The Next Silent Hill Could Leave Maine Behind For Good
The horror may be on the move.
The psychological horror of Silent Hill has captivated fans again in 2025, with the likes of Silent Hill f, which takes place in Japan and which Hayes Madsen, gave a 10/10. Part of what makes the game stand out in the series was its departure from the usual town of Maine, and exploration of the confines of gender norms through its singular protagonist, Hinako. For decades, each game in the atmospheric horror series has taken place in America, but the latest installment dared to venture out of the country. And it seems this could be the start of a significant new approach to the series.
Speaking to Inverse in person in Los Angeles, Silent Hill developer Motoi Okamoto says there are several specific locations he’s thinking about bringing the game to next. While at first he said he could not reveal more details, as he kept speaking, he added more ideas. Silent Hill f’s Japanese setting allowed the developers to do a deep-dive on local folklore and tie it to the game’s horror elements. Okamoto says that for future titles, his teams have been looking at other Asian regions, areas in Central or South America, and at countries like Russia and Italy.
“We believe we could perhaps take similar approaches with other cultures across the globe,” Okamoto says in remarks translated from Japanese to English. “For example, in Central or South America, we could perhaps tap into the more local, shamanistic beliefs and see how that ties in. But we could also try to expand our horizons and look into other regions, like possibly Russia, Italy, or South Korea, because all those areas have their own unique types of belief systems. I believe that will be a gateway for us to expand our concepts further.”
While at first he said he could not reveal more details, as he kept speaking, he added more ideas.
When asked to elaborate, Okamoto, who is an avid reader and named Mōryō no Hako [Box of Spirits and Goblins] by the Japanese author Natsuhiko Kyogoku as a book he would like to preserve for future generations, says he tends to read horror books from Central and South America. (He did not go into detail about the Korean, Russian, or Italian folklore that the studio has been contemplating.)
“Those areas have been affected by a lot of military governments and coups,” he says, “There is a type of bravado and ‘machismo’ that comes from these political landscapes. There’s also the more folkloric angle coming from shamanism and local beliefs.”
“We believe we could perhaps take similar approaches with other cultures across the globe”
Okamoto notes that the distinct blend of realism and fantasy — what one might call ‘magical realism’ — is rarely seen in video games, thinking directly about novels like Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude or horror novels by journalist and writer Mariana Enríquez.
While talking to Konami, it became evident just how much thought and planning the developers have already given to the idea of bringing Silent Hill to this whole new region. The company is even thinking ahead to what firm it would partner with to make such a new game a reality.
He adds, “There is one issue: Central and South America do not have very many prominent development studios for video games capable of handling an IP like Silent Hill. So while they have a lot of interesting movies, books, and tales, how we would translate that into games is something we still have to explore.”
Exactly where they will explore it is the question that still needs to be answered.
