If you haven’t already done so, it’d be wise to follow Masahiro Ito on Twitter. The man responsible for the creation of many of the glorious monsters and environments for the first three Silent Hill games not only has a book coming out with his art, but also on occasion offers up a few tidbits regarding the development of those first games.

Such as the revelation that Silent Hill 3 (which turned 15 last year) was supposed to be an “arcade spin off/a rail shooter”, and not a direct sequel to the original game.

Silent Hill 3 was supposed to be an arcade spin off/a rail shooter, not a direct sequel to SH1. Was a terrible plan. The sales of SH2 was really not good start. So I guess it was one of the causes of that. Also that plan wasted much time & some budgets of SH3. It wasn't SH:Arcade — 伊藤暢達_Masahiro Ito (@adsk4) February 21, 2019

Needless to say, Ito wasn’t happy with this route, since according to him, Silent Hill “didn’t have [sic] universe to suit rail shooter”.

But lucky for Ito (and us!), that plan was eventually scrapped. We still got Silent Hill: The Arcade in 2007, but by then, Ito and Team Silent were on their way out of the series.

Since he’s still technically bound by NDA, Ito couldn’t get into too many details about this cancelled version of SH3. However, his tweets do shed some light on the goings on with the series, such as the beloved Silent Hill 2 initially selling poorly in Japan, with fans ridiculing it on the internet because it wasn’t a direct sequel to the original.

Also, in case you’re wondering, Ito doesn’t want people to ask him about remaking Silent Hill.