Rumors that new Silent Hill games are in the works were all but confirmed when Konami issued a DMCA strike on a previous leak. That leak, which included concept art signed by the original games’ art director Masahiro Ito, seemed to come from a new Silent Hill set in Britain. However, there have also been rumors of a Silent Hill 2 remake being developed by Bloober Team, the divisive studio behind The Medium, Blair Witch, and the Layers of Fear series.
Now a set of images purporting to come from a demo created by Bloober Team as part of an internal pitch to secure the remake have appeared. The low-resolution pictures show Silent Hill 2’s protagonist James Sunderland exploring buildings from a third-person perspective, with the third depicting a bubble-head nurse—one of the game’s iconic enemies.
The original Silent Hill 2 featured multiple camera angles, sometimes static, sometimes following James at a high angle, sometimes close and claustrophobic. The over-the-shoulder perspective of these screenshots suggests something more fixed, in the style of the recent remakes of Resident Evil 2 and 3, which would be an obvious inspiration for a remake of a survival horror game of a similar vintage. Though it didn’t make it into the final game, there was even a plan for Silent Hill 2 to include unscripted encounters with Pyramid Head, as with Resident Evil 2’s Mr. X.
Another picture, allegedly of concept art for the remake, has also been doing the rounds. It depicts James holding a pistol and hiding from Pyramid Head, who is in the act of dismembering two mannequins. A reference to the infamous scene in Silent Hill 2’s Wood Side Apartments, this version of Pyramid Head seems to be based on Figma’s Red Pyramid Thing figurine, which has a bullet hole in its faceplate. Masahiro Ito has said that Pyramid Head isn’t supposed to have a hole in its helmet, so this doesn’t seem like his work. Also, once you’ve realized James isn’t wearing socks it’s hard to notice anything else. That doesn’t rule it out from being early concept art, of course. Even if these images are genuine, if they’re from an internal pitch there’s no reason to believe the final game will end up resembling them.
Since Bloober Team worked with both Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka and singer Mary Elizabeth McGlynn on The Medium, it sure would be great to see them return for a remake. Right now, Bloober’s working on a remake and compilation of the Layer of Fear games called Layers of Fears.
Meanwhile, Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama is currently heading Bokeh Game Studio, working on a new horror-adjacent game called Slitterhead that will definitely have Yamaoka handling the music.
