Konami has confirmed that it has indeed canceled survival horror game Silent Hills in a statement to Kotaku. The game was announced last year via the terrifying interactive teaser P.T.
Guillermo del Toro broke the news on Saturday, during a Q&A session at a San Francisco Film Society event. Photojournalist Matt Hackney, who was covering the event reported that del Toro answered a question about the progress of Silent Hills with, “It’s not gonna happen and that breaks my greasy heart.”
“It’s not gonna happen and that breaks my greasy heart.” -Guillermo del Toro on #SilentHills. #sfff #sffs #sffilmfest #fb
— PD’s Matt Hackney (@tvsmatthackney) April 26, 2015
Hackney on Sunday posted a video of the event, shot on camera phone, in which del Toro makes the disappointing revelation.
The reveal of Norman Reedus at the end of last year’s P.T. interactive teaser generated tremendous excitement for the new Silent Hills game. Reedus on Sunday apologized to fans about the news regarding the status of the game.
Super bummed about this was really looking forward to it. Hopefully it’ll come back around. Sorry everyone 🍕 http://t.co/drZJ8tBsSN
— norman reedus (@wwwbigbaldhead) April 26, 2015
Prior to Konami’s confirmation today, it wasn’t clear whether the game itself was canceled, or whether the departure of del Toro and Reedus meant that Silent Hills would be taking another direction.
Fans were tipped off to problems with development on Silent Hills on Friday when the official website for P.T. posted a message that “The distribution period of ‘P.T. (Playable Teaser)’ on PlayStation Store will expire on Wednesday, April 29, 2015.” The interactive horror game P.T. made huge waves in 2014 for its terrifying content, so removing the software from the PS Store was a head-scratcher.
That Silent Hills is being canceled altogether makes sense in the light of Hideo Kojima, creator of the famous Metal Gear franchise slated to co-helm Silent Hills with del Toro, leaving game developer Konami under circumstances that are yet unclear.
As reported by Kotaku, rumors that Kojima had been fired from Konami began on March 19, following the removal of his name from advertising materials for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, which is currently in development. Kojima was also removed from Konami’s executive board.
If you’re a PlayStation 4 owner, make sure to pick up P.T. from the PlayStation Store by Tuesday night. It may be all that’s left of Silent Hills, unless Konami resurrects the project later under a different creative team.
Illustration via Konami