mario 2 in name only.
James Sunderland’s external pressure was his wife’s disease. What are you talking about?
The stuff that you’re saying isn’t there is, if you’re paying attention.
And the game’s combat style is plenty Silent Hill.
- It’s tense, creating a lot of “dropped keys” moments.
- Your resources are limited, creating waves of dread and relief as you teeter between safe-ish and extremely vulnerable.
- It sucks, lmao got’em.
These are the 3 underpinnings of all Silent Hill combat systems. Every title has them.
I am kidding, though. Once you understand what Silent Hill f wants you to do, the gameplay is actually quite fun. I beat it on its super hard mode; not as difficult as you would think.
Not to mention, all of the fighting in this game, I get why people are frustrated, but it serves a narrative purpose. Hinako’s defining character trait is rage. The game compels you diegetically to rage with her.
And I feel you about to say “Silent Hill isn’t Doom Eternal,” but anger is a pretty dark emotion, I do actually think it’s worth exploring.
The main problem I have with this line of thinking is that I don’t think you leave any room for experimentation. It’s just grievance politics, basically. “This isn’t a Silent Hill game” doesn’t really mean anything, what it means is “it wasn’t what I wanted,” which is fine, but I think you’re trying to dress that opinion up in fancier clothes than it deserves.
For example, Doki Doki Panic is a Mario game. Not only was it made by the Mario team, using their Mario lessons, but it’s the codifier for a ton of modern Mario staples. Shy Guys, Bob-ombs, Peach’s float ability all debuted in Doki Doki Panic. You can’t really separate it from Mario history; it’s deeply entangled.
Doki Doki Panic
They thought Mario 2 was too hard so they took a completely different game and named it Mario for the Western audience. It was definitely not a Mario game. They just shoved Mario on it and went, here it is!
I guess if the future is any thing is “Silent Hill” as long as it is scary and spooky, well ok then. I still think it is a completely different system of game play, but obviously if it can stand on its own then so be it.
Having a game by Ryukishi07 is a good thing. Maybe they could have done it with their own universe instead. They intentionally pulled the western out in favor of Japanese themes. Which is cool, but Silent Hill was heavily inspired by Twin Peaks, and that Japenese/Lynchian stuff was so awesome, its hard to see it pulled off and still called Silent Hill.
Either way, I do think they could have refined the gameplay a bit more.
