Did Konami Just Confirm the Death of Silent Hills?

The highly anticipated Silent Hill sequel, Silent Hills, co-directed by horror auteur Guillermo Del Toro and Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima, was already considered under threat since rumours of a major fall out between Kojima and Konami, and the game’s developer may well have signalled the death-knell for Silent Hills by pulling the game’s demo from the PlayStation Store.

P.T. (short for Playable Teaser) was released on 12th August 2014 as a demo for a non-existent game. Upon completion, it was revealed that the interactive teaser was in fact a promo for the forthcoming Silent Hills. By the end of August, P.T. had been downloaded over one million times. Now, the game’s official website has announced that “The distribution period of “P.T. (Playable Teaser)” on PlayStation®Store will expire on Wednesday, April 29, 2015”.

The move follows a speculated feud between Kojima and Konami. Last month, Konami removed all mention of Hideo Kojima from its current and forthcoming Metal Gear Solid games, Metal Gear Solid Legacy Collection, Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes, and Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, as well as moving Twitter followers of the official Metal Gear Solid account, @Kojima_Pro_Live, to the Kojima-less @metalgear_en. Subsequently, one of Metal Gear Solid’s stars revealed that Kojima has effectively been fired by Konami.

The potential demise of Silent Hills may have been triggered by a dispute over the game’s Fox engine, which is owned by Kojima, while Konami remains in control of the rights to the Silent Hill intellectual property. Let us hope that it’s not true, and that both parties can put their dispute to one side in order to finish the game.

Thank you Eurogamer for providing us with this information.

Image courtesy of Silent Hill France.