It was understandable that we got our hopes up when Konami’s recent trademark filing for Silent Hill in Canada. This is Konami, the same company whose last Silent Hill output resulted in Hideo Kojima leaving the company. Then there was the awful HD collection, the lacklustre Silent Hill: Book of Memories, the Pachinko machines, you get the idea.
However, in a recent article with GamesIndustry.biz, Konami does state that not only has it seen profit growth for the fifth consecutive year (thanks in part to mobile), it sees the console market as a key importance, and is currently working on unannounced projects based on “globally known” IP. Konami European president Masami Saso states that while the company has nothing to announce on the likes of a new Metal Gear or Silent Hill yet, the recent trademark filing does present a faint hope that we could see a return to the series.
“Even with new platforms coming out, we believe high-end console games are the most important,” Saso said. “We challenge for innovative ideas and technology within our console games and apply them to other devices, so we will continue to put effort into our console games.”
Even if we don’t get a new Silent Hill or Metal Gear game for the forseeable future, Konami is home to other franchises that definitely click with genre fans. After all, Konami is releasing a new Contra game in the form of Rogue Corps later this month, and they’ve finally started to pay attention to Castlevania fans again.
So while it’s nothing definitive, Konami is at least turning attention to console gamers again. Fingers crossed that they finally give long-suffering fans some reprieve.
