Return to Silent Hill: record-breaking history of horror game as latest film hits cinemas

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the cinema! Today sees the release of Return To Silent Hill (USA), a reboot of the spooky movie series that last saw an entry with 2012’s Silent Hill: Revelation (USA). But all these movies emerged from the soupy mist that is one of the most iconic videogame franchises of all time.

Directed by Christophe Gans (France), who directed the first Silent Hill back in 2006, the upcoming could-be-blockbuster Return to Silent Hill stars Jeremy Irvine as James Sunderland, who visits the titular town in search of his recently-deceased wife, who he believes may still be alive.

James is actually the protagonist of the second Silent Hill videogame – aptly titled Silent Hill 2 (Team Silent, 2001) – which also features the terrifying monster Pyramid Head, who left quite an impression on gamers and moviegoers alike. It remains the most critically acclaimed Silent Hill videogame, with an impressive score of 89 on review aggregate site Metacritic.com, so no wonder that it was picked as the go-to for a movie adaptation.

But it’s also been rebooted as a game itself! Bloober Team, a developer that specializes in horror games, released a remake of Silent Hill 2 (also called Silent Hill 2, just to confuse us all further) on 8 October 2024.

It was a big hit, with publisher Konami confirming that it had sold 1 million copies in just four days after release. At the time that made the 2024 version of Silent Hill 2 the fastest-selling Silent Hill videogame, until the release of Silent Hill f (NeoBards Entertainment, 2025). That managed to sell a million copies in just a single day!

Before the modern iterations, though, the franchise developed an interesting wrinkle with the release and deletion of a game called P.T. (Kojima Productions, 2014). When it was officially announced and distributed on the digital PlayStation store, all anyone knew was that it was a ‘playable teaser’ for a horror game. It turned out to be a demo for a new game called Silent Hills, directed by auteur game developer Hideo Kojima alongside Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro.

A still from the original Silent Hill game

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Despite P.T. taking place in the same hallway, which constantly loops and changes configuration as the player walks through it, it still became slated as one of the best horror games of all time, and became the first console demo to win a Game Of The Year award when websites including Polygon, Giant Bomb and Bloody Disgusting gave it some coveted year-end gongs.

Unfortunately the Silent Hills project as a whole was cancelled. This resulted in Konami removing P.T. from the PlayStation store at the end of April 2015, making it impossible to redownload. So treasured was P.T. at the time, more than one PlayStation 4 console that still had it installed was listed on eBay for £1,000 ($1,526).

A still from Silent Hill f

But fear not, or rather fear a lot, because Silent Hill is still going strong. The series’ creepy visuals – including the now-famous dense fog – and tales of loss spun into frightening psychological horror and twisted monsters have seen it garner a dedicated fanbase. We’re sure they’ll be packing out the cinemas to see Return To Silent Hill this weekend.

And they can get more Silent Hill fun facts in our Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition 2026, out now and available in our store. Not only does it contain the lowdown on the fearsome Pyramid Head monster, but it’s full of other gaming records and stats about all your favourites – including other iconic horror game staples.