It wouldn’t be a month of gaming news without ragging on Konami. This time around, though, said news comes in the form of something the company didn’t do. That is to say, it’s yet another cancelled Silent Hill project.
Climax Studios, perhaps best known for Silent Hill Origins and Shattered Memories, once had another entry for the horror series in the pipeline. YouTube channel PtoPOnline has unearthed the rough, very early pitch that Climax made for Konami.
The game would’ve starred Father Hector Santos, a priest called to help his niece, Ana, from an otherworldly threat. That threat would have been Alessa, longtime series antagonist, whose psychokinetic energy would have started spreading bits and pieces of Silent Hill to other towns. This would’ve been accomplished through having various features of the town randomly materializing out of thin air. Oh, and the franchise’s signature monsters, such as the Bubble Head Nurses and even Pyramid Head. Because of course.
This untitled project would have featured a blend of old school, fixed camera-angle exploration and then-newfangled, Resident Evil 4-esque shooting mechanics. Players would have also been able to move around an open world, and utilized Father Santos’ truck to get from place to place. That is, after he’d “purified” it. Yes, they were really committed to the whole priest angle.
Watching this video, I’m pretty sad we didn’t get to see the finished product. There’s a lot of promise with this idea, and it seemed like a stellar blend of atmospheric dread and cutthroat horror. It’s even more of a bummer that, when the title was shopped around under a different name, nobody picked it up. Eventually, the entire thing had to be shelved. That’s a real letdown, as survival horror has been on its last legs for some time now. Something like this would’ve been a welcome treat last generation.
In case you’re keeping score, that’s about the fourth Silent Hill project Konami’s canceled. Meanwhile, Book of Memories still exists for some reason, and I’m still bitter over one of my favorite series practically not existing anymore.
