Foundation 9 buries Harker

Earlier today, Konami unearthed details on the fifth installment in its long-running survival horror series, Silent Hill. Formerly announced as Silent Hill V at Konami's whirlwind E3 Media and Business Summit press conference last year, the game has been renamed Silent Hill: Homecoming, and will arrive for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation this September--in Europe at least.

Developed by Foundation 9's Double Helix outfit, Silent Hill: Homecoming has apparently had a garliclike effect on the studio's other supernatural horror game, Harker. GameSpot has confirmed with Foundation 9 that the Bram Stoker-inspired vampire-slaying action game has been put on permanent hiatus.

"The best way to put it is that the Harker team rolled into the Silent Hill V team," a Foundation 9 representative told GameSpot. "Frequently, when you pitch original IP, a publisher sees your vision and says, 'You know, we don't quite want X, but could you do Z?' So, it's not like Harker was rolling along and killed; it's more like the team simply started doing something else, directly in the same vein (no pun intended!)."

As to whether the team would return to Harker once development had wrapped on Silent Hill: Homecoming, the Foundation 9 rep said that while it is possible, the publisher is still weighing its options.

Announced for "next-generation consoles" at the tail end of 2006, Double Helix's--nee The Collective's--Harker paints Stoker's famous vampire slayer in a more brutal light, giving him a bevy of weapons to make with the night-dweller killing. It had been slated to arrive in 2008.