Silent Hill: The Short Message, a free horror game developed by Konami and HexaDrive for PlayStation 5, has been downloaded more than 2 million times since its launch on January 31.
Konami today announced the milestone on the Silent Hill official account on X (formerly Twitter). This means The Short Message generated another million downloads since February 6, when the company said the game crossed the 1 million mark.
『SILENT HILL: The Short Message』
200万ダウンロードを突破しました。
PlayStation®5で無料配信中ですので
ぜひ一度プレイしてみてください。PlayStation Store：https://t.co/UIPnH4ixHQ
公式サイト：https://t.co/nbv0zTpl5P#SILENTHILL #SHTSM pic.twitter.com/g2zIfH3hoS— SILENT HILL (@silenthill_jp) February 12, 2024
Silent Hill: The Short Message is a first-person survival horror game that tells the story of a girl named Anita who starts receiving messages from her deceased friend. The search leads her to an abandoned apartment complex in Germany where she has to find the answers and overcome her fears.
The game received mixed to negative reviews from the press, with just 24% of critics recommending it (via OpenCritic). It also has an average score of 52/100 on Metacritic. The main criticism is aimed at its gameplay, story, and chasing sequences. Some journalists also compared the title to Hideo Kojima’s P.T., a free playable teaser for the now-canceled Silent Hills project (in favor of the latter).
Player reception was also mixed, as The Short Message currently has an average user score of 6.4/10 on Metacritic and a 4.16/5 rating on the PlayStation Store (based on more than 20k reviews).
The Short Message is the second project in Konami’s recently started attempt to revive the Silent Hills series, after last year’s interactive web series Ascension. It should be followed by the Silent Hill 2 remake, developed by Bloober Team and expected to come out later this year on PS5 and PC, as well as Silent Hill f, a standalone survival horror title from NeoBards Entertainment (known for co-development work with Capcom and Square Enix).
HexaDrive, which developed The Short Message, is a Japanese studio founded by former Capcom programmer Masakazu Matsushita (Capcom vs. SNK 2, Devil May Cry 3, Lost Planet) in 2007. It mostly worked with other developers and publishers on various ports including The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Rez HD, and Ōkami.