Junji Ito Talks His Role in Cancelled Silent Hills Project

Silent Hills has become somewhat of a myth as time has gone on. A playable teaser, P.T., was released, which came with a hidden video at the end that showed a brief snippet of Norman Reedus walking out into what is assumed to be the titular town of Silent Hill. To be directed by Hideo Kojima, the game instantly shot up many wishlists. It would have seen involvement by two big names, one being film director Guillermo del Toro (who is working with Kojima now on Death Stranding and was pretty vocal about his feelings on Silent Hills’ cancellation), with the other being Junji Ito, legendary horror manga writer known for his short-form “body horror” stories that are noted for their gruesome and unsettling imagery.

It was never clear what role Ito would have or how he was involved. As you can see from the tweets below, Ito spoke at the Toronto Comics Art Festival and detailed the casual way he was invited to the project by Kojima, how he didn’t even hear about the cancellation from Kojima or Konami but through other sources, and he hadn’t committed a single sketch for the project till that time (thanks to Twitter user @MinovskyArticle for transcribing the talk).

Maybe the most interesting aspect is it shows how little Silent Hills as a project actually seemed to exist. It’s never been clear exactly how much development had went into the game beyond P.T., but when you consider the guy who was meant to be leading the monster design didn’t submit a single sketch or idea, it seems to imply that very little work was actually done- if any.

Kojima is now currently working on Death Stranding with Sony, a game that also seems to barely exist since we’ve gotten nothing but vague teasers for years. Perhaps Junji Ito will get to work on a video game someday and unleash nightmares on us all (if you aren’t familiar with his work, brace yourself before you search for some, because it is some horrifying stuff). Either way, it looks like Silent Hills is destined to be nothing more than a myth lost to time.

Junji Ito asked about Silent Hills.

“I don’t know anything about games. I don’t play them. I am afraid if I get into them I’ll miss deadlines. I have never played Silent Hill. I have known Hideo Kojima for 20 years. He is a nice older brother type.”

— Minovsky (@MinovskyArticle) May 10, 2019

Kojima and Del Toro approached Ito around the time Pacific Rim came out. “I told them I know nothing about games. Kojima told me I would be fine. Del Toro gave me tickets to Pacific Rim. It was excellent.”

— Minovsky (@MinovskyArticle) May 10, 2019

“Kojima was at Konami back then. I came to a meeting and Del Toro hugged me. It turns out Del Toro is a big gamer. Del Toro wanted the game to be in one location and keep the horror in the player’s face in that way.”

— Minovsky (@MinovskyArticle) May 10, 2019

“Once the Silent Hills meeting was over, we went to karaoke. I didn’t hear anything after that. I heard that the plan got scrapped through outside sources. I have seen Kojima and Del Toro since. I never started designing monsters. Nothing exists. There are no roughs or sketches.”

— Minovsky (@MinovskyArticle) May 10, 2019