Future Silent Hill Remakes Could Have a Downside Resident…

Besides their obvious and myriad differences, Silent Hill and Resident Evil go hand-in-hand in a lot of ways and that’s probably only going to become truer as time passes and Silent Hill’s franchise steps back into the limelight. By some miracle, Silent Hill has managed to remain popular with a decent following even though even its most die-hard loyalists would agree that the franchise’s best games were its original trilogy. Still, with a slate of highly maligned or unmemorable games being released in the years since, adoration for Silent Hill seemingly hasn’t died down at all.

If f is a main course and Townfall is a dessert, then Bloober’s Silent Hill 2 remake could be the amuse-bouche meant to whet appetites. Konami might have plans for more remakes to be developed afterward, but there are so few Silent Hill games compared to the abundant catalog Resident Evil has fostered. Therefore, its remake lifespan would only be so long, especially if Konami dodging the original Silent Hill is evidence of not every game in the series being considered for a remake.

Resident Evil’s Laundry List of Games Makes for Endless Remake Potential

Because Capcom has now remade Resident Evil (albeit for GameCube), Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3, and Resident Evil 4, there’s no reason for it to slow down or halt production on future remakes now. Resident Evil still has prime real estate for remakes that could even reposition the series positively with reimaginings that excel beyond what the originals achieved.

Resident Evil 0, Resident Evil 5, and Resident Evil 6 alone would be excellent candidates, for example, as they all have points of contention that have left them as divisive entries in the franchise among their contemporaries. It’s been long-rumored that Resident Evil 0 and Code: Veronica are supposedly next in line for remakes and, if so, that would suggest any and all games are on the table for potential remakes as it would veer the remake continuity away from the beaten path of mainline games.

Resident Evil has this luxury with so many games in its storied catalog to pull from out of a hat, and continuing to do so after a handful of successful remakes would be a fitting roadmap for Capcom to pursue while also developing original mainline titles.

Silent Hill’s Pool of Possible Remakes Would and Could Run Dry Quick

Silent Hill remakes, if nothing else, could be a way to ingratiate new and old audiences because Konami must know how lucrative remakes can be and how badly fans would love to see remakes of nearly every game in the series to date. However, if the remake of Silent Hill 2 is meant to introduce a brand-new playerbase to the survival-horror franchise before diving into future remakes, beginning with the sequel is arguably the most vexing choice that could be made.

If Konami follows Silent Hill 2’s remake with a Silent Hill 3 remake, for instance, the latter’s story would be dumbfounding to anyone going from one to the other without prior knowledge of the continuity or lore.

By this logic, Konami might’ve already written off a Silent Hill 3 remake unless a remake of the original Silent Hill is put in place to preemptively connect those dots, and consequently a Shattered Memories remake wouldn’t make sense narratively without the original Silent Hill’s contextual backdrop, either. This creates an incredibly muddy tightrope of lore the games all balance on and ensures that remakes will be difficult to parse regardless, but if Silent Hill puts a greater emphasis on new games like f and Townfall it can hopefully wash a bitter taste from its mouth and reinvent itself in a better image independent of remakes.