The Silent Hill franchise has received a new game, available for free on PlayStation 5 right now.
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Silent Hill: The Short Message was released last night (January 30) during the PlayStation State of Play.
The game was actually originally leaked way back in 2022, with a South Korean board rating spotted for the game but no real indication of when it might release or if it was actually still in development.
As it turns out, the title was still in development and has been released for free exclusively on PlayStation 5.
In a new PlayStation blog post, producer Motoi Okamato explained the thinking behind this new Silent Hill game. The game is fairly short, weighing in at around two hours, but shows off the potential future of the Silent Hill franchise beyond the already announced games such as the upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake and the upcoming Annapurna Interactive published Silent Hill: Townfall.
“We wanted to make a new, modern Silent Hill. As part of that we explored how we could incorporate contemporary problems. We ended up looking at how modern youth communicate online and through phones, and the role that could play in a psychological horror story,” Okamato wrote.
Okamato also elaborated on the subtitle of the game, explaining what the ‘short message’ is supposed to represent in the game, and why Konami chose to have young characters as the focus.
“We chose to set our story around young characters like this. Characters who are genuinely suffering and lost, where even one more minor setback can wind up pushing them even deeper into a spiral of anguish. But, in the same way, even the smallest kindness can be the thing that pulls them back from the brink. And that’s what also makes this game a message, from us to everyone living with that ever-present conflict and pressure”.
In other gaming news, Death Stranding 2 has confirmed a 2025 release date along with the subtitle for the game.