Cliff Notes – Silent Hill 1 remake is official – new Castlevania still happening claims source
- Konami has confirmed a remake of the original Silent Hill, developed by Bloober Team, following the success of the Silent Hill 2 remake.
- The announcement was made during a Konami showcase, although no gameplay footage was revealed, indicating the project is still in early development stages.
Silent Hill 1 remake is official – new Castlevania still happening claims source
It’s no Silent Hill 2, but the first Silent Hill is still a top tier horror game (Konami)
Bloober Team and Konami’s next collaboration is another remake, this time of the first Silent Hill.
Konami’s decision to remake Silent Hill 2 and to outsource it to Polish studio Bloober Team was a very risky venture. The original Silent Hill 2 is a beloved classic and Bloober Team’s work on less revered titles like Layers Of Fear and The Medium meant that many didn’t trust it to handle such a prestigious game.
The gamble paid off though. Last year’s Silent Hill 2 remake was a faithful yet modernised revamp of the original classic, scoring strong reviews and becoming the fastest selling entry in the series.
So, it came as no surprise when, earlier this year, Bloober Team announced it was partnering with Konami again on another project. The obvious guess was another Silent Hill remake, and Konami has now confirmed that to be the case.
The announcement came during a Konami Press Start showcase on Thursday afternoon. After running through news on other upcoming games, such as a new online mode for Metal Gear Solid Delta, the showcase ended with a brief tease saying ‘Silent Hill is in development’ alongside Konami and Bloober Team’s logos.
Konami has since clarified that this is for a remake of the very first Silent Hill game from 1999, though the lack of any gameplay or pre-rendered cinematics suggests the project’s a long way from completion.
This is especially true since Bloober Team’s still working on an original horror game, Cronos: The New Dawn, which launches later this year.
Expert, exclusive gaming analysis
While Silent Hill 2 is regarded as the best of the series, the first Silent Hill is still an excellent horror game, barring some strangely difficult puzzles towards the end. Oddly, Bloober Team added more of these to Silent Hill 2 than there were originally, which suggests they won’t be removed for the Silent Hill 1 remake.
This new annoucement also makes a remake of Silent Hill 3 more likely, especially as, unlike Silent Hill 2, there are story connections with Silent Hill 1.
Although, really, of the original games developed by Team Silent, the one most in need of a remake is Silent Hill 4: The Room. Unfortunately, it’s only ever games that are already good that get remade, rather than flawed ones that would benefit from the second try.
We had extremely low expectations for Konami’s efforts to revive the Silent Hill series, as evidenced with the horrible Silent Hill: Ascension and the slightly better but still bad Silent Hill: The Short Message.
But between the Silent Hill 2 remake and the upcoming Silent Hill f in September (which we’re very excited for), the series looks to have a bright, if foggy future.
That said, Konami’s showcase continued to lack news on anything Castlevania related. Despite Konami’s return to traditional game publishing, it’s yet to do anything with one of its most iconic franchises – beyond lending it out as crossover material for other games.
We’ve been hearing talk of Konami making a new game since at least 2018, while a 2021 report from VGC also claimed that a new game was in development. But nothing has ever been annouced.
VGC’s Andy Robinson has stuck to the 2021 report’s claims, saying recently on X that, as far as he knows, a new Castlevania is ‘still coming.’ But if that’s true Konami is keeping the news very close to its chest.
Silent Hill f is the first proper mainline entry since 2012 (Konami)