Are We Believing These Rumors About Sony and Konami?

The number of gaming companies with catalogues of franchises being unutilized or underutilized is too high, with EA and Sega topping the list. But at least they’re still using a bunch of their franchises and creating new ones — especially in Sega’s case. Konami doesn’t have the highest number of them, though they’re close. But they stick out because they’re not using a single one as well as they could be, if they’re being used at all. Konami had been slowly drifting away from making video games for the so-called “hardcore” audience over several years, and were bound to reach their destination eventually.

Outside the Metal Gear franchise, which had a solid-though-anti-climactic end with Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, the biggest wasted series at Konami is Silent Hill thanks to a certain incident in 2015. Kojima Productions, headed by the man who used to be the company’s biggest name, Hideo Kojima, teased and announced Silent Hills through free first-person horror game P.T. It was a reboot of the series starring The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus. But it was cancelled quickly as the relationship between Konami and Kojima fizzled. The independent Kojima Productions put several ideas into Death Stranding, a title published by Sony that also starred Reedus.

If recent rumors are to be believed, that potential might be fulfilled after all. But you’ll want to heavily emphasize “if.”

Horror game enthusiast website Rely on Horror reported through a couple of sources that Konami is working with Sony Interactive Entertainment to revive the Silent Hill series, potentially on PlayStation 5. The first source, they claim, mentioned that SIE’s Japanese development arm will be working on the first game, with talent involved in previous SH titles, like director Keiichiro Toyama, composer Akira Yamaoka, and enemy designer Masahiro Ito. Toyama works for Sony these days, and helmed the Siren and Gravity Rush titles. Ito is clearly working on something, given a recent tweet he made about a project that he hopes won’t be cancelled. It’s tough to imagine Yamaoka being involved given that he’s a sound director at Grasshopper Manufacture, unless they’re involved too.

The rumor says the second game will involve Kojima Productions, to resume development of the cancelled Silent Hills’. Kojima did say that he wanted to work on a horror game next, and Death Stranding showed how one would be a perfect fit for his current directorial style. Reedus is also in talks with Kojima for more projects. But whether Guillermo Del Toro could get involved again would be another big question, who swore off working on video games after two projects (Silent Hills and Insane) were cancelled.

All of this sounds like wishful thinking, the kind of rumor that would be randomly posted on a message or bulletin board by some random. Rely on Horror, however, is confident in their sources, and it sure would be nice if it was true. But it still sounds a little too good.

On the other hand, if you think that sounds too good to be true, you’ll really give a side eye to the second rumor. This one comes from Jack of All Controllers, and says that Sony wants to acquire the Metal Gear, Silent Hill, and Castlevania franchises from Konami. If they do get them, Sony wants to have Kojima involved with Metal Gear and Silent Hill. They also reportedly plan to develop a Castlevania game in the vein of Bloodborne and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, purportedly in terms of tone given how those games play nothing alike.

I’m skeptical about the Silent Hill rumors above, but I really don’t believe this one. This sounds like a list of fanboy wishes from an Anonymous poster on 4Chan, because — guess what? — that’s where these originated. Accurate leaks have been posted on 4Chan before; but for every accurate one posted there, there are at least four fabrications. But they claim that other non-4Chan sources are backing them up.

It doesn’t make much sense that Konami would want to sell franchises they’re still making money off of. All these franchises are still getting new pachinko games, and some mobile releases. (Symphony of the Night recently released for mobile platforms.) It would make more sense if these were being licensed out to Sony, who can use developers of their choice. Yet, there’s also no stopping Konami from doing that themselves given the money they have.

The Silent Hill and Castlevania franchises weren’t that big, and it might be more prudent for Sony to create their own franchises or sequels inspired by those — like new Siren and Bloodborne titles. Kojima was trying to get away from Metal Gear for years, and saddling him to the franchise again would be an act of cruelty.

To answer the question proposed in the title: I don’t feel confident in the Silent Hill rumors, and I had to laugh about the second one. Remember again that anyone can post anything on the internet and potentially get away with it. If even one of these rumors (likely the first set) turns out true, tough, it will be a shame that info leaked beforehand. We might get an answer regarding whether they’re true whenever Sony holds their PS5 reveal event, though when that will happen is a big question considering the pandemic currently gripping the world.