Silent Hill: Homecoming did not capture the same atmosphere as the old Silent Hill games and one of the game's artists has recently spoken about why he thinks that is.
"Just remember and never forget that if you don’t like the direction of where Silent Hill went the only people you can blame are Konami themselves," says Kenzie LaMar, one of the artists that worked on Silent Hill: Homecoming. "They are the ones who canned Team Silent and wanted someone else to make the games. And Konami wanted the games to be different. Thats why team Silent was disbanded."
If legit, this means that Konami seems to care more about sales than the quality of their product- something that isn't too outlandish in today's development landscape. Although Silent Hill 4 was nowhere near as good as its predecessors Team Silent did have what it takes to make a compelling survival horror game and deserved another chance. I think Konami saw the success that the action oriented Resident Evil 4 had and wanted to emulate it.
"From what I heard they were very happy with the games made by Double Helix and Climax. They were losing faith in the franchise for years. And to further prove what I am saying, they made an arcade style Silent Hill shoot’em’up gun game!! How Silent Hill is that?!"
I was a big fan of Climax's Shattered Memories, a game that featured no combat in it at all. Combat, in my opinion, was always the weakest part of the series. I am hoping they get another shot at the franchise, but until then we will have to hope that Silent Hill: Downpour will be a return to form. Early scans from Game Informer look promising, showing a flooding effect that looks like it will be used similarly to the ice-over in Shattered Memories.
Source: Hell Descent