When was the first Silent Hill released?
Silent Hill (video game)
Silent Hill is a survival horror video game for the PlayStation published by Konami and developed by Team Silent, a group in Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo. The first installment in the "Silent Hill" series, the game was released in North America in January 1999, and in Japan and Europe later that year. "Silent Hill" uses a third-person view, with real-time rendering of 3D environments. To mitigate limitations of the console hardware, developers liberally used fog and darkness to muddle the graphics. Unlike earlier survival horror games that focused on protagonists with combat training, the player character of "Silent Hill" is an "everyman".
Team Silent
Team Silent was a development group within Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo (KCET), responsible for the first four games in the "Silent Hill" franchise by Konami released from 1999 to 2004, with later titles developed by external Western companies such as Climax Studios, Double Helix Games and Vatra Games. According to composer Akira Yamaoka, Team Silent consisted of staff members that had failed at other projects and originally intended to leave the company before the first "Silent Hill" game turned out to be a success. According to a "Silent Hill Homecoming" artist, Team Silent was ultimately disbanded by Konami itself, because Konami wanted Western developers to make the games. KCET was merged into the parent company Konami in April 2005.