As part of today's Silent Hill festivities, Konami announced Silent Hill f, a new story set in 1960s Japan.

Described as juxtaposing a world view of “beautiful, therefore horrifying,” Silent Hill f is being written by Ryukishi07, the acclaimed Japanese visual novel writer behind the Higurashi and Umineko series.

The atmospheric trailer shows a scenic, but sinister, Japanese town that's becoming engulfed in some kind of fungus. The ending of the trailer, however, is genuinely terrifying with a woman covered in fungus.

Having worked with stories that deal heavily with psychological and supernatural horror, Ryukishi07 is a great choice for writer on a new Silent Hill game. The setting is also unique for the series given that Silent Hill is a town in the United States. But the spinoff will likely expand upon the lore of the series.

The game is also being developed by Neobard, a studio in China that has helped develop Capcom's most recent games like Resident Evil Re:Verse.

It's unclear what the "f" stands for in the title, but this is shaping up to be a fairly exciting departure for the series.

As part of the Silent Hill transmission, Konami announced several new projects including a full remake of Silent Hill 2 as well as multiple spinoffs.

Check out IGN’s Silent Hill round-up for all the news announced in today’s Transmission.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

Today's Silent Hill announcements were not confined to just the games world. We also learned during the Silent Hill Transmission livestream that something called Silent Hill Ascension is in the works, and it appears to be some kind of live and possibly interactive experience in the Silent Hill universe.

The trailer showed images of chat bubbles from users discussing whether or not they could save "her," and the segment ended with "Live 2023".

We also learned that it's being made through a partnership with streaming software tools company Genvid, J.J. Abrams' film and TV production company gaming arm Bad Robot Games, Dead by Daylight studio Behaviour Interactive, and video-game-to-TV specialist production company dj2 Entertainment. With those names on board, we can probably guess that this will be some sort of hybrid video game/livestreamed experience with an interactive component, but we'll have to wait for more details to be sure.

In the following segment, we learned that Ascension was inspired by watching streamers play Silent Hill with their audiences and the "feeling of being scared together" like with watching horror films in a theatre. It's a live, realtime interactive series, where audiences are able to change the outcomes of the story and participate in scenes.

Critically, we're told there's "no reset button." Outcomes are set, and fans will have a chance to "shape Silent Hill canon forever."

Along with new Silent Hill games, the series' movie franchise is set to re-emerge with Return to Silent Hill.

We'd previously heard about plans for a new movie from director Cristophe Gans (who also directed the original Silent Hill in 2006), but this is the first official confirmation.

A reveal for the film showed concept art, as well as discussion of the idea from Gans and producer Victor Hadida. The new movie will be based on the story of Silent Hill 2, and will be more of a psychological horror. Hadida says that the plan is to "make it modern, but also very true to the video game," and will include familiar monsters (including the iconic Pyramid Head) but updated for the new version.

Previously, Gans indicated the movie could arrive as soon as next year, seemingly indicating it would be more of a reboot than a sequel.

"The script for a new Silent Hill movie [is] totally independent from the two previous movies made and respects the way Silent Hill has evolved. Silent Hill is a bit like Twilight Zone, the Fourth Dimension, a place where anything and everything can happen. I worked on a new Silent Hill which is a Silent Hill of the year 2023 since the film would be released next year… in 2023… and not a Silent Hill as I imagined it in 2006,” Gan said at the time.

The original Silent Hill earned a 5/10 review from IGN. We said, "Silent Hill is probably the smartest and best-looking video game adaptation yet, it just doesn't have much else going for it. After all, video games are about entertainment, and Silent Hill is a chore to sit through."

Since the first Silent Hill, Gans has only directed one other movie, a 2014 version of Beauty and the Beast starring Léa Seydoux and Vincent Cassel. We did get a Silent Hill movie sequel, but we ended up naming it one of the worst game adaptations of all time.

Joe Skrebels is Executive Editor of News at IGN.

In addition to several other Silent Hill announcements, today we learned that one of the upcoming new Silent Hill entries is being co-produced by a surprising pairing: Annapurna Interactive, and NoCode Studios. It's called Silent Hill: Townfall.

Announced at today's Silent Hill Transmission Livestream, Silent Hill: Townfall's reveal consisted of a series of unsettling images. Most of the teaser swapped between images of ocean waves in black and white (and, at the end, bright red) and a slow zoom in to a pocket CRTV while a voice demanded to know why the listener was here.

Following the trailer, NoCode creative director Jon McKellan appeared on screen to talk briefly about working on the game, saying it "respects the source material but also does something a little bit different with it." He added that while they can't show more yet, there will be more info shown sometime next year. And suggested that viewers watch the trailer again to "see what you might have missed."

Annapurna Interactive has previously published an impressive indie roster, including games like Stray, Sayonara Wild Hearts, Donut County, Outer Wilds, and more. Earlier this year it unveiled a significant slate at its annual showcase that included a new game from the creators of Kentucky Route Zero, an update on Thirsty Suitors, and a new project from Keita Takahashi and Uvula.

Incidentally, it looks like this project is the mysterious unannounced project Annapurna teased with NoCode during that same showcase, from the creators of Observation and Stories Untold. NoCode apparently had to double in size to make it happen.

Catch up on everything else announced during today's showcase with our roundup here.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

It's official: after months of rumors and speculation, Konami is remaking Silent Hill 2.

During today's Silent Hill Transmission event, Konami showcased a three-minute trailer that provided a look at the famously foggy town in 4K. In addition to providing glimpses of Pyramid Head and other notable elements from the original game, the trailer confirmed that Bloober Team will handling development and that it will utilize the Unreal Engine. It will be a PS5 console exclusive while also releasing on Steam.

Masahiro Ito will provide the creature design while Akira Yamaoka returns as the game's composer.

Fully remade to terrify audiences, the intense psychological horror masterpiece SILENT HILL 2 is coming to PlayStation®5 and STEAM® #SILENTHILLhttps://t.co/erxCqMr3qp pic.twitter.com/xZH79a2kP1

— Konami (@Konami) October 19, 2022

The trailer begins with a close-up shot of a cockroach — a properly repulsive glamour shot designed to show off the game's graphics — followed by hero James Sunderland looking into a mirror amid a voiceover about his deceased wife. It's followed by familar shots of Sunderland walking through the fog, glimpses of some familiar moments, and of course, Pyramid Head, who is seen hulking in the rain.

Ito appeared in a short conversation afterward, where he seemingly referred the leaks when talking about dodging questions from fans on Twitter. In a separate conversation, Yamaoka recalled the challenges of developing the original game's soundtrack and how he wanted to create a "new kind of music." He also expressed gratitude that the series remains popular after 20 years.

"The remake also has a new musical style, new challenges, and sound design and music that will be able to please the existing fans," Yamaoka said.

Bloober Team, meanwhile, expressed their intentions to remake the game while also modernizing it. That includes adding an over-the-shoulder camera among other enhancements.

"To put it simply, our goal is to make everything that made the game a timeless classic, but delve even deeper into the foggy streets of Silent Hill," said director Mateusz Lenart, who previously served as creative director of The Medium.

The Silent Hill 2 remake has been rumored to be in development for months, but has remained tightly under wraps until now. It marks Konami's first foray into the series since Silent Hill: Book of Memories, which was released almost exactly a decade ago on PlayStation Vita.

Originally released on PlayStation 2 in 2001, Silent Hill 2 is consistently lauded as one of the finest horror games ever made. Its contributions to the genre include the aforementioned Pyramid Head, who is counted among the scariest characters in video game history.

Rumors of a return to Silent Hill have swirled since the release of P.T. back in 2014, which was billed as a demo of sorts of a Hideo Kojima-led project titled Silent Hills. In the years that followed, Konami seemingly gave up on games entirely, but rumors persisted that the franchise was being farmed out to other studios. Some of the rumors were even connected to Kojima, who departed Konami under acrimonious circumstances.

The rumor mill went into high gear earlier this year when leaked images appeared online before being swiftly deleted. They were further driven by Konami renewing its trademark and director Christopher Gan claiming multiple games are under development.

Now, at last, we know these rumors are true.

Silent Hill 2 is under development for PS5 and Steam, and does not yet have a release date.

Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.

The UK government's investigation of Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition has revealed the company is currently developing its own Xbox mobile storefront to rival Apple and Google.

As reported by The Verge, Microsoft presented documents to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority that claim its purchasing of Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard is, in part, to expand its mobile game presence.

"The transaction will improve Microsoft’s ability to create a next generation game store which operates across a range of devices, including mobile as a result of the addition of Activision Blizzard’s content," the filing reads. "Building on Activision Blizzard’s existing communities of gamers, Xbox will seek to scale the Xbox Store to mobile, attracting gamers to a new Xbox Mobile Platform.

"Shifting consumers away from the Google Play Store and App Store on mobile devices will, however, require a major shift in consumer behaviour. Microsoft hopes that by offering well-known and popular content, gamers will be more inclined to try something new."

It's unclear exactly what Xbox's mobile store would look like, but it would seemingly be a more dedicated way for users to purchase and play games through Xbox Cloud Gaming directly from a mobile phone.

While this isn't unlike services it offers already, it would also allow Microsoft to give developers more freedom and sell add-ons directly, an initiative that Microsoft has spoken about pursuing previously. This could make Xbox's platform more desirable to developers who, unlike on Apple's App Store, wouldn't lose a portion of the profit on every microtransaction.

Acquiring Activision Blizzard would certainly help Microsoft carve out a space in mobile gaming. The company noted later in the filing that three quarters of Activision Blizzard's monthly active users are mobile customers, a colossal amount considering it also owns one of the most consistently popular online games of all time in World of Warcraft, Overwatch 2 (which hit 25 million players in its first week), and the aforementioned Call of Duty franchise.

The filing also noted that Activision Blizzard's mobile titles - including Candy Crush Saga, Call of Duty Mobile, and Diablo: Immortal - accounted for more than half of its overall revenue in the first half of this year.

It's a market the industry as a whole is pursuing, as in August 2022 Sony also announced a dedicated PlayStation Studios mobile division. It's unclear if Xbox's mobile plans will change if its acquisition of Activision Blizzard fails to go through. though given the value it sees in mobile gaming, it will likely pursue it with or without the likes of Call of Duty and Candy Crush.

Microsoft's $68.7 billion deal has been scrutinised by various U.S. senators, the city of New York, and the U.S. Justice Department alongside the UK government, though Xbox boss Phil Spencer said he feels good about its progress.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Warner Bros. has released the PC specs for Gotham Knights, revealing some pretty demanding system requirements for the upcoming DC action game.

Gotham Knights' Steam page now shows that users will need at least a GeForce RTX 2070 graphics card to play on high settings at 60fps, but only at 1080p resolution. For that graphical set up you'll also need a CPU equivalent to or better than an Intel i7-10700K or Ryzen 5 5600X alongside 16GB of RAM. That's a resonably steep demand for 1080p.

Gotham Knights minimum requirements were also shared, with users needing a GeForce GTX 1660 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 590 to run the game on low settings (but still at 60fps and 1080p). An Intel Core i5-9600K or AMD Ryzen 5 3600 equivalant CPU is also required alongside 8GB of RAM.

Warner Bros. didn't reveal any system requirements for players who want to go above 1080p or 60fps, but the wait to find out won't be long as Gotham Knights launches on October 21. However, based on the specs being demanded for 1080p, it would seem that players are going to need an Nvida RTX 30-series card or AMD equivilent for 1440p and above, and probably not the lower-end cards, either.

The announcement comes after Warner Bros. announced that the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series versions of Gotham Knights will be capped at 30fps with no performance mode available.

"Due to the types of features we have in our game, like providing a fully untethered co-op experience in our highly detailed open-world, it's not as straightforward as lowering the resolution and getting a higher FPS," said Gotham Knights executive producer Fleur "Flaoua" Marty at the time. "For this reason, our game does not have a performance/quality toggle option and will run at 30fps on consoles."

It appears, then, that Gotham Knights technical make up simply demands quite a lot of power, hence its 30fps cap on console and reasonably high-end spec requirements on PC.

In our final preview of the game, IGN said: "Gotham Knights is not an easy game to demo, and while [we] walked away from my hands-on time less than impressed with many aspects of combat, [we] still found [ourselves] interested in playing more."

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

An Overwatch 2 Tracer skin is being given away at McDonalds, and seemingly only in Australia.

As reported by Dot Esports, developer Blizzard and McDonalds have united for the promotion that rewards the Overwatch 2 "Tracer Lightning" skin to anyone who orders a Big Mac, McChicken, or 10-piece Chicken McNuggets combo through the MyMacca's App.

The skin is available at every McDonalds across Australia until the end of October, and there's currently no word as to whether the promotion will spread to the U.S. or other regions.

If you're an Overwatch veteran, you may recognise the skin from Overwatch's 2018 anniversary event. These days, the skin is sometimes available in the Overwatch shop, but since the shop cycles its inventory there is no way of knowing exactly when you can buy it. As such, the McDonalds promotion is the only current sure-fire way to get the skin, at least for Australian players.

Other publishers have made similar deals in the past, often resulting in codes for the digital product being sold online for huge amounts of money. Fortnite's Merry Mint Pickaxe was available in the holiday period of 2019 to those who bought Fortnite merchandise at certain retailers, for example, and those codes are now selling for upwards of $100.

Overwatch 2 launched on October 4 and, as is often the case with online games, it had a rocky launch that left several fans completely unable to play the game.

Blizzard's servers were plagued with DDoS attacks that caused lengthy queue times for those trying to play early on, and further issues emerged as a result of new Blizzard policies that required players to connect a phone number to their account before playing.

Though the requirement was implemented as a security feature, Blizzard quickly backtracked and removed the feature for most of its players, only requiring those with new accounts to attach a phone number. Further controversy emerged, however, as fans using pre-paid phone packages found they were not considered viable for the service and as a result they couldn't play Overwatch 2.

The game is relatively settled now, however, and outside of a targeted fix for Zarya in Total Mayhem on October 25 and (presumably) the return of Bastion and Torbjörn, who were removed from Overwatch 2 just days after it launched due to serious glitches, Blizzard said it won't implement any balance updates until Season 2 begins in December.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Editor's note: this story previously stated that the Tracer skin was exclusive to McDonalds. It has now been updated to reflect the skin's origin as a 2018 anniversary cosmetic.

Atreus may have matured by God of War Ragnarok, but so did his voice actor. During a new behind-the-scenes video, supervising dialogue designer Jodie Kupsco explained how puberty caused trouble for the God of War sequel.

“Our actor for Atreus, Sunny [Suljic], is a teenage boy, and his voice changed dramatically throughout several years on this title,” she explained. “We had to go in and even-out that performance so it sounds like it took place over a short period of time. That was a unique challenge on this one.”

An extended production period due to the pandemic meant that the God of War Ragnarok team not only had to think creatively to get around Suljic’s rapidly changing voice, but also how to film cinematics on a motion capture soundstage that was limited by pandemic rules.

“We avoided compromising the story we were trying to tell as a result of the pandemic and these limitations we had to deal with,” said senior producer, Ariel Angelotti. “There were no cinematics that we changed; we still have the same characters in them in the final game. We just had to get a bit creative with how we shot the content.”

The developers needed to avoid having too many voice actors on set at any one time, so they resorted to voice actors doubling up to play additional background characters.

This allowed them “to be able to avoid a situation where too many people were on-set on any given day.” They also had some actors “stand in” for others on the day. However, even with his rapidly deepening voice, I can’t help thinking it’s unlikely that Atreus’ voice actor took over as Kratos at any point.

Want to read more about God of War Ragnarok? Check out all the latest God of War Ragnarok reveals as well as the Norse mythology behind its latest trailer.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Morpheus actor Laurence Fishburne doesn't think he missed out by not being a part of Matrix: Resurrections alongside stars Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss.

Alongside many critics, Fishburne wasn't particularly impressed by Resurrections, which brought the Matrix back after almost 20 years for a fourth instalment.

Speaking to Variety, Fishburne was asked plainly if he thought he'd missed out by not being involved. "No, not really", he replied.

"It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be," Fishburne said. "And it wasn’t as good as I hoped it would be. But I thought Carrie-Anne and Keanu really did their thing. Yeah, that’s what I thought."

Fishburne was a notable absence from Resurrections, which brought back Reeves as Neo, Moss as Trinity, Jada Pinkett Smith as Niobe, and Lambert Wilson as The Merovingian. An AI version of the Morpheus character is played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in Resurrections, but there isn't a definitive answer as to why Fishburne wasn't invited back. Fishburne himself even said in 2021 that he didn't know why he wasn't asked to reprise the role.

Though the logic for Morpheus's absence was somewhat explained in Resurrections, many speculated that it was actually because he died in the canonical 2005 video game The Matrix Online.

In our 4/10 review of the film, IGN said: "The Matrix Resurrections is a bunch of really good ideas stacked together to make a bad — and sometimes ugly — film."

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.