Well, those of us who were hoping and waiting for an epic video game collaboration between Guillermo del Toro and Hideo Kojima have suffered a serious blow. Not only was their collaboration video game, ‘Silent Hills,’ cancelled a few months ago, but in a recently-released interview at Shack News del Toro admitted at San Diego Comic Con that he was personally finished with video games. He seems pretty serious about it, too, making such final statements as, “If I join another video game, World War III will start,” and “I have decided I will never get involved in video games. Otherwise, I’ll join someone and his house will explode or something.”
Such fatalistic statements stem from the fact that he has been personally involved in only two video games so far, and both have fallen through rather spectacularly. First he had been working with game developer THQ for a couple of years only for THQ to go completely bankrupt before the game he had been working on could really go anywhere. More recently he had been working with Japanese developer Hideo Kojima only for Konami to end their relationship with Kojima and cancel ‘Silent Hills.’
I suppose I can see how such a track record would make anyone think twice about starting a similar project, but it’s not like two data points prove he’s a jinx. Still, it’s not all doom and gloom. Del Toro did admit that working on video games for the time he did “changed the way I see narrative,” and he’s also made a strong friendship with Kojima. Apparently, as we reported earlier, they are still working together on a project of some description. But we now know it won’t be a video game. Perhaps a movie?
Del Toro did also say that he’s not against being indirectly involved with video games, and he’d allow companies to make games based on his other works. He simply will not be directly involved in any such game’s development himself.
Should del Toro have kept at it and tried a few more times to get a game made, or has he made the right choice? Should he just stick to movies and TV? Let us know what you think in the comments below.