Silent Hills

Silent Hills is an upcoming Silent Hill game for the PlayStation 4, and will be the ninth installment in the main series, following Silent Hill: Downpour. It is being developed by Kojima Productions and will be published by Konami. It is being directed by Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro, and starring Norman Reedus.

Development

In September 2012, Konami's president asked Hideo Kojima, producer of Konami's Metal Gear Solid series, to direct the next Silent Hill installment, to which he said he would love to, using the graphic technology known as the FOX engine.

When asked about the project, Kojima stated:

In the past I’ve mentioned Silent Hill in interviews, and as a result of that the president of Konami rung me up and said he’d like me to make the next Silent Hill.

Honestly, I’m kind of a scaredy-cat when it comes to horror movies, so I’m not confident I can do it. At the same time, there’s a certain type of horror that only people who are scared of can create, so maybe it’s something I can do.

That said, I think Silent Hill has a certain atmosphere. I think it has to continue, and I’d love to help it continue, and if I can help by supervising or lending the technology of the Fox Engine, then I’d love to participate in that respect.

On August 12th, 2014, Sony announced that an interactive teaser called P.T. (which stands for "Playable Teaser") by fake developer "7780s Studio" was made available on the PlayStation Store exclusive to PlayStation 4. Upon completion of P.T., its true identity is revealed to be a teaser of the upcoming Silent Hills.

P.T. begins with an unknown protagonist waking up in a mysterious house which eventually becomes haunted. The first-person gameplay style is reminiscent of Amnesia: The Dark Descent or Outlast, and the demo showcases the realistic graphics of the Fox Engine. The demo intentionally features no blatant Silent Hill references (aside from "Lisa" written on a wall), as to not prematurely expose the reveal.

At the end of the demo, the protagonist wakes up in Silent Hill. Silent Hills will apparently feature a main character voiced by The Walking Dead star Norman Reedus and designed in his likeness. Hideo Kojima and director Guillermo Del Toro are tied to the project.

Kojima revealed that he wants to make the game able to "shit your pants", and that the 7780 Studios received its name from the square kilometer area of Shizuoka, a Japanese prefecture which literally translates to "Quiet Hills". Many Japanese people simply refer to the horror game series as Shizuoka.