The combat-heavy trailer for the Silent Hill 2 remake didn’t “capture the spirit of the game,” says Bloober Team boss Piotr Babieno, implying that Konami was responsible.
Unveiled during Sony’s State Of Play online event in January, the latest trailer for Bloober Team’s remake of Silent Hill 2 didn’t exactly go down a storm with fans.
Although there were some complaints that the revival of Konami’s much-loved survival horror didn’t look great in the graphics department, the more common gripe was that its seeming focus on punching and shooting flew in the face of the original game’s creeping dread.
“Ah yes, the combat,” one comment read at the time. “That thing that everyone remembers and loves about Silent Hill 2.”
In a somewhat testy response to those criticisms, Bloober Team CEO Piotr Babieno has said that Konami – the game’s publisher – was “entirely responsible for that trailer.”
As reported by PCGamesN, Babieno talked about the trailer and its reception with Eurogamer Poland, and accepting that Google Translate is involved – so there may be some slight discrepancies with the wording – it does sound as though he’s laying the blame firmly at Konami’s feet.
“Quite seriously, we are not responsible for the marketing side,” Babieno said. “Our partner [Konami] is entirely responsible for this. This trailer certainly does not reflect the spirit of the game. This is neither the spirit of what once was nor what we are creating now. We try to fully reflect this romantic vision of the game that debuted 22 years ago. We think that when players see real gameplay, a real game, they will evaluate it in a completely different way.”
The video containing that interview appears to have been taken down since. It’s possible that someone, somewhere at Konami’s offices made an angry phone call or two.
Whatever happened, it’s highly unusual for a developer to say things like this in public about its own publisher, particularly on such a high-profile project. At present, Silent Hill 2 doesn’t have a release date, though Bloober Team did say in November 2023 that “production is progressing smoothly.”
Even here, though, the studio hinted subtly at tension between it and Konami; “Konami is the publisher of the game and communication is definitely part of their job,” the team said.
While we await further news, here’s the combat-heavy trailer that sparked all this in the first place. Take that, squishy thing.
