Alas, Silent Hill fans, I come bearing tragic news, for the highly anticipated , we've decided to put aside the Silent Hill that could have been to think about those that could still totally be.

Here we've listed the developers who could create chapters in a Silent Hill anthology, whose unique talents could play to what makes Silent Hill so beloved and unforgettable. If we say it loud and long enough, it's entirely possible that this could exist. Just keep running toward the light in the gloom.

Alan Wake is a perfect template for a bite-sized Silent Hill experience. Remedy intimately understands how geography can impact mood, turning the pine forests of the US northwest into an oppressive landscape for Alan’s nightmares. They also understand how to adapt horror to an episodic format, sustaining tension throughout short levels, bringing the unease to a creepy crest at the very end. And in both Alan Wake and American Nightmare, Remedy showed they can blur the line between realities, twisting our perceptions and short-circuiting our expectations.

All of that experience is reason enough to wish they’d take a crack at a Silent Hill experience, but it’s the terrifying Mr. Scratch that seals it. Most of Silent Hill’s enemies are creeping, unknowable things, but Mr. Scratch, the dark embodiment of Alan’s ego, is all the more terrifying because he’s so recognizable. He simply gives into the impulses that we all have - to take what we want, shove others out of our way, and shape the world to our own specific liking. It would be intriguing to explore a relationship with a denizen of Silent Hill that’s as charming as he is disturbing.

Here's the thing with Silent Hill, it needs to be really freaking weird. That's what I adored about the series' early entries: each one took something familiar - a hospital or a shopping mall - and made it hostile and alien. These games didn't feel like anything else out there, and that unfamiliarity is what made them so scary. When thinking about who could do the bizarre atmosphere of Silent Hill justice, one name jumps to the top of the list: Grasshopper Manufacture.

With a track record that includes Lollipop Chainsaw and No More Heroes, Grasshopper Manufacture and Goichi Suda have a special brand of strange that permeates everything they touch. They've dipped their toe in the horror genre before with Fatal Frame IV. This would be their opportunity to dive headlong into the dark side and make it their own. It would be crass, it would be stylish, and it sure as hell wouldn't feel like any other Silent Hill game - and that's the point. If there's one thing PT demonstrated, it's that you can break the Silent Hill mold and still have a horror game that captures our imaginations.

The Evil Within was easily one of the most contentious games of 2014, and even now the gaming world is divided on whether it's the second-coming of Resident Evil or destined for the bin. But if developer Tango Gameworks did one thing right with this grotesque action-horror, it was coming up with an exceedingly scary concept and pushing it to the limit. If that passion could be redirected into a subtler narrative that's just as frightening, a Tango-directed Silent Hill could be the unsettling child of the horror genre's two greatest rivals.

While The Evil Within (Tango's only gaming endeavor thus far) focused heavily on action sequences, it was arguably at its best when you were simply walking around a house, poking at fresh brains and trying to discover the mystery behind the specter that's relentlessly hunting you. It also knows how to make the immortal stalker concept work, with Boxman exhibiting all the terrifying immortality of Pyramid Head with an extra helping of gore. Perhaps most importantly, Shinji Mikami and his team are adept at realizing their vision with grace and focus, so a Silent Hill game from them would almost assuredly strike at the heart of what makes the series tick.

You might've heard of a PS1 rarity by the name of LSD: Dream Emulator. It's not so much a game as it is a first-person simulation of an acid trip that oscillates between surreal weirdness and full-on terror. Without any goals or direction, you simply wander through 32-bit renditions of disconnected dream sequences, completely unsure of how your surroundings will react to your presence. Ask anyone who's plunged headfirst into this madness (or ), and you'll see just how often things take a turn into deeply disturbing territory. It gets to the point that the player feels like they're being strangled by paranoia and disorientation.

Don't be deceived by the crude graphics; LSD is capable of some truly skin-crawling stuff, like walls inexplicably plastered with creepy face textures, or is still up, so anything's possible.

People often (incorrectly) reduce Gone Home as to nothing more than a "walking simulator", but you know what? There's nowhere that Fullbright's brand of environmental design and exploration would be more at home than the sleepy burg of Silent Hill. Gone Home already toyed with player expectations, building up suspense and horror through simple audio cues, deft storytelling, and a crushing sense of loneliness - a Fullbright Silent Hill game would simply ratchet up those feelings tenfold.

If you're playing Silent Hill for the combat, you're playing the wrong game. Instead, a Fullbright-developed Silent Hill would drop the player into the derelict city long after the horror has since passed - though the evidence of the atrocities committed by its inhabitants still lingers. You'd explore abandoned buildings, reading notes and taking in clues, piecing the story together as you wander through the city's haunting streets. And then… the fog rolls in, and the real terror begins.

Between working on Danganronpa and the Zero Escape series, developer Spike Chunsoft knows how to inject a poignant sense of despair, dread, and (most of all) helplessness in their games. Silent Hill thrives on these emotions. It wants to instill them deep within your psyche, often without you even realizing it. The thematic harmony at work between game and developer makes Spike Chunsoft a natural fit for this long-running horror franchise.

And on a more pragmatic note, what's the one thing people complain about when they complain about Silent Hill? The gameplay. By design, Silent Hill games feel clunky, which is sort of the point but people still don't like it. If Spike Chunsoft were to transform Silent Hill into a visual novel, that awkwardness would be eliminated and you'd be free to focus on all the creepy environments and brain-teasing puzzles. It also allows for a greater focus on narrative, which is important when your backdrop literally runs on the inner turmoil of its characters.

Though From Software is best known for making you want to throw your game system out the window when you lose to that one boss for the tenth freaking time, the company is equally versed at building a living story from vague whispers and hints. Though you could charge through Dark Souls or Bloodborne without ever learning their lore, players that pay close attention can discover frightening and fascinating worlds hidden just out of sight. Silent Hill is all about the horror of what could be lurking beyond that impenetrable fog, so From Software's unique brand of subtle dread would be perfect for low-visibility terror.

Much like other Silent Hill games are built upon subtle clues that can go ignored if you don't pay attention (heck, P.T. has a full story to it that some players never notice), From Software is adept at hiding hints of story in every facet of a game, from to item descriptions to the structure of the world itself. While the company has never done a psychological horror game the likes of Silent Hill, it wouldn't be too tricky to scale back its action-focused elements to hone in on atmosphere. After that it's familiar, lamp-lit territory. The true question is whether From Software could scale back its desire to make you suffer under crushing difficulty instead of just deep-seated fear, but I bet it could pull that off. Just this once.

When you live in a country that seems to get every game by default, it's easy to take things for granted. Sure, we've had a history of congresspeople attempting to demonize video games, but our self-regulating ratings board is surprisingly lenient compared to countries like Australia or Germany, who decide what games consumers can and can't purchase. Plus, if a game ever leaves Japan, there's a damn good chance it's going to come stateside before other territories.

Except for when it doesn't. There are quite a few games that got fully translated into English, though for whatever reason, didn't make it outside of Europe - or hell, even Japan. North America is massive in comparison to other English-speaking territories, and maybe trucking games cross-country just to sit on store shelves doesn't make a lot of sense. Whatever the reason, make sure you brace yourself for disappointment (or prepare to shell out the cash for region-specific hardware), because these are some of the teresting games we North Americans are missing out on.

Here it is, folks: one of the few Zelda games that will never make it to North America. OK, well, technically it's starring everyone's "favorite" 40-year-old human fairy, Tingle. Even though you're not playing as Link, it still feels like a Legend of Zelda game in many ways. There's an overworld to explore, dungeons full of puzzles to solve, and tons of rupees to snag.

In fact, rupees are an important part, because they're not just a currency you can use to purchase items and haggle with Hyrule's inhabitants - they're Tingle’s health bar too. Run out of cash and it's lights out for our green-tighted hero. This game probably could have had an honest shot here, if not for the fact that pretty much everyone thinks that Tingle is one of the creepiest characters Nintendo's ever made.

Remember Hotel Dusk: Room 215? That Nintendo DS game that looked like it came right out of an ? Well, its now-defunct developer Cing actually made a sequel a few years later that was fully translated and released in Europe.

Last Window: The Secret of Cape West continues the story of Kyle Hyde, the police officer-turned-delivery man as he unravels yet another mystery. According to reviews, Last Window is supposed to be just as good as its predecessor, filled with memorable characters and a unique graphical style, but the text-heavy adventure is perhaps a bit too niche for North American audiences. Much like...

Oh look, another Cing joint! This time, it's a sequel to the the DS adventure game Trace Memory (or, as it's known in Europe, Another Code: Two Memories). Trace Memory plays out like an interactive storybook, with some brisk puzzle-solving to keep things interesting. You play as a young Ashley Mizuki Robbins, as she explores the mysterious Blood Edward Island, looking for clues as to the whereabouts of her missing parents.

Unfortunately, some pacing issues and a lack of replayability led to middling reviews, which ultimately doomed its sequel, Another Code R, from ever seeing the light of day in North America - which is a shame, because it's largely an improvement over the original in many ways. It didn't help that the sequel was a Wii game, and by the time it finally launched, the Wii's software sales all but dried up for anything that wasn't a Mario game.

Here's another Nintendo-published Wii game that would have likely tanked in North America. If you're wondering why this game sounds familiar, you probably recognize it from Nintendo's E3 2006 presentation. Nintendo revealed the trailer for Monolith Soft's bonkers action title, then never spoke a single word about it. That's right: the same studio responsible for sprawling JRPGs about robots and swords and robot swords also worked on a QTE-laden survival game in which massive earthquakes and tsunamis wreck a coastal city in North America.

Nintendo quietly released Disaster: Day of Crisis abroad in October, 2008, but poor sales and middling review scores ensured that we'd never see the once-promised game grace our shores. It's weird that a game as gung-ho-America as Disaster: Day of Crisis would never get released here, but it's nothing compared to...

. Before crushing our souls with games like Bloodborne, From Software loved making mech games, like Chromehounds and Armored Core. But none of them compare to the sheer jingoistic audacity of Metal Wolf Chaos. Vice President Richard Hawk usurps the Oval Office from current president Michael Wilson (relative of Woodrow Wilson, naturally). How does he attempt to regain control of the White House? By piloting a giant mech, that's how. Eventually the two battle in space - because of course they do.

While its menus are in Japanese, the entire game is dubbed with gloriously terrible English voice acting, and it's pretty easy to figure out how to press A to America without having to study a second language. It is a crime we never got a localized version - it could have been video gaming's Team America: World Police, and there's no way translating everything would have taken longer than a Coca-Cola and apple pie-fueled fortnight.

Oh dear, this one is going to break more than a few hearts. Phantasy Star Online was an action-packed MMORPG for the Dreamcast released in 2000, a time when hooking your console up to the internet was a strange concept. Despite a relatively complicated set-up process compared to most modern-day online console titles, it garnered a decent cult following over its lifespan.

So of course fans were excited to hear that a full sequel would make its way to PC and Vita… and have continued to wait patiently for the game to ever make it to the West. Currently, Phantasy Star Online 2 is only out in Japan and the Pacific Southwest, but if you're willing to jump through some hoops, you can actually that will translate nearly everything for you. The fact that Sega hasn't done anything to block its use might as well be confirmation that we'll never get it.

The SNES is arguably one of the best JRPG machines on the planet, and North America actually got a fairly surprising amount of them, all things considered. But there's one in particular that stands out as one of the finest we'll probably never get to play: Terranigma.

Terranigma is the third entry of a loosely connected trilogy, developed by Quintet, the studio who brought us classics like ActRaiser, Soul Blazer, and Illusion of Gaia. In many ways, Terranigma is Quintet's magnum opus, a combination of complex religious themes and action-RPG concepts introduced in prior titles. So why didn't we get it? Turns out Enix wasn't doing so hot in the US, and had closed its North American subsidiary shortly before its localization was completed. That didn't stop Nintendo from taking it and publishing it on its own - but only in Europe and Australia.

If this article seems particularly Nintendo heavy, it's not because I'm bashing them. They just happen to make a habit of putting in a ton of work to make games readable by a Western audience then not releasing them in their largest English-speaking territory - or simply not releasing them at all. Case in point: Mother for the NES.

In Japan, what we refer to as EarthBound is known as Mother 2, the sequel to the original Mother game released in 1989 on the NES. Plans were set in motion to make Mother available to a Western audience, and the game was fully translated into English, until Nintendo of America decided (for whatever reason) that releasing it would be commercially unviable. Lucky for us, someone found a prototype and dumped the ROM files online, where it has since been dubbed EarthBound Zero by those who have come across it by less scrupulous means.

Mother 3, a game which many believe to be the finest (and most heart-wrenching) in the series, has been . Of course, Nintendo still has no plans to officially bring this title to the West, despite constantly taunting us with the inclusion of Mother 3 hero Lucas in Super Smash Bros. Sigh.

When you live in a country that seems to get every game by default, it's easy to take things for granted. Sure, we've had a history of congresspeople attempting to demonize video games, but our self-regulating ratings board is surprisingly lenient compared to countries like Australia or Germany, who decide what games consumers can and can't purchase. Plus, if a game ever leaves Japan, there's a damn good chance it's going to come stateside before other territories.

Except for when it doesn't. There are quite a few games that got fully translated into English, though for whatever reason, didn't make it outside of Europe - or hell, even Japan. North America is massive in comparison to other English-speaking territories, and maybe trucking games cross-country just to sit on store shelves doesn't make a lot of sense. Whatever the reason, make sure you brace yourself for disappointment (or prepare to shell out the cash for region-specific hardware), because these are some of the teresting games we North Americans are missing out on.

Here it is, folks: one of the few Zelda games that will never make it to North America. OK, well, technically it's starring everyone's "favorite" 40-year-old human fairy, Tingle. Even though you're not playing as Link, it still feels like a Legend of Zelda game in many ways. There's an overworld to explore, dungeons full of puzzles to solve, and tons of rupees to snag.

In fact, rupees are an important part, because they're not just a currency you can use to purchase items and haggle with Hyrule's inhabitants - they're Tingle’s health bar too. Run out of cash and it's lights out for our green-tighted hero. This game probably could have had an honest shot here, if not for the fact that pretty much everyone thinks that Tingle is one of the creepiest characters Nintendo's ever made.

Remember Hotel Dusk: Room 215? That Nintendo DS game that looked like it came right out of an ? Well, its now-defunct developer Cing actually made a sequel a few years later that was fully translated and released in Europe.

Last Window: The Secret of Cape West continues the story of Kyle Hyde, the police officer-turned-delivery man as he unravels yet another mystery. According to reviews, Last Window is supposed to be just as good as its predecessor, filled with memorable characters and a unique graphical style, but the text-heavy adventure is perhaps a bit too niche for North American audiences. Much like...

Oh look, another Cing joint! This time, it's a sequel to the the DS adventure game Trace Memory (or, as it's known in Europe, Another Code: Two Memories). Trace Memory plays out like an interactive storybook, with some brisk puzzle-solving to keep things interesting. You play as a young Ashley Mizuki Robbins, as she explores the mysterious Blood Edward Island, looking for clues as to the whereabouts of her missing parents.

Unfortunately, some pacing issues and a lack of replayability led to middling reviews, which ultimately doomed its sequel, Another Code R, from ever seeing the light of day in North America - which is a shame, because it's largely an improvement over the original in many ways. It didn't help that the sequel was a Wii game, and by the time it finally launched, the Wii's software sales all but dried up for anything that wasn't a Mario game.

Here's another Nintendo-published Wii game that would have likely tanked in North America. If you're wondering why this game sounds familiar, you probably recognize it from Nintendo's E3 2006 presentation. Nintendo revealed the trailer for Monolith Soft's bonkers action title, then never spoke a single word about it. That's right: the same studio responsible for sprawling JRPGs about robots and swords and robot swords also worked on a QTE-laden survival game in which massive earthquakes and tsunamis wreck a coastal city in North America.

Nintendo quietly released Disaster: Day of Crisis abroad in October, 2008, but poor sales and middling review scores ensured that we'd never see the once-promised game grace our shores. It's weird that a game as gung-ho-America as Disaster: Day of Crisis would never get released here, but it's nothing compared to...

. Before crushing our souls with games like Bloodborne, From Software loved making mech games, like Chromehounds and Armored Core. But none of them compare to the sheer jingoistic audacity of Metal Wolf Chaos. Vice President Richard Hawk usurps the Oval Office from current president Michael Wilson (relative of Woodrow Wilson, naturally). How does he attempt to regain control of the White House? By piloting a giant mech, that's how. Eventually the two battle in space - because of course they do.

While its menus are in Japanese, the entire game is dubbed with gloriously terrible English voice acting, and it's pretty easy to figure out how to press A to America without having to study a second language. It is a crime we never got a localized version - it could have been video gaming's Team America: World Police, and there's no way translating everything would have taken longer than a Coca-Cola and apple pie-fueled fortnight.

Oh dear, this one is going to break more than a few hearts. Phantasy Star Online was an action-packed MMORPG for the Dreamcast released in 2000, a time when hooking your console up to the internet was a strange concept. Despite a relatively complicated set-up process compared to most modern-day online console titles, it garnered a decent cult following over its lifespan.

So of course fans were excited to hear that a full sequel would make its way to PC and Vita… and have continued to wait patiently for the game to ever make it to the West. Currently, Phantasy Star Online 2 is only out in Japan and the Pacific Southwest, but if you're willing to jump through some hoops, you can actually that will translate nearly everything for you. The fact that Sega hasn't done anything to block its use might as well be confirmation that we'll never get it.

The SNES is arguably one of the best JRPG machines on the planet, and North America actually got a fairly surprising amount of them, all things considered. But there's one in particular that stands out as one of the finest we'll probably never get to play: Terranigma.

Terranigma is the third entry of a loosely connected trilogy, developed by Quintet, the studio who brought us classics like ActRaiser, Soul Blazer, and Illusion of Gaia. In many ways, Terranigma is Quintet's magnum opus, a combination of complex religious themes and action-RPG concepts introduced in prior titles. So why didn't we get it? Turns out Enix wasn't doing so hot in the US, and had closed its North American subsidiary shortly before its localization was completed. That didn't stop Nintendo from taking it and publishing it on its own - but only in Europe and Australia.

If this article seems particularly Nintendo heavy, it's not because I'm bashing them. They just happen to make a habit of putting in a ton of work to make games readable by a Western audience then not releasing them in their largest English-speaking territory - or simply not releasing them at all. Case in point: Mother for the NES.

In Japan, what we refer to as EarthBound is known as Mother 2, the sequel to the original Mother game released in 1989 on the NES. Plans were set in motion to make Mother available to a Western audience, and the game was fully translated into English, until Nintendo of America decided (for whatever reason) that releasing it would be commercially unviable. Lucky for us, someone found a prototype and dumped the ROM files online, where it has since been dubbed EarthBound Zero by those who have come across it by less scrupulous means.

Mother 3, a game which many believe to be the finest (and most heart-wrenching) in the series, has been . Of course, Nintendo still has no plans to officially bring this title to the West, despite constantly taunting us with the inclusion of Mother 3 hero Lucas in Super Smash Bros. Sigh.