The latest Silent Hill leak seems credible thanks to copyright claims
These rumors would have just been one of many without the takedowns
A new Silent Hill game has seen its most credible leak yet after a series of copyright strikes against a source with a credible past history of insider information.
AestheticGamer aka Dusk Golem, who previously leaked a lot of Resident Evil Village information later proved right, tweeted a series of images allegedly from a new Silent Hill game in development. These images were later removed by Twitter "in response to a report from the copyright holder". AestheticGamer's account was then also briefly locked for 'infringing copyrighted work', which all suggests the leaked images were real.
major_leak_concept_art_from_rumored_silent_hill from r/silenthill
The images show some things that feel very Silent Hill, like a filthy, decaying rubbish strewn room with peeling wallpaper and a baby's crib amongst the rubbish. But there are also some less familiar images, one shot that's also backed up by a second piece of concept art posted to Resetera, shows a corridor covered in layers of post-it notes with a creature that looks like a young girl, with her arms and head either erupted into post-it notes or, more interestingly, cherry blossoms. The latter is only relevant because not only is the concept art signed by Pyramid Head creator Masahiro Ito, it seems to be an idea he tweeted about in 2018:
I love my character "Pyramid Head", but really don't wanna use him anymore. However it will be too difficult to make new SH without him.So if I were to make a horror title, it would be not SH and I would try to use cherry blossom trees as one of horror materials.April 16, 2018
One notable thing in the images are messages on the post-it notes like 'Fat bitch', 'pervert', and 'creep'. Another screen shows a young girl's face peeling away to reveal messages like 'I hate myself' and 'minger'. The last one suggesting an English studio or writer is involved. Whatever it means, self-loathing seems to play a big part.
Despite the English slang, one image has some Japanese text which when run unreliably through Google translate talks repeatedly of childcare issues and abandonment, with a character apparently having their two children taken away with them. AestheticGamer teases the names "Anita & Maya", which could well be the children in question.
AestheticGamer mentions that these images are "a bit dated, from 2020" and that the project could look different now. Although, perhaps one of the most interesting bits of information mentioned in the leak is that "this is not the only SH game in dev" according to AestheticGamer. Does that double the chances of a reveal soon? We can only dream.
For now, here are the new games coming in 2022 and beyond that we can get really excited about
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I'm GamesRadar's Managing Editor for guides, which means I run GamesRadar's guides and tips content. I also write reviews, previews and features, largely about horror, action adventure, FPS and open world games. I previously worked on Kotaku, and the Official PlayStation Magazine and website.