“Until Dawn” and “Silent Hill 2” remakes demonstrate the relevance of retreading intellectual property

Players' upcoming Halloween will likely be dominated by Call of Duty: Black Ops 6's Zombies mode, but the resurrection of two critically acclaimed horror games is imminent.

“Until Dawn,” a current-gen remake of the 2015 PlayStation horror film version, arrives on Friday, while a remake of the Konami classic “Silent Hill 2” launches on Tuesday.

While this is familiar territory for gamers, neither could be more relevant to console market trends.

As much as enthusiasts want new releases, 2024 was a difficult year for the gaming industry, marked by more than 13,000 layoffs across the industry worldwide and resulting in numerous cancellations and delays as AAA games take longer to develop.

Remakes and remasters of previous hits help fill release schedules and can typically be completed more quickly, eliminating the majority of the time that would normally be required to conceive the games. This strategy has proven to be very successful for Capcom. Capcom has completely re-released several “Resident Evil” titles and achieved great sales figures. Capcom also recently released a remaster for Dead Rising for the current generation.

Nevertheless, the developers of “Until Dawn” and “Silent Hill 2” were affected by market instability this year. Ballistic Moon, the studio hired by Sony to remake “Until Dawn” with updated graphics, better motion systems and some story touches, announced in August that it would be “significantly downsizing” its staff to “secure” its future hold An ominous reminder of what it takes to succeed in AAA today.

Likewise, “Silent Hill 2” developer Bloober Team canceled a publishing deal with Take-Two Interactive’s Private Division label earlier this year, ending an unannounced survival horror game from Bloober known for the genre.

The cancellation of the deal came amid ongoing layoffs at Take-Two, putting more pressure on Bloober to deliver Konami's vaunted IP, a daunting task for any third-party studio given gamers' skepticism and propensity to complain despite previews in August The game was positive.

Konami also has “Silent Hill: Townfall” in development at Annapurna Interactive, whose entire staff left the publisher in September. While Annapurna has announced that the game will continue to develop with key roles recast, the possibility of delays increases pressure on the implementation of the Silent Hill 2 remake.

As far as publishers go, there's a lot that plays a role in both games, most notably Sony, which has secured Silent Hill 2 as a timed console exclusive for its first year of release.

Like The Last of Us, Until Dawn is now part of Sony Pictures' strategy via PlayStation Productions, the film adaptation of which is currently in production. Sales of the remake will inform how the film is marketed, and data from players' decisions in the game could also inform post-production if Sony wants to live up to fan expectations.

The “Silent Hill 2” remake is part of Konami's multi-pronged strategy to refocus on video games after increasing its focus on the casino side of its business, with a remake of “Metal Gear Solid 3” also in the pipeline , albeit still undated.

After “Metal Gear” creator Hideo Kojima left the publisher in 2015 to start his own multigame studio called “Death Stranding,” which led to the cancellation of a “Silent Hill” game that Kojima wanted to make with Guillermo del Toro , Konami still has some goodwill to win back from gamers, especially after 2018's Metal Gear Survive and January's Silent Hill: The Short Message were not well received.

Sony will also likely pay close attention to Silent Hill 2 sales, as another film adaptation has already been made: Return to Silent Hill. According to Luminate, a distribution deal has yet to be agreed for the film, which could be an opportunity for Sony to add another horror title to its studio roster, as Blumhouse's recent PG-13 AI thriller AfrAId failed to make a huge splash at the box office. In 2006, Sony had modest success with the first Silent Hill film adaptation.