More rumors concerning the future of Silent Hill have spread online and they’re the most surreal yet.
In case you missed it, reports emerged last week that Konami, eagerly searching for a third-party to handle a potential reboot of the survival horror franchise, had commenced talks with platform holder Sony. The former, it was claimed, had approved the go-ahead of such a deal, which would supposedly have seen two games – one a reboot; the other a story-based spinoff – produced exclusively for PlayStation 5. Even Hideo Kojima, formerly employed by the publisher before the two severed ties, was claimed to be involved in some capacity, with Sony also said to be acting as an intermediary to help mend the fractured business relationship.
A Konami spokesperson has since issued a statement labelling the rumor as utterly false, but wait – the story doesn’t end there.
As spotted by TechPlusGame, new information supplied by an anonymous individual suggests that Microsoft has, in fact, already purchased almost the entirety of Konami’s gaming catalogue, with the amount of money changing hands being so large that it’ll singlehandedly fund the opening of a new R&D facility for the latter. Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania and Silent Hill are all specifically mentioned as being included in the transfer, with Konami receiving royalties for any games Microsoft chooses to rerelease (e.g. remasters) in the future.
If true, a sell-off of such recognizable brands would be one of the biggest in the industry to have ever taken place, though we can’t stress the importance of remaining skeptical this time around. All of the claims made above originate from a document first uploaded to Pastebin earlier this month claiming that the deal in question would be revealed during this year’s E3. With the annual event now no longer taking place due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Microsoft would likely make an announcement of this magnitude at some sort of live-streamed event in the summer.
Until then, take this one with a massive pinch of salt.
