Summary
A reliable horror leaker has shared details aboutSilent Hill: The Short Message’s development, confirming that it was once called Project Sakura and went through some big changes.
Although the Silent Hill 2 remake might be the game that most fans are anxiously waiting on, it’s not the only major release the series has seen recently.The less said about Silent Hill: Ascension the better, but wedid at least finally get The Short Message late last year, something that had been rumoured to be in development for quite some time.
The first rumblings of Silent Hill: The Short Message came from a leak in 2022 thatshowed a game called “Project Sakura” that many believed to be a tech demo for a future Silent Hill game.The Short Message then got rated in Korea that same year, before disappearing off the face of the Earth until it was re-revealed and released last year.
Mentions of suicide and self-harm.
The Short Message And Project Sakura Have A Lot Of Differences
Although it was clear that Project Sakura and The Short Message were linked, there were a lot of differences between the concept art and early images we saw from Sakura and the final release of The Short Message. Since then, many have wondered what happened to it and why it changed so much,something that reliable horror leaker Dusk Golem (also known as AestheticGamer1) has delved into
To begin with, Dusk Golem says that the mission statement of The Short Message since it started development was “A game about resisting anxiety and oppression to help stop suicide”, something that comes through in the final release. Whatdidn’tmake it to the final release is the appearance of “delinquents” who were holding a party in Maya’s honour, which would result in the apartment lot being covered in graffiti.
Dusk Golem also reports that theoriginal version of the game had a lot more characters to interact with, as Anita would use Maya’s phone to text her friends and go into her group chats to figure out what happened to her. Anita would have had to solve puzzles by contacting people on Maya’s phone and trying to piece things together, something that would only happen if she did them favours like taking photos for them.
Dusk Golem also says that the monster in Project Sakura would have dynamically changed the area around it to feature sticky notes,something that can be seen in the original concept art.
Perhaps the most interesting thing that changed between Project Sakura and the final game is the focus on cults and rituals.Project Sakura reportedly made it more clear that students and teachers were part of a “weird cult"that pushed extremist religious ideas and targeted Anita and Maya for having Asian heritage.
