Guillermo Del Toro gently zings Konami at The Game Awards

Guillermo Del Toro
(Image credit: The Game Awards)

Film director and Geoff Keighley pal Guillermo Del Toro turned up at The Game Awards tonight to announce the nominees and winner in the Best Art Direction category. While he was there, he took the opportunity to throw some light ribbing at Konami, the former home of game designer and Guillermo Del Toro pal Hideo Kojima.

"You know, one franchise I loved the art direction in? Silent Hill," Del Toro said. "I hope we get a new one of those."

Silent Hill, of course, has been something of an albatross for Konami for years, and for Del Toro too. Kojima was tapped to head up development of Silent Hills in 2012, and he and Del Toro collaborated on PT—a "plyayable teaser" for Silent Hills—in 2014. But the project was cancelled in 2015, and Kojima split with Konami, acrimoniously, later that year. Rumors of reboots and new games have persisted but not amounted to anything. They have, however, apparently given Del Toro a little ammo to have fun with.

(This isn't the first time Del Toro has called out Konami for pulling the plug on Silent Hills: He criticized the cancellation more forcefully shortly after it happened in 2015.)

Interestingly, original Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama unveiled his new project at The Game Awards tonight too: a creep-tastic horror game called Slitterhead.

Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.