No, Silent Hills isn’t coming to Xbox One

We’re just reaching the half-way point of the year, and Silent Hills is already a certain winner for the biggest disappointment of the year. The collaboration between Hideo Kojima and Guillermo Del Toro was put on ice following some troubled times at Konami a few weeks ago, to the sound of thousands of shattering hearts. And it’s those hearts that were once again burned with a cruel hoax.

An rumour crawled onto the internet during the weekend regarding the dead horror title – suggesting that Microsoft was readying billions of dollars to try and save it. Not only that, but the apparent deal would secure the title as an Xbox One exclusive, with a March 2016 release window. The same rumour claimed that the game was in fact 80% complete – despite actor Norman Reedus previously stating that most of the motion capture hadn’t even taken place yet.

The rumour went so far as to suggest that the pulling of P.T. – the PS4 exclusive teaser for the project – was done as a show of good faith to Microsoft for the deal. A massive u-turn on loyalties if there ever was one.

It sounded far too good (or bad, if you’re a PS4 owner) to be true. And so it was – with Xbox Head Phil Spencer refusing to beat around the bush. He flat out denied the rumour, stating that he didn’t want any fans to be misled.

@GoReds42093 @Xbox Sorry, this isn’t true. Not sure where the rumor started but I don’t want to mislead anyone.

— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) May 30, 2015

Is it all just a smoke and mirrors game by Microsoft though? I highly doubt it. Silent Hills was probably nowhere near completion, let alone 80% of the way done. Microsoft would have to have an extreme amount of faith in a dwindling franchise to even consider throwing millions at it, nevermind billions. As a point of reference, Microsoft purchased Minecraft for $2 billion – a game that proved its worth over, countless times.

Even though there’s an extremely strong cult following for Silent Hills, that doesn’t immediately translate into the number of sales Microsoft would need to justify a sum this large. It’s time to accept it – Silent Hills is dead, and it’s probably going to stay that way.

Last Updated: June 1, 2015