Silent Hillmonster designer and art director Masahiro Ito recently took to his Twitter account to reveal an incredibly tiny and low-resolution piece of concept art that he drew for a prototype of a cancelled game in the survival horror franchise back in 2013. According to Ito, the image is supposed to be a representation of the “beginning” of the cancelledSilent Hillgame’s story.
As seen in the image below, the piece of concept art from Ito’s work on the nonexistentSilent Hillgame appears to contain the similar rusted-out industrial style that showed up so consistently throughout the history of theKonamisurvival horror series. Of course, with the picture being so small, it’s hard to make out any distinguishing characteristics other than the orange, brown, and red hues on the corroded and oxidized metals, and unfortunately, Ito has said that he can’t share a more high resolution version of the image.
For those unaware, Masahiro Ito did a lot of monster and background design work for Konami on the firstSilent Hillgame, which helped establish the creepy and unsettling aesthetics for the rest of the series there on out, as he also lent his talents for creature designs and art directing onSilent Hill 2and3. For fans who are only aware of the survival horror franchise from a surface level standpoint, it’s safe to assume that they would recognize Ito’s most enduring creation of Pyramid Head, which is arguably still one ofthe most scary and original video game monstersin existence.
For fans interested in a more detailed look at Ito’s talents, they can see art from another cancelled game he described as a “Russian retro Sci-Fi horror title” below. Apparently, he worked on the science fiction game’s concept art at Sony in between 2008 and 2010.
According to Ito, the piece ofSilent Hillconcept art seen further above is no relation to the work of the cancelledSilent Hillsproject from Hideo Kojima andGuillermo del Toro, as he was “not involved withP.T.,” which is the playable teaser for theMetal Gearcreator andPan’s Labyrinthdirector’s now-defunct game. However, Ito did declare his interest in working with Kojima back in 2012.
Taking all of this into consideration, the small, albeit intriguing image for theSilent Hillseries that Ito shared is likely from an unannounced game in the franchise that was being worked on in betweenSilent Hill: Downpourand Kojima and del Toro’s now-cancelled game for the franchise. Although it’s merely speculation, the artwork from Ito could have been related to theunreleasedSilent Hill: Broken Covenant, which was supposed to come out as a PlayStation 3 exclusive. With any luck, Ito will eventually get to use his talents to help bring anotherSilent Hillgame to life in the future.
TheSilent Hillfranchise is one of the most enduring and original horror series in the history of video games.
