The Rise and Fall of Silent Hill

In the late 1990s, horror games were on the rise. The hardware capabilities of Sony’s PlayStation enabled developers to craft immersive 3D experiences that married the atmosphere and shock of Hollywood’s most terrifying pictures with the agency of games – and players couldn’t get enough of them.

Among these titles was a twisted, yet comparatively demure experience called Silent Hill. Developed by a motley crew of talented Konami employees, Silent Hill flipped contemporary horror game tropes on their head, casting the player as an everyman in search of his daughter in a fog-enshrouded town. The game would be well received, and followed up by three sequels on the PlayStation 2 that would catapult the Silent Hill name into horror gaming stardom.

However, shifting interests within Konami would lead the Japanese company to disband the team that developed these early titles, and outsource all future games in the series to studios in Europe and America. While this move would produce some genuine highlights, mixed efforts and a lack of care on Konami’s part would result in Silent Hill gradually becoming a shell of its former self; a legend brimming with potential that always seemed to fall short of its glory days through some issue or another.

This is the rise and fall of Silent Hill.

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[Lord_Deimos]

There was a horror series here... it's gone now.

[Zepo]

This series deserves the treatment Resident Evil is getting right now.

[DeepInsideZettaiRyouiki]

Moral of the story: Konami is Eastern variant of EA

[Cali]

"A Silent Hill pachinko machine."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, pretty much sums up what the series has tragically devolved into in the end. Sigh.

[thattypicalslimy]

"In my restless dreams, I see that game, Silent Hills."

[aciDCXIV]

Konami is like the father that hated their child and Team Silent is the mother that loved their child.

And when the mother died...

[WalkerRileyMC]

I still remember the first time I played Silent Hill. Rented it for the weekend. I plugged it in Friday night.


I didn't sleep. I couldn't sleep. And everytime I heard static I would freak out. There was a heavy heavy fog the next morning. I refused to leave the house until the sun banished it away.






Fuck you, Konami....you took an amazing IP and tortured it to death.

[Ra_aradnE]

The narrator’s voice is so....relaxing.

[realPutt-Putt]

Silent Hill 1-4 aren’t games. They’re a trip down your darkest nightmares. In Resident Evil you fight the monsters. In Silent Hill, you might just be the monster.

[blinkthdog]

I'm 37 now and my favorite memory of college was playing silent Hill 2 late at night, listening to crickets and ambient conversations across the grass field. I still listen to the OST every April as spring rolls in.

[Void]

*I'm already dead.*
*I can't tell you to remember me, *
*But I can't bear for you to Forget me.*
-*Mary*

[IJPUNK]

Konami: The Series Killer
- Silent Hill
- Metal Gear
- Castlevania
- Suikoden

[TevyaSmolka]

this breaks my heart that silent hill is now dead and gone

[Ragnarook]

Silent Hill: Dead
Metal Gear: Dead
Castlevania: Dead
Suikoden: Dead

[waverave]

Silent Hill has to make a return. It's such an icon in all of gaming, and to simply just move on from it isn't justified

[waltervonterror]

Seeing that Silent Hill pachinko machine literally made me sick to my stomach.

[TragicFX]

"nothing can be as heartbreaking as the half life video"
I was wrong

[henry]

"... I can't tell you to remember me, but I can't bear for you to forget me..."

[solracrod]

When you hear Mary reading the letter at the end of this video, it’s as if she is describing the Silent Hill franchise.

“You promised me you'd take me
there again someday.
But you never did.”

Konami never did!

[martyschwartzhere]

In terms of a concept, Silent Hill 4 is one of the most deeply thought provoking games I have ever experienced. I would go further as to say that it is the greatest portrayal of depression and anxiety executed in any video game, ever.