An artist that worked on Silent Hill says that Konami disbanded Team Silent to bring the series in a new direction.
After Konami released Silent Hill 4: The Room, the group known as Team Silent that had worked on every Silent Hill game dissolved. This was somewhat of a mystery, with rumors both saying that the team was disbanded by Konami and that its members had left on their own to work on new projects. Recently uncovered comments by an artist that worked on Silent Hill appear to confirm that Konami took an axe to Team Silent, wanting something new from the series.
Game industry veteran Kenzie LaMar, who worked as an artist on Silent Hill: Homecoming, writes in the comments of his deviantArt page that Konami is to blame for the change in direction of the Silent Hill series. The comments are from 2010, but apparently remained undiscovered until now.
“Just remember and never forget that if you don’t like the direction of where Silent Hill went the only people you can blame are Konami themselves,” he wrote. “They are the ones who canned team Silent and wanted someone else to make the games.”
Due to declining faith in Team Silent, LaMar says that Konami wanted a change for Silent Hill, so it disbanded the group and handed the franchise off to another development team. This resulted in the creation of Silent Hill: Origins by Climax Studios, followed by Silent Hill: Homecoming from Double Helix Games. Climax later returned to the series to develop Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.
LaMar continues: “To further prove what I am saying, they made an arcade style Silent Hill shoot’em’up gun game!! How Silent Hill is that?!”
Whether or not LaMar was actually privy to the decisions of Konami isn’t confirmed, but he certainly delivers this information with a forceful tone. If Konami did disband Team Silent, I wonder if that was really the best choice to make, rather than allowing a seasoned survival horror team to continue perfecting its craft. The latest entry in the Silent Hill franchise, Silent Hill: Downpour, is at least looking pretty good.
Source: HellDescent, via Destructoid
