You probably recognize Cliff Bleszinski as the former face of Epic Games, where he led the development of the Gears of War series up until his departure in 2012. You might also know about his love for the horror genre, and specifically Resident Evil 4, which served as a source of inspiration for the first Gear game. If you didn’t, then his fondness for chainsaw-equipped automatic weapons should make more sense.
This love for our favorite genre turned into an opportunity to work on one of the most influential horror franchises in video games. Bleszinski’s broke the news on his Twitter, saying Kojima once told me he wanted me to do a new Silent Hill w him together out of LA. I was flattered but declined.”
It’s easy to immediately write this off as a doomed collaboration, but I can’t help but find it enormously intriguing. Kojima obviously saw something that might’ve paired well with the unique aesthetics of the Silent Hill series. Gears has flirted with the horror genre since the beginning, with its penchant for horrific visuals and a cast of bad guys that are more monsters than aliens.
I suspect most genre fans would absolutely be against the idea, and Bleszinski concurs, adding “I don’t like LA, I love new IP, and I woulda fucked up SH.”
So there it is. I’ll admit I might be into this solely because I know how it ends, just as you do, and it was an ugly thing to behold. Whatever your opinion is, I think we can all agree that the worst thing that could happen to Silent Hill happened last year when Konami enlisted its last chance at reinvention to kick off a rather spectacular public implosion.
I’d like to see Bleszinski take a stab at the horror genre, and maybe he will. For now, he can be found at Boss Key, which he founded. The studio’s first game is a free-to-play sci-fi shooter called Lawbreakers. It’s expected to release on PC later this year.
