the foggy streets Silent Hill, where the eerie silence is punctuated by the drone of air raid sirens, are among the most evocative settings in video games. Between its impeccable setting and its disturbing psychological horror story, it’s no wonder Silent Hill and the series it spawned have achieved legendary status. But his legacy was cut short when a much-hyped sequel was canceled in 2015, and fans have been desperate for information on the series ever since.

As always in games, anticipation breeds buzz and Silent Hill is not an exception. The series’ history of changing hands and an extremely high-profile cancellation make even wild theories easy to believe, especially for a fan base eager to return to its haunted halls.

One of Silent HillThe most iconic motifs in , its oppressive mist, were due to technical constraint rather than artistic choice. The PlayStation, where Silent Hill released, it struggled to represent large city environments, so fog was used to cover this technical shortcoming. Fog is so essential to making Silent Hill supernaturally hostile that fans complained when an HD remake removed some of it, making the game easier to watch but ruining the atmosphere.

Silent Hill It set a tone that the sequels closely followed, though more often than not they failed to reach the heights of the original. Then came 2014, and a strange PlayStation demo called PT, directed by Hideo Kojima. The demo shared many similarities with Silent Hill, including its tense atmosphere and themes of family trauma, but was not announced as part of the series. Only when the players reached the end of PT they would see a trailer revealing that it was a demo of silent hillsthe next game in the horror franchise.

Fans’ hopes were crushed when Konami not only canceled silent hillsbut also shot PT from the PlayStation servers entirely, making the game impossible to access. Fans have been quick to preserve their own local copies and even create unofficial remakes, but Konami hasn’t mentioned it. PT publicly again. With silent hillscancellation, the series effectively ended in 2012 with the disappointing Silent Hill Downpour.

However, in the hearts of fans, Silent Hill is primed for a comeback. When silent hills was cancelled, Konami said that the series was still alive and a sequel was planned. Fans took it to heart, despite Konami’s complete silence on the subject afterwards.

Then, in 2020, the rumors began to surface. filter aesthetic gamer claimed that a new Silent Hill game began development in 2019 and was due to be revealed in July or August 2020. The rumor alleged that original director Toyama would return, along with composer Akira Yamaoka and art director Masahiro Ito. It was supposed to be a soft reset and not related to silent hills absolutely. August came and went without any announcement.

In 2021, a trailer for the horror game. Abandoned was so similar in style to Silent Hill that people immediately assumed was actually Kojima’s sequel. Given the bait and the change PT, a new Silent Hill game disguised as an unrelated project seemed possible. The creator of the game disputed the rumors and Abandoned it was alleged to be a scam. in the investigation of Abandonedit was revealed that his director intentionally sought to convince potential players that he was connected to Silent Hilleven putting a silent hill 5 logo in early concept art.

Rumors surfaced again in 2022. In May, the leaker NateTheHate2 posted screenshots purportedly of a horror game in development on Twitter, claiming they were from a new Silent Hill title. The screenshots briefly circulated before a copyright claim removed the images, further convincing fans that they were legit. NateTheHate2 also claimed the medium developer Bloober Team was developing a new Silent Hill game, and it’s not the first time the developer has tied into the series.

Bloober shut down rumors that the studio’s leaked concept art belonged to a Silent Hill game in 2021, but stopped short of denying that it was working on the series. In fact, Konami is working with Bloober Team on an undisclosed project, and Silent Hill composer Yamaoka has already worked on it. the medium, which fans took as a significant connection. After working on the medium concluded, Yamaoka reportedly called his next project with Bloober “the one I was hoping to hear” in a now-deleted video interview. Meanwhile, Konami hasn’t said a word, leaving the rumored Bloober Team Silent Hill game a cold case.

The most recent development comes from CVG Y giant bombIt’s Jeff Grubb. According to a report from CVGBloober Team is working on a silent hill 2 remake for PlayStation and Annapurna Interactive is working on a Silent Hill episodic series. The article speculates that both projects could be revealed at an end-of-the-year extravaganza like The Game Awards, but publisher Andy Robinson said on Twitter that sources told him the reveal will happen sooner. In response, Grubb hinted that they would actually show up in September with a Sassy Gif of Earth, Wind and Fire.

Konami is set to debut something at the Tokyo Game Show starting on September 15, but CVG says it’s most likely a smaller project, not the long-awaited one Silent Hill Renaissance.

Despite the long and disappointing history of false advertising, it seems that Silent Hill is finally ready to return, at least, it is more likely now than ever. The history of squashed and unrelated rumors muddies the water, but all the most reliable indicators now point towards Bloober Team. There’s still the terrifying possibility that all these rumors will add up to nothing in the end, but all the tension leading up to a potential reveal seems like the perfect gift for Silent Hill fans.