This piece was originally published in Naavik Digest, a video game industry newsletter. I played a role in scaling Naavik following its acquisition of my gaming media business, The Pause Button, in early 2021.

Amidst an era dominated by first-person shooters and battle royales, I can’t help but admire the impact that the horror survival genre has had on the gaming industry. Titles like Dead Space provided a welcome alternative during a time when Rock Band and Mirror’s Edge were popular. Capcom’s Resident Evil has become so well-known that it has managed to make its way into some of my favorite series, like Danganronpa and Bayonetta, by way of cameo or reference. Now, after years of relative inactivity, cancellations, and rumors, Konami has decided to revive another cornerstone franchise of the genre — Silent Hill, and there’s plenty to learn from how (and why) they’re doing it.

The premise behind Silent Hill is fairly straightforward — a protagonist carrying a traumatic background travels to the sleepy town of Silent Hill. As the protagonist ventures through the town, they run into increasingly bizarre situations as they piece together their backstory and fight off a mysterious cult looking to create hell on earth. Very horror-esque. When the franchise was first published by Konami back in 1999 it was met with positive reception, rocketing it to one of the Playstation’s top all-time sellers thanks to its use of psychological elements and unique gameplay mechanics. Much of the genre today attributes its roots back to the franchise, despite the fact that there hasn’t actually been a full fledged Silent Hill game since 2012.

The timing behind the franchise’s re-launch couldn’t be better: horror-survival is facing a renaissance, with remakes for games like Dead Space and new entries into the genre like asymmetrical horror hit, Dead by Daylight. But to understand how exactly Konami plans to turn its diehard fandom into a slice of the genre’s growing pie, I believe it's best to first look at one of its biggest competitor, Resident Evil.

Released only three years apart and serving as a large inspiration for the SH franchise, these series have always shared a similar ethos. But while both games may sit in the proverbial horror survival hall of fame, their sales charts paint very different stories. The RE series has sold nearly 100M copies since inception. Its games make up five of Capcom’s ten best sellers, and seven of the horror genre’s ten best selling titles since 1995. It has become such a staple in Capcom’s belt that the company has actually gone on record during earnings reports to note that specific income decreases can be attributed to whether or not they released a Resident Evil title in the previous year.

Meanwhile, the Silent Hill franchise as a whole has barely broken 10M units in sales (a cult hit by any means), with a majority coming from the first two entries in the franchise nearly two decades ago. The IP itself remains a source of untapped opportunity when compared to its more successful counterpart. As it follows, the question worth asking is “Why?”. Why has Resident Evil enjoyed 20+ years of success compared to Silent Hill? And why did Konami choose to reinvest in the series now? To understand the answer to these questions, let's first explore how Resident Evil took over the genre.

Why Resident Evil Succeeds

At its core, Resident Evil’s success is powered by two advantages: a flexible development mindset and an expansive world of non-gaming IP. Resident Evil’s game design has always been about innovating. The series’ initial development was fueled by Capcom’s desire to innovate away from 2D-centric games like Street Fighter & Megaman. Author Alex Aniel, who chronicled the history of the franchise’s second entry, also notes that the initial build of Resident Evil 2 was delayed a full year precisely because it didn’t innovate enough. This mindset has continued to permeate into the series’ modern games, with titles like Resident Evil 7 combining genre-first features like VR support with modern preferences like first-person camera angles to make a more engaging title. Juxtapose this against Silent Hill, whose greatest gameplay innovation ended up being canceled following Hideo Kojima’s departure from Konami and we start to see a picture of how we arrived at this point.

Take it a step further, and the image becomes clearer. Resident Evil hasn't lived or died by its mainline games. In fact, Capcom has built a robust multimedia business on top of the games that rivals the best in the industry. Their content slate includes:

Silent Hill’s multimedia efforts are essentially non-existent since the mid-2000s, when the series has a string of moderately successful films and comics. While Silent Hill has remained stagnant, Resident Evil has written the playbook on how to turn the horror-survival genre into a legitimate business, and it seems as though Konami has largely ignored the opportunity… until now.

This week's SH presentation was anchored by the very same principles that have made Resident Evil successful in the first place — investments in new gameplay mechanics and multimedia expansionary efforts. Comparisons between the Resident Evil empire and this week’s announcement make it increasingly obvious that Konami is taking a page from Capcom’s book.

Announcements for Silent Hill merchandise, a Silent Hill 2 Film, a new Silent Hill MILE built in partnership with Genvid Technologies (which I’m particularly excited for), a Silent Hill 2 Remake, and of course, a new mainline prequel dubbed Silent Hill f all peppered the 48-minute long announcement video back-to-back. The sheer amount of non-mainline content is impressive and is likely the main reason it has taken this long for us to hear more about the franchise — Konami has been waiting until they can roll out the cavalry to stake back their claim in this genre.

But Resident Evil is an entrenched incumbent, and there’s no guarantee that the same playbook will work once again for Silent Hill. Fan response and investments in new formats, like MILEs, are cause for optimism, but they aren’t guarantees of success. There’s also the lingering concern of over-investment and competitive differentiation. Does Silent Hill still have enough fans to make all these media franchises profitable? Is it possible for the series to garner noteworthy enough market share from a competitor that has a decade-plus lead and five games rumored to be in development? In my opinion, the most likely outcome here is positive, but slow growth. I have no doubt that nostalgia and hype will drive remakes and new titles to generate revenue (assuming the execution is there, of course), but I imagine we’re looking at a multi-year journey to bring Silent Hill to the size and scale that Konami would like it to be.

Resident Evil Graph Source: Konami Earnings

Luckily, Konami is coming off its best year ever in terms of financial performance, and profits are at an all-time high across all categories. The company is doubling down on their existing IP, and top sellers like free-to-play Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel continue to print money. This gives the company ample room to invest in new ideas like an NFT marketplace, or for example, a Silent Hill reboot. Konami’s approach, in many ways, resembles the Square Enix strategy of reinvesting in core IP and pushing new tech areas. The opportunity is there for Konami to have a games and IP revival; now they just need to take it.