Throughout 2022, there were several leaks in regards to the existence of Silent Hill: The Short Message. First, screenshots were leaked of a playable teaser for the game, where it was known under the working title "Silent Hill: Sakura". Then, in both September and December of that year, the game received age ratings in both South Korea and Taiwan, respectively. Additionally, when Konami began hiring for upcoming projects based on Silent Hill, one of the projects was an unannounced in-house game, which would later turn out to be Silent Hill: The Short Message.