After months of leaks, Konami finally revealed Silent Hill: The Short Message at today’s State of Play presentation. Even better, you can play it today.
As revealed during the presentation, The Short Message is a spin-off of the classic horror franchise set in modern-day Germany. It casts you as Anita, explores a location known as The Villa from a first-person perspective. Previous ratings board leaks suggest that it will have strong suicide themes and horror violence.
Konami developed Short Message alongside Hexadrive, an independent developed based in Osaka. Hexadrive has worked on numerous games over the years, including Super Bomberman R 2 and Final Fantasy XV.
In the trailer, you see Anita running through various horrific areas with her phone up while asking, “What did I do to deserve this?” Following the reveal, Konami confirmed the release of The Short Message, meaning you can play it later today.
“We’re releasing the whole game for free, so if you’ve never played a Silent Hill game before, we hope you’ll take this chance to get a taste of what Silent Hill is all about,” producer Motoi Okamoto said in a post on PlayStation Blog. “This game started as something like an experimental project – an opportunity for us to try out different things, see what worked and what didn’t, and grow and polish our horror game expertise. We also had a lot of people who were relatively new in their career but still loved Silent Hill, and who really wanted to be involved in making a horror game, so we used this as a way for our team to build hands-on experience, too.”
Okamoto went on to describe it as a “new, modern Silnt Hill” that would incorporate “contemporary problems.” Specifically, Konami and Hexadrive looked at how modern youth communicate online and via phones.
Silent Hill: The Short Message is being paired with Bloober Team’s remake of Silent Hill 2, which was first revealed back in 2022 and also received a new trailer during the State of Play (but no release date). It’s part of an ambitious reboot of the franchise featuring multiple projects, including Silent Hill f and a brand-new movie.
Today’s Silent Hill reveals were part of a major stream that also featured new details on Rise of the Ronin, Stellar Blade, and more. For more, check out everything announced during today’s State of Play.
Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.
