At a time when it seems like everyone everywhere is either excited or afraid by how much AI is going to shake up all sorts of industries, it's refreshing when you hear someone say, essentially, 'eh,' but that seems to be the sentiment being expressed by Konami president Hideki Hayakawa in the company's latest earnings report.

The financial report, as spotted by Dengeki and translated by Automaton, details Konami's current approach to the rapid proliferation of AI and its thinking on the technology's potential impact on the gaming industry as a whole. The general consensus right now, which seems to be as fluid as the weather, is that AI as a tool to drastically increase efficiency is a near inevitability, but the increase of actual AI-generated game content including art and voice lines, not to mention the AI-assisted vibe-coding boom that has Microsoft's tail wagging, has the industry wondering if a line will ever be drawn. For Hayakawa and Konami, there may be no need.

Per Automaton's translation, Hayakama said in Konami's earnings report that AI probably "won't bring a significant change" to the game market. Answering specifically to questions about how AI might lower the barrier to entry for aspiring game developers, Hayakama dismissed that, too.

"Entry barriers have already been lowered by the advancements of generic game engines and the spread of UGC (user generated content)," he said, adding, "Even if AI use does lead to improvements in production efficiency, I believe that the most important factors in producing entertaining and innovative video games are people and creators."

I'm not sure how to read this one. On one hand, there's no denying the metaphorical breath of fresh air that it is seeing such a prominent industry figure downplay AI's influence, but on the other, is it strictly a good thing if one of the few potential upsides – meaning increased efficiency – to an otherwise terrifying technological advancement is straight-up bunk? As ever, there's an inherent fogginess to second-hand translated quotes, and of course most gaming execs are far more bullish on AI in game dev, but it seems Konami isn't buying the hype at the moment.

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P.T., the "playable teaser" meant to introduce the world to Hideo Kojima's Silent Hills, has been effectively inaccessible since Konami delisted it in 2015. Modder LoreanXavier has created a native PC port of the game that aims to make it playable for modern gamers, and even Hideo Kojima is taking notice.

An article from GameRant covered this PC port of PT a few days ago, which was soon retweeted by Kojima himself – on both his English and Japanese Twitter accounts, even. Kojima constantly retweets fanart and other community celebrations of his games, even those still owned by Konami, but it is unusual to see him acknowledge this kind of port on social media.

"The GOAT himself acknowledged my port," LoreanXavier says on Twitter (via IGN). "I am speechless." He adds that seeing Kojima "notice something I’ve poured so much time and passion into genuinely means the world to me."

While there have been plenty of attempts to port or remake P.T. over the years, this one seems to be the real deal. "This is incredible," as noted dataminer Lance McDonald explains. "Unlike the previous decade of fan 'recreations' of P.T. for PC which always seemed to miss important but minor details, this is (as far as I can tell?) a 1:1 port of the entire codebase. It creates all of the undocumented behavior I know of perfectly."

In essence, it's a lot like the PC recompilations we've seen for older games over the past few years, rebuilding the original console code in a way that actually functions on PC. And, like most of those projects, you need to provide your own copy of the game to work with the port, as none of the original game assets are included here. That's a key distinction that seems to have helped keep these projects from being assailed by publishers' lawyers.

"I made this on my own, in my spare time, because P.T. deserved to keep existing somewhere other than on consoles that still have it installed," LoreanXavier says on the project's GitHub page. "It plays the whole teaser from the first wake-up to the street, with the voice part included."

Given the rampant vibe coding that's been going around the fan dev community, you might want to know whether AI was used here. "I use AI for debugging when I get stuck," LoreanXavier says. "This project is built on years of experience with P.T. and Fox Engine; I was making shadPS4/ModDB workarounds for the game long before this port. That knowledge makes reverse engineering easier. I’m not blindly vibe-coding a P.T. port."

With multiple successful modern Silent Hill games under its belt, Konami is now keen to turn Silent Hill into an annual franchise. The series is more active than it's been in years, but P.T. remains stubbornly tied to a dwindling number of PS4s, with no way for new players to get in on the action. It's a notable piece of gaming history, and it's good to see that fans, at least, are willing to try and protect its legacy.

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Notably absent yet absolutely vital, Silent Hill Townfall's women are everywhere and nowhere. That's how it felt for me at first, creeping through the misty streets of St. Amelia. A woman's soft voice speaks to me through time and space – or rather, through protagonist Simon's handheld CRTV – but she's not a tangible presence here.

Townfall feels significantly Gothic in that regard, and not just because of all this fog. Women in Gothic horror typically fall under one of three things: damsels in distress (Lucy in Dracula), femme fatales (Carmilla in, well, Carmilla), or nowhere to be seen for a very long time (Frankenstein, pretty much). As I play through the horror game's first hour and a half, I'm prepared for Townfall's women to be grouped into that last category; framing devices, intended to buoy the male hero's journey toward redemption. But after completing Part 2: Zoe, Screen Burn's depiction of women cuts far deeper than the tragic beauty of doomed, transient females.

Quiet might

Women are both the antidote and the scapegoat of Silent Hill Townfall's predicament. I see that no clearer than in Zoe Ellis, the nurse speaking to Simon through the CRTV in hushed, desperate tones, imploring him to "come back" and "set her free". It's a very Silent Hill 2 set-up... until it isn't.

Zoe's role as a nurse is not made obvious until clues direct me to St. Amelia's abandoned clinic, where, upon rifling through her belongings, I'm thrown into a flashback. Controlling Zoe instead of Simon, the weary nurse flicks through her pager. She's been summoned to a house on Church Avenue to tend to a sick old man, one of her regular patients whom she'd failed to show up for after being overwhelmed by a sharply increased workload.

Set in mid-'90s Scotland, themes of sexism in the medical hierarchy take root. Zoe Ellis is a nurse, not a physician. Despite taking on so much extra work above her station and title, she will never be seen as their equal. Doctors are learned, educated men, while women are the village caregivers.

It's an ancient and inescapable occupational hazard that earns no thanks, no sympathy, and no margin for error. If Zoe cannot tend the sick as a woman, let alone a nurse, she has gone against what is categorically expected of women's work in a suffering society and will be branded a failure on both accounts. Even if the failure was not hers at all; Nurse Ellis is no Nurse Ratched.

As I head out into St. Amelia, the character perspective shift is immediately apparent. Pacing through these same streets as Simon often leaves me annoyed, frustrated by the slow-burn terrors that fuel Townfall's hide-and-seek format and its intermittent bursts of combat. I might be an outlier there. Our Silent Hill Townfall review praises how genuinely terrifying our Managing Guides Editor found it, but I only feel the fear when I play as Zoe. With just a pager and an address to go to, the world suddenly feels truly dangerous.

By the time I arrive at Mr Stewart's home, Zoe is getting concerned. Her breath shudders and shakes, not quite Grace Ashcroft in Resident Evil Requiem but not far off, as she examines the seemingly empty home. I can feel the dread through my controller; she can't lose another one, not again.

This is the crux of Zoe Ellis' plight as Townfall's real protagonist. Women have to foot the bill for both emotional and physical labor in times of strife, expected to hold the cure and the bucket at the same time. She's been sent here to do a doctor's work, only to get a message on her beeper that she is "too late" to save her patient after all.

Burdened with borrowed guilt, her next instructions direct her to get back in touch with the hospital. But not before we catch a harrowing glimpse of the manifestations of her own impossible anguish.

It's terminal

Unlike Simon's hammer-headed demons who stumble through the fog, wrists bound behind their backs, Zoe is haunted by people. Naked, vulnerable people – bloated and scarred, yet far more humanoid than those Simon fends off. Even in her nightmares, Zoe's compassion for her fellow man shines through. She can't see people as demons. She cares for them too deeply.

While Simon has weapons and (limited) opportunities to defend his physical being, Zoe does not. I instead take advantage of throwables, like discarded beer bottles, to distract or stun these nightmares as I dodge through the fog as fast as possible. If spotted by an enemy, cannula needles on long lengths of tubing erupt from reopened surgical wounds, lunging like venomous snakes to bite her repeatedly; symbols of a failed medical system, lashing out at its overlooked, overworked, less-prestigious workers, shielding those in power.

It comes to a head as Zoe picks up the phone in a telephone box and must suffer Dr. Glenn's vicious berating. It's her fault Mr Stewart is dead. It's her fault everyone is dead.

Zoe's role in Silent Hill Townfall, then, amounts to far more than a helpful voice on a screen. She carries the weight of the town's guilt on her work-weary shoulders, tormented by the inability to achieve the impossible. Yet, like the heroes of the best Silent Hill games, her determination carries her forward. She is not giving up. She still wants to try and save St. Amelia, and perhaps herself in the process.

Townfall's secret female protagonist is a feminist icon in her own right, and a very different one to that of Silent Hill f. Where Hinako's journey is rife with brutal combat, symbolizing one woman's battle against her own psyche and the expectations lumped upon her sex by society, Zoe's battles are internal. She cannot fight for her life bodily, so she must do it the only way she knows how: sheer strength of will. It creates a beautiful, if upsetting, opposition between her physical and mental constitution – far more meaningful than Simon's bumbling plank-swinging – and ultimately proves that Townfall's women are the ones doing the heavy lifting here.

Maybe Zoe wasn't intended to be Screen Burn's ultimate tragic hero. But by subverting the expectations of a Gothic heroine and sneaking her into the supporting cast, I learn far more about what makes Townfall so ubiquitously Silent Hill through Zoe's short, narrative-driven segments than I do in any other part of the game. If that's not heroic, I don't know what is.

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To open the Blood Transfusion Door Silent Hill Townfall you'll need to find some blood bags to clear the barrier blocking your path in the 'different' Medical Center. That involves checking various blood types to rotate a large dial and channel certain bags to the middle to open the door and finally escape.

It is a long, stealth-heavy section where you need to explore and collect some blood bags to open various doors, then collect more blood bags for the main puzzle, all while avoiding numerous monsters. It's tough to do for the first time, so use my guide to work out where you need to go without any of the pain of working it out yourself.

Where to find all blood bags in Silent Hill Townfall

There are five blood bags to find in all, but two of these are just to open other doors to reach more areas, leaving three you need for the final puzzle. Getting all of them is a long, tough stealth section that I won't even attempt to walkthrough step by step as it involves so, so much running away and hiding, it will be impossible for you to keep track of easily.

Instead, here's the short version in a bullet point list, with a completed map showing you all the things you need to do and find, in the order to do them:

1. You'll find the Alan Duncan blood bag here which opens the SW door.
2. Here you'll get the Sarah Watson blood bag.
3. This is the location of the Ward W Master key, which you then use next in 4.
4. Use the Ward W Master key to open the door here and use the ladder to reach 5.
5. Now you can reach this room to get the Lesley Greer blood bag, which opens the DP door.
6. The drop down here will let you get the George McEwan blood bag and the Ward P Master Key.
7. Here you can interact with the Matthew Clark blood bag in a lift which will cause it to drop down a level.
8. This is where the Matthew Clark blood bag ends up. However, collecting it will cause some gates to close, meaning you'll need to turn two manual releases at 9 and 10 to escape.
9. There's one of two release wheels here you need to turn.
10. There's another release wheel here. When both are turned you can leave the way you came in.

Once you've completed this, and have all the blood bags, it's time to head back to the Blood Transfusion Door you found when you first entered this area.

How to open the blood transfusion door in Silent Hill Townfall

When you have escaped back to the transfusion room you'll have George McEwen, Mathew Clark and Sarah Watson's bags left in your inventory. Each one has a short note about their condition, which will match one of the patient notes on the wall. To open the door you need to first join up these clues and names to place each blood bag in the right gap:

• 2nd/3rd - George McEwen
• Verbal - confused and motor / reaction - obeys commands - Mathew Clark
• Regular pulse and head wound - Sarah Watson

Once they're all in place you can trigger the switch by the transfusion door to open it and proceed to the final puzzle.

How to solve the blood type puzzle in Silent Hill Townfall

Once the blood bag door is open you'll find a small chamber with a large dial full of sections you can rotate, and various plaques explaining what blood types can be combined.

If you check Simon's bracelet in your inventory you'll see he's A+, which can use blood types O-, O+, A- and A+. That means you need to rotate the dial so that only those blood types reach the center. Thomas Fergusson, Hannah McGregor, and Sarah Watson have either O or A types, so rotate the rings so that only the TF, HM and SW lines reach the center, like this:

Once the lines are arranged as in the picture above, select and use the central 'Ordell' section to pump the blood in and open the door. You're now free to move on to the next part of the story.

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Trying to find the infusion drugs in Silent Hill Townfall can be a bit of an ordeal, as the Tensobromide, Hydroxalene, and Dextracyclate are scattered through a lengthy, stealth heavy section where you can't fight back. Because you don't know where to look, it involves poking into every corner to find what you need, with danger at every turn. Fortunately I've done it all already, and have the maps and routes you need to find all the drugs as quickly as possible and minimize the risks involved.

The objective to find the infusion drugs begins after you've found the blood pressure, pulse, and O2 in Townfall and then solved the Silent Hill Townfall X-ray puzzle. That will open up the room you're in, and update the map with the dosage and names of three drugs:

• 3mg Hydroxalene
• 11mg Tensobromide
• 2.5mg Dextracyclate

These are eventually found throughout the entire St Amelia medical center, requiring that you explore almost all of it to find everything you need. There are copious enemies to avoid and numerous drugs you can find, as well as a range of doses, meaning finding the three you actually need can be a laborious process.

All Silent Hill Townfall infusion drug locations

Finding all three of the infusion drugs you need in Townfall means sifting through plenty of the wrong drugs you can also find, while avoiding several enemies, to get what you need. Without any idea where to look this can be a long, dangerous search. However, having done it myself, I can point you directly to the location you need, starting with the floor you initially gain access to once the doors open:

You start in the Surgery room marked 'Patient', where you dealt with all the vital signs and X-Rays, and the first drug you can find is 11mg Tensobromide in the pharmacy store directly to your left as you come out the surgery.

Technically the Hydroxalene is in the Records Room on the other side of the floor but that's locked. The code is 2605, which you can try now to get the Hydroxalene, but you'll need to head upstairs anyway to find the Dextracyclate. So, once you have the Tensobromide, take the stairs to the next floor.

When you head up the stairs you'll see a reception desk on your left. There's a computer there with a 'Dailies - Infusion Status' email you can read, which will mark all the drugs that have been given out on to the map. That tells you places you can look, but that's for everything, not just the two you need at this point - all the circles with a cross through on the maps here are incorrect drug locations I've already checked.

At this point head to bay 6 to find the Dextracyclate, and then across to the office where you'll find the Record Room code, 2605, pinned to a noticeboard. Now you can head back down the stairs to get the Hydroxalene, if you haven't already.

Once you have all the drugs, it's time to dose the patient...

How to set the drug dosage in Silent Hill Townfall

Once you have all the drugs, you'll need to head back to the surgery and place them in the infusion pumps around the bed, as shown above. It doesn't matter which ones you place them in, as the the important thing is getting the infusion rate right.

To do that you need to check the Medication Dosage Table on the laptop, which will give you this chart:

Using this you can match the drug names and dosages to get the flow rates, using the patient weight of 88Kg, which is written on the whiteboard. That gets you this:

• 3mg Hydroxalene - 7
• 11mg Tensobromide - 8
• 2.5mg Dextracyclate - 15

Now place the drugs in the machines, set the rate to the appropriate number, and then press the Ready Pump button. When all three are ready to go, you'll then need turn on all three pumps using the small white machine on the tray by the noticeboard.

If it's all done correctly, you'll stabilize the patient and then have to head to the basement to get an intubation kit. Fortunately, this a much easier job and just involves sneaking past a single enemy using a radio to distract them, to reach the storage room at the end of the corridor.

Once you've found the kit and intubated the patient that's about it for this section. The next big puzzle you'll have to face is the Silent Hill Townfall blood puzzle, which is going to make this look easy by comparison.

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I love Silent Hill. I love the tension of exploring the twisted nightmare forms of real environments, pursued by bizarre creatures eager to make me one more body lost among the fog. Shifting the setting from Americana to Scotland with Silent Hill: Townfall, laden with UK-specific '90s details, made me incredibly excited. Even so, despite holding a candle for Silent Hill, Resident Evil, and more, I'm a scaredy cat at heart. Many horror movies are off the cards for me, and there's one gaming mechanic I struggle to vibe with above all others in horror games: having to hide from patrolling enemies.

Whether that's the gory heights of Outlast or the psychological hauntings in Amnesia: The Dark Descent, I nope out nearly instantly. In our Silent Hill Townfall review, we praised how it's "full of real fear, impeccable atmosphere, and a distressing story of remorse and penance". So, when I found my first cupboard with a 'hide' prompt, foreshadowing the hiding mechanics that loom large from start to finish, I began to get worried. That was until I got used to Simon Ordell's CRTV, the chunky, almost Game Boy-like device he clutches throughout the nightmare trip that is Silent Hill: Townfall.

Screen time

At its core, it functions like the iconic Silent Hill radio, with bursts of static noise alerting you to when enemies are hiding in nearby fog. But, by holding up the screen and tuning it to available signals, you won't just get clues on how to progress, but can pick out the shape of specific monsters.

Zeroing in on one, the screen turns red and a darker outline of the creature can be seen through any object. You can keep tabs on a zoomie foe with an axe head running back and forth as you slink through the neighboring alleyway. A maze of gardens and sheds behind blocks of flats could spell doom with one wrong turn, unless I fiddle that dial enough to get an early look at the crouched shapes of enemies writhing on the ground.

Even with the guidance, enemies in Silent Hill: Townfall patrol enough around relatively tight spaces that I still have to put effort into avoiding detection. Sometimes I can use the cover mechanic to anchor myself to the spot and peek around corners, abandoned three-door cars, or the waist-high stone wall of a bungalow front garden. Holding down while peeking allows Simon to flatten himself even further. All the while, I'm clutching my CRTV to add a clearer silhouette to supplement the edge of the enemy I can otherwise barely see. It's the kind of tension I've not felt since Alien: Isolation, where I'm likewise moments away from death at any time.

Often, that can also mean tracking their movements until they look like they're about to double-back, then quickly dipping into the half-open door of a nearby house to 'hide', able to peer through only a small slit with my normal vision.

It's hard to outrun enemies, but Townfall's St Amelia is so full of hiding places that you can usually take a corner and find a spot to duck into. Early on, a monster chases me and continues just beyond where I'm cowered in the dark, instead knocking its head repeatedly on a nearby locked gate, the clanging constantly making me afraid it's about to turn its attention to the doors I'm right behind (make no mistake, they can pull you out if they see you). I soon learn there's an achievement – Isolating Experience – for staying in one hiding spot for at least 60 seconds.

As well as the CRTV you have a map, which roots you to the space – vulnerable – while you peruse it. It's telling, though, that the CRTV can be gripped while still walking around, and, also unlike the map, can be pulled out while in a hiding space. This is the stronger navigational tool you should be relying upon rather than burying your head in a map. The whole world is tinted red, haunted by ghost-like visions of your regret no matter where you are. Can you turn your inner eye away from what you have done before it consumes you? Certainly not. If you do, you're already dead.

Silent Hill Townfall's CRTV is empowering in that it allows you to see your doom coming. In theory, it's not that much more useful than peeking around walls, but it does keep the action pacier, and even encourages moments where I feel like I can step up and bring the danger rather than be hunted.

By tuning into each enemy in a zone one at a time, I can sometimes tell when outlines are trapped behind walls that can't reach me, leaving another vulnerable and alone, its back turned. I could hide, but why not take this destructible plank of wood and get the jump on them?

Sure, in a fair match-up, I'm likely to get my weapon smashed and take deadly hits, but just maybe the screen in my hands can tempt me to be successful with my violence. I'm not always sure the CRTV is a good thing. But this is Silent Hill. What good is left? Here in the fog, we take what we can get.

I'm reminded of another horror game that plays with giving the player some slack in the pursuer-pursued relationship – Forbidden Siren. There, Sightjacking can be used to see through the eyes of enemies as you can see yourself illuminated at a distance. Here, the benefit of knowing exactly where an enemy is off-set by the disorientation of the perspective shift. The vulnerability that comes from losing sight of your own body creates an ethereal feeling to the folkloric horror, while also giving me just a touch more control to staying one step ahead of death.

There's a scene in Jane Schoenbrun's Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma – a satirical, tongue-in-cheek deconstruction of slasher movies, which is more along the lines of what I can handle when it comes to horror cinema – where a character describes an out-of-body, disassociative experience that walks a line between terror and reclamation of power, control by way of a lack of control. It's a part of how audiences can enjoy horror movies, but becomes part of Camp Miasma's own text – uncomfortable and validating in equal measure.

In gaming, we're always at a remove. We might be immersed, but we always control a character. It's a framing trick; thinking about Camp Miasma while playing Townfall, I'm conscious that I'm watching through a screen as someone else watches a screen displaying their impending doom. By their nature, games have a lot more room to play with this feeling of distance, to shrug off cinematic ambitions that lock us to one viewpoint, and instead take these complete digital spaces and allow us to look within. A gaming character peering out of reality is, in a way, no different than the player experience often is. Townfall's CRTV outlines are, in a way, an underpowered form of Detective Vision common in the likes of Batman: Arkham Knight or even The Witcher 3.

Yet, conjured and grounded in the reality of this Scottish town that seems completely normal until the nightmare becomes apparent, the simple shorthand of an enhanced vision mechanic is rendered hellish, wrong, yet still no less valuable and necessary for survival. This is the kind of playful horror that reminds me why I always felt so drawn to Silent Hill in the first place. Between Townfall and Silent Hill f, these recent years of genuine reinvention for the series has me incredibly excited for its future, and the horror games it'll inspire.

Shrug off the silence and check out our best Silent Hill games and best Japanese horror games rankings for more!

The Silent Hill Townfall X-Ray puzzle makes you take X-Rays of a patient's skull and chest by lining up the machine and using the correct kV, mA and time settings. You'll need to use some instructions and a table to understand what to do and how to set everything up. Like the Townfall blood pressure, pulse and O2 puzzle before this, there's a lot to read and process as you fiddle with knobs and switches. Below is the short version to help you get through it all quickly.

How to take the skull X-Ray in Silent Hill Townfall

You'll need to turn the computer on in the X-Ray room before you do anything else and then move the image upwards to find the skull, as shown above. You won't see the head as it's under the cloth but you'll notice some small white squares you can line up with the camera image. You'll know you're in the right place when it says "Patient Skull - Aligned."

Now you need to turn the X-Ray machine on using the power switch on the control panel but before you can actually take the picture you'll need to check the X-Ray Dosage Table on the laptop in the other room. That will give you these figures:

To X-Ray the skull you now need to set the dials on the control panel to these values:

• Site: Skull
• kV: 3
• Time: 1
• mA: 7

That should look like this on the panel itself:

If you've got it all set up right you can then press the green X-Ray button to take the picture and trigger the next stage.

How to take the chest X-Ray in Silent Hill Townfall

With the skull X-Ray taken you'll now have to take a picture of the chest. Use the camera again first to move the view down and align with the lower set of white squares around the cloth panel with the wire going in, as shown above. It'll say 'Patient Chest - aligned' when you're in position.

Now, using the X-Ray Dosage Table from the laptop again, you want to set the dials to these values:

• Site - Chest
• kV - 7
• Time - 1.2
• mA - 3

That should look like this on the instrument panel:

Get all the dials in the right place, then press the green button to take the shot and if it's all set up right you'll be able to collect hard copies of the pictures from a printer at the back of the room. You can now place these on the light box on the wall in the other room to relay what they show to the doctor on the intercom.

Once that's done you'll now have to find the infusion drugs in Silent Hill Townfall. This is a lengthy and dangerous stealth heavy section, where you'll have to explore several floors of a large building to find what you need.

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The scales puzzle in Silent Hill Townfall sees you searching for three things to place into three scales in the clinic, with a clue to the order to put things in. When you first find it you'll only have one of the items you need, and will have to visit two different locations to get the remaining things before you can work out what goes where. It's the first of the longer puzzles in the game, with some travel involved and a couple of sub-puzzles to clear before you can get what you need. So here's everything you need to do and where to go.

What is the scales puzzle in Townfall?

The scales puzzle is found in the Clinic, specifically in the Z Ellis office, where you get the Townfall clinic reception door code. There are three scales on boxes directly in front of the door as you enter, and the note you see above just to the left.

The key bits in the note are the underlined sections:

• I didn't listen closely enough
• I made mistakes and couldn't focus on the task at hand
• I'm not fit to work in this role any longer

The last underlined phrase, 'Please show me you understand' is your call to action, telling you to show Zoe you know what these three clues mean by eventually placing relevant objects in each scale. However, you need to find everything first...

How to get the items you need for the scales puzzle in Townfall

When you find the scale puzzle, the only thing you will have is Zoe's ID card, from solving the Silent Hill Townfall organ box puzzle. That is the answer to the 'I'm not fit to work in this role any longer' clue and can go in the third and final scale.

The two other items you need relate to locations you can get in the clinic and are shown above on the map. Firstly, when you check the computer in the room with the scales and read the 'Where are you' email you'll have Jess's flat added to your map. Then, secondly, you'll get the Pharmacy added to the map when you check the reception answerphone.

You can do these new objectives in any order. If you go to the pharmacy you'll find the Silent Hill Townfall pharmacy locker code. I have that guide to cover things in more detail there, but you basically need to get numbers off posters you can find, while using a TV signal to put them in order for the combination. That will get you an incorrect prescription for 'I made mistakes'.

Going to Jess's flat is more or less a fetch quest to get a broken stethoscope you can find on a bed for 'I didn't listen'. You'll need to use the scalpel to open the gate to St Amelia's Park, and you'll have to stop off at number 16 (below) to get Jess's backdoor key along the way:

The back door key can be found on the table by the window in the upstairs flat at number 16. Once you have the key, you can get in to Jess's Flat around the back.

There is also a lock box in the ground floor flat at No 16, but the key is in the kitchen drawer at Jess's flat - so remember to pick up the key and open the box on the way back.

Where to place items in the scales in Townfall

Once you have the stethoscope and the prescription to go with the ID card, you can solve the scales puzzle using the information on the note to put each one in the right place:

1. I didn't listen closely enough / stethoscope
2. I made mistakes / incorrect prescription
3. I'm not fit to work in this role / Zoe's ID

As soon as you place the final item, a short cutscene will play and then you'll progress to the next part of the game. I won't say any more than that so as not to spoil anything but you will face a couple more puzzles fairly soon after, including trying to open Jane's Shed and a patient puzzle in Townfall.

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The Silent Hill Townfall patient puzzle sees you finding blood pressure, heart rate, and O2 for a doctor on an intercom. There are multiple machines to reach, an array of numbers to choose from, and every time you get it wrong you take damage. To get the answers you need means reading the instructions for each machine on a laptop, to find out which ones are wrong, and using that to find the right numbers to pass on to the doctor. Here's how to do that.

How to get the blood pressure in Townfall

Key to finding the patient blood pressure, and any other readings you need, is to check the laptop in the corner. Go there and into the Equipment Overview menu and read the Valentudo View S-100 option.

This is the instruction manual for the vital signs machine and it will tell you to 'disregard values outside of 70/100 mmHg' for blood pressure. These are the green systolic and diastolic figures on the lefthand side of the display, so look for anything that fits that range and interact with that machine. It was the values shown above for me, although they seem to alternate between 71/39 and 70/40.

How to find the pulse in Silent Hill Townfall

When the doctor asks for the heart rate or pulse you'll see that the Valentudo View S-100 details on the laptop say that 'Heart Rate (BPM) values outside of 40 to 160 BPM are often inaccurate'. So you'll have to find a machine with a yellow number for the pulse that fits outside those values. For me that was the machine showing a 161, although it changed to 162 when I reported it. That is technic ally outside the range in the instructions, but also the closest to it by comparision.

How to get the O2 in Townfall

If you check the Valentudo View S-100 option in Equipment Overview on the laptop for blood oxygen it says that 'SpO2 (%) values under 75% are unreliable', so you need to find a machine with a red SpO2 (%) number to fit that. I used the machine showing at 81%, which changed to 80% when I reported it.

Once you've reported all three values you'll then open up the next room, and have to move on to solve the rest of the patient puzzle which starts with the Silent Hill Townfall X-ray puzzle, and then needing to find the infusion drugs in Silent Hill Townfall, which is a whole other thing but still involves reading instructions to work out what to do.

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Jane's shed in Silent Hill Townfall is a quick garden puzzle you'll need to solve to reach the medical center. It can trip you up if it doesn't click straight away because there's nothing obvious to guide you initially. There's a padlock that needs a code and a gate you can't open, and no clear clue beyond the plaque naming Jane's shed. If it wasn't for the fact that this then gets named on the map as point of interest, you'd wouldn't really have anything to go on. Here's what you're looking for.

How to get through the gardens in Townfall

There are two locked doors in the community gardens - Jane's shed, and a gate that apparently 'isn't usually locked'. The two are obviously related and key to it all is actually Jane herself.

If you look around the gardens you'll be able to check various plaques on all the different planting beds. Each one will name various different people, dates, achievements and other bits of info, but the one you want can be found here, near the bird table:

If you examine this bed in particular you'll find a plaque for the eponymous Jane herself, saying she was the winner of the 'Community Spirit Award' in 1993:

Unsurprisingly, 1993 is the four digit code you need to open Jane's shed. Enter that code into the padlock to get inside, and you'll be able to find some alcohol, a note about Jane and, most importantly the Community Garden Key. That will open the gate and allow you to carry on to the St Amelia Medical Center.

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The Silent Hill pharmacy locker code is your first real puzzle, requiring you decode a strange video you can pick up inside the building to then work out the combination. While you'll previously have needed to find the house on your TV in Townfall thanks to some location images, this new footage shows some initially confusing things that don't make a huge amount of sense at a first glance. Don't worry though, because everything you need is right there once you know where to look.

How to get the pharmacy locker code in Townfall

The Townfall pharmacy locker code is 6539, which can be found from a series of posters around the building. The TV signal is actually showing you zoomed in, blurry shots of each poster in a sequence, with the number you can find on each giving you a single combination digit.

The video shows these posters:

• Washing my hands (in the bathroom) - 6
• Prescription drugs and you (in the hallway to the right of the phone) - 5
• Blood pressure (near the front window) - 3
• Taking Antibiotics (on the noticeboard by the lockers) - 9

Basically, each code digit comes from the number you can find on the posters - the number of fingers, the five steps, the 3 on the blood pressure machine and the nine pills still in the packet. It's not the most obvious collection of clues, especially as there's no real coherence between each of them. You've just got to trust the process to use the video order, and the numerals you can find, to get the info from the posters.

Once you have the code, use it to open up the locker and you'll find the prescription mentioned on the answering machine when you opened the Townfall reception door in the clinic. It's actually one of the items you need for the three scales puzzles in the same location and crucial to progress the plot.

At this point, if you haven't been to Jess' flat after getting the address from reading the emails on the computer in the clinic, it's time to do that for the final part of the scales puzzle.

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You'll find the Silent Hill Townfall reception code blocking the way when you get to the clinic for the first time. It's not clear how important it is to get in initially, and the combination itself can be easy to miss as you poke around opening doors and exploring. Especially as there's some far more interesting stuff to look at when you first enter the room where you get it. However, finding the code and using it is important for a later puzzle and progress generally, so here's where to find it to save you time.

The Townfall clinic reception code

There are a few rooms to search in the clinic but the reception code is 2869 and found on a post note on a computer in Zoe Ellis office, which is the last room you can search as you explore. You don't even need to interact with it to use it, you can just plug it straight into the door when you get there (unlike the Silent Hill Townfall organ box puzzle, which will make you go through the steps even if you know it in advance). You will need to interact with the computer to get an address you need to continue, so even if you have the code from here, make sure you check out the PC as well.

Overall you can miss it as you look around, because it's the last room and the computer is tucked away in a dark corner, plus there's a far more interesting thing to look at in the shape of the Silent Hill Townfall scales puzzle, that dominates the room. However, that will take a fair bit of time to solve and it can only be completed using what you learn from the computer when you get the code, and the answer phone once you've used it to get inside the reception.

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The Silent Hill movie franchise has yet to live up to the video game series' success, but that could change soon as a new string of Silent Hill films are reportedly on the way.

According to Dread Central, the Silent Hill movie franchise is getting a fresh start that will be a "bold new take on the franchise."

The first Silent Hill movie adaptation hit screens in 2006 and still holds up as a pretty solid adaptation – it even places on our list of the best video game movies. The movie, directed by Christophe Gans, follows a mother setting off to Silent Hill in search of her daughter, and brought to life some of our favourite details from the first game.

However, since then, the franchise has taken a dip, with 2012's Silent Hill: Revelation scoring a seriously low 8% on Rotten Tomatoes, and this year's Return to Silent Hill flopping at the box office. But there is so much potential there, with the Silent Hill games being regarded as some of the most atmospheric and downright scary games ever.

The game franchise kicked off in 1999 with Silent Hill, following protagonist Harry Mason as he searches for his missing daughter in a mysterious town with even stranger inhabitants. The series, which has since spanned seven more games and multiple spin-offs, tasks players with solving puzzles, battling creatures, and searching the fog-covered town for answers. The reboot comes at a perfect time, too, as the list of best Silent Hill games is growing, with the new game Silent Hill: Townfall launching on September 24.

The news comes just days after Zach Cregger's daring take on the Resident Evil hit screens, opening to $108 million worldwide, which is more than any past Resident Evil movie made on opening weekend. What is most interesting is that Cregger's take doesn't directly adapt any specific Resident Evil game, but instead tells a new story set in the Resi universe we all know and love.

Seven Resident Evil movies were released between 2002 and 2021. However, the success of Cregger's new movie suggests that video game movie fanatics are hungry for stories that build on games rather than simply adapt them. There are surely countless stories begging to be told in Silent Hill's vast, foggy domain.

For more, read our Resident Evil review and Resident Evil ending explained, and keep up with upcoming video game movies on the way.

When it comes to how long Silent Hill Townfall is, it all depends on how brave you are, because the length of the game directly relates to how prepared you are to come out of hiding. Stealth plays a big part of the game and probably the biggest factor in how long it takes to complete will be how quickly you can sneak past the various monsters along the way. Having finished it and made a good start on an NG+, I can tell you how long it took me and how it looks generally for completion.

Silent Hill Townfall length

As a starter reference it took me 18 hours to finish Silent Hill Townfall the first time for my review so it's not a hugely lengthy game. That said, I was playing it fairly thoroughly, and exploring all the corners for collectible and extra things (for example I found 82 out of 84 notes). If you're less fastidious, and take less time soaking it all up you'll probably clear it quicker, but I'd say 20 hours tops is probably the upper end of the scale for completion.

Here's a few completion lengths for Silent Hill Townfall, depending how much you want to put in:

• 12-15 - If you focus just on puzzles and getting through areas you should clear the game in this sort of time. It'll be a bit of a rush though.
• 15-20 hours - This is the most common time based on my playthrough.
• 20+ - If you want to do some new game plus runs and see multiple endings.

I'd say 15-20 hours is going to be the sweet spot for almost everyone first time round. It is worth pointing out though that there's an achievement for doing it in under four hours so that's technically possible, but you're definitely in new game plus territory at that point. Speaking of that there are five endings, so that completion time could easily be more like 60+ hours if you want to see them all. I won't say it's 5x20 specifically to see all the endings though, as NG+ rewards you with an insta-kill axe that radically changes how long it takes to clear areas. Not to mention you won't be needing to work things out anymore and you can use most of the codes and solutions for things you already know. The one exception I know of so far there is the Silent Hill Townfall organ box, which can't be opened without completing the steps, even when you know the code.

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You'll need to find a house in Silent Hill Townfall using only images on your CRTV, not that long into the game. It's the first time you'll be introduced to this mechanic, and it's not the easiest set of clues to follow. If you can't work out where your CRTV is directing you, or just can't be bothered, here's where it's sending you and where you need to go.

Silent Hill Townfall house location

Where to find the house and route that flickers past on the TV is shown on the map above. The image show things like a tree, an alley and so on but all you need to really locate is the phone box you used a little earlier, here:

If you head down the road to the left of that phone box you'll then be able to look for an alley to the right, just by some fluttering bunting and just before Peter's Newsagents. This is part of what makes it all a little tricky - the house itself is tucked away and out of sight from the main roads you can explore so it's not obviously visible at first.

Head down that alley and turn right at the end to see the entrance to the house you need at the top of some small stairs. Now all you need to do is head up those stairs and go in to carry on with the story. You'll be spending a while here now you've found it, especially as there's a puzzle involving a Silent Hill Townfall electricity meter and organ box that involves several steps (including the newsagents you passed to get here, that will keep you busy for a while.

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A strange door dial in Silent Hill Townfall is the first puzzle you'll find as you explore St Amelia and the hotel. The solution is obviously a date, but what? You'll have all the clues, but as it's your first time seeing anything like this in the game it shouldn't be a surprise if you're not sure what's going on. What's the TV showing you? Why is there a menu in the room? Here's what it all means.

Silent Hill Townfall door dial solution

The door dial solution is 18 January 1996. While it's not immediately clear, you can get this from the two images that flash up on your TV once you've learned how to tune it to a signal, and the Haldane Hotel menu on the table.

When you first arrive at this puzzle you'll be trapped in the room with two doors - one wants an item to open it, and the other has the mysterious dial mounted on it to interact with. Once you've got past a short tutorial you'll be able to get the video with the date and month, which you can then add to the year on the room service menu to get the 18th of January 1996 date.

Once you have that, all you need to do now to open the door is turn the relevant parts of the dial to show each value. That will get you into a bathroom, where you'll find a cryptic note and a key that will open the other door so you can leave. For reasons, you will end up with the Haldane Hotel Room 204 key in your inventory for most of the game, so don't worry about it being there.

With the door open you'll be able to carry on exploring deeper into the town, and start to work out what's going on...

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To open the organ box in Silent Hill Townfall you'll need to get the electricity on and use a computer to read an email to work out the code. It's not a hard puzzle but it does involves a few steps, some travelling to other locations, and take little longer than you might expect as a result. Crucially, when I did this puzzle a second time in NG+ it wouldn't let me just use the combination up front, I had to go through the steps to get it.

Silent Hill Townfall organ box solution

This is the quick version of how to open the organ box in Townfall:

1. Get the flashlight from the drawer to the left of the organ box.
2. Get the batteries from a drawer in the left hand room at the top of the stairs.
3. Get the Human Transplant Card from the bathroom in Zoe's bedroom.
4. Combine the torch and batteries, and use the working flashlight to examine the electricity meter under the stairs.
5. Go to the newsagent now marked on your map and get in through the back door (there will be an enemy here).
6. Get the Electricity Card from the cash register.
7. Return to Zoe's flat and use the card to charge the electricity meter.
8. With the power on, read the emails on the computer to get the info that the combination comes from the first three and last three numbers on the right hand ET-No on the Human Transplant Card.
9. Open the box.

The Organ Box code is 956 133 once you've done all this but, as I mentioned earlier, you can't just use the code - part of this puzzle involves a tutorial introduction to combat, so it seems like you have to go through the steps before you can open the box, even if you know the number already.

With that in mind, let's go through the steps in more detail below.

How to get the electricity meter working in Townfall

To get the code, you must first get the power back on so you can check Zoe's emails. When you have the flashlight working - from combining the torch found in the kitchen drawer and the batteries in the first upstairs room on the left - you'll be able to investigate the cupboard under the stairs and the electricity meter inside.

This will add the newsagent to your map, so head there next:

This will introduce you to your first enemy, so fight or avoid them as you see fit and then head into the newsagent via the open door around the back. Inside you'll find the electricity card in the cash till. Grab it, then go back to Zoe's either by unlocking the front door or heading out the back again, depending on what's safest.

When you get back to the electricity meter, use L1/LB to follow the instructions on the Electricard Credit Guide you're holding:

1. Insert Electricard in slot
2. Cycle option to Card Credit using button A
3. Press button B to apply credit
4. Push Master Power switch

With the power back on you'll now be able to use the computer and read Zoe's emails to proceed.

How to get the Silent Hill Townfall organ box code

Once the power is back on, you'll be able to use the computer and read the emails on there. The email you want is FW: For Attending SURG04GE_+ON, as shown above.

While it looks corrupted, the important bits are where it says 'set using the first and last 3 digits of the corresponding ET code', and the 'HFS-OPCS-Y015' at the end.

If you haven't got the Organ Transplant Card from the upstairs bathroom floor at this point, grab it now. If you read it you'll see two numbers are highlighted in red:

The email said to use the 'first and last 3 digits of the corresponding ET code' and, if we apply that to the ET-No shown in red, we get the Organ Box code 956 133. You can now use the first three numbers on the left combination, and the last three on the right to open it.

Enter those codes and choose 'yes' when the option to open the box appears. You'll get Zoe's ID card from inside, which is needed for the Silent Hill Townfall scales puzzle you'll encounter later on, so you can't say no.

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Silent Hill Townfall pre-orders are nearing ever closer as this week's September 24 (Thursday) release date is just days away - but that still leaves plenty of time to pick up a copy for your physical horror collection.

Pre-orders are available digitally for $49.99 / £44.98 (via Steam) and physically on the PS5 for $49.99 / £49.99, and there's even a collectible steelbook available, though its stock is looking pretty foggy right now. If you're based in the US your best option is to pick up your pre-order straight from GameStop as it's just $44.99 which is the cheapest price you'll find it. Equally, if saving cash if you're biggest priority, UK horror fans will want to stick with Very, where it's down to £41.99, which is £8 off. Of course, collectors may be far more intrigued by the steelbook, but it's exclusive to European retailers, and Amazon UK is currently sold out for now.

I managed to swap my Day One Edition copy for the steelbook release just last night, so there's every chance that more stock could be on its way. In the meantime, I've gathered all the best US and UK retailers to grab your copy down below to ensure there are no scary shopping experiences, and that the only scares you'll experience this week will be as you explore the dreary Scottish streets of St. Amelia. Don't worry, as a fellow Scot, it surely can't be that terrifying...

Silent Hill Townfall pre-orders in the US

Silent Hill Townfall pre-orders in the UK

FAQ

Love physical games? Check out our Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time remake pre-order and Tomb Raider Legacy of Atlantis pre-order pages while you're here.

I've played a lot of horror games over the years, and built up a thick skin in that time to anything but the bluntest of jump scares. So when I say Silent Hill: Townfall scared me, upset me, and left me with just a whole lot of stuff in my head I don't entirely want to have to think about, that means it impressed me. Now it's done I just keep rolling it around in my mind, trying to find a way to make it lie comfortably, but I suspect I will be thinking about it for a long time to come.

Silent Hill: Townfall almost certainly isn't going to be for everyone. It's an incredible slow burn mechanically and narratively; very stealth heavy with lots of hiding and ruthless punishment for being found; and the story, once it reveals itself, is a much more difficult beast to wrestle with than birthing gods or manifesting murderous sexual repression. But, while there's a few missteps and at least one late game puzzle I hated with a white hot fury, the overall experience has stuck with me in a way few things have. There are moments, ideas and entire levels worthy of discussion in their own right, as well as events, themes, and topics I'd rather weren't in my head anymore. I'm going to keep this as spoiler free as possible going forward though, so if anything seems vague it's to keep those secrets for you to discover.

I see that town

It all starts with you arriving in the tiny Scottish coastal town of St Amelia, in the early '90s, as a character called Simon Odell. He doesn't know why he's there, or where even there is, which works well setting him up as a cipher for your joint investigations into what the hell is going on. These early few hours – as you poke around the foggy streets and hide behind dumpsters from gnarly, skinned-flesh things skipping along the cobbles – are about as perfect as horror gaming gets.

The key mechanic the stealth hangs on is an old retro CRTV, a pocket television that replaces a Silent hill staple, the radio, in helping you detect monsters. Instead of just having a warning crackle when danger's near, you can now tune the TV into threats to get an interference laden X-ray view of danger through obstacles. The twist that stops this becoming too overpowered is that each individual creature is tuned separately, leaving you jumping between signals one at a time to check where everyone is as you creep around. There's also a peek mechanic to peer around or over things that I clung to like a liferaft for a long time, sparing nothing but the barest of pixels to glimpse fleeting shapes around corners.

While it's very effective in building fear, this stealth does dominate everything. Combat is tough as you swing planks that quickly fall apart (and, later, pipes that fall apart a little more slowly). Firepower is also limited by incredibly scarce ammo, and the fact that gunfire often attracts every monster within earshot. As a result, most of the game is spent cowering behind walls and darting between gaps in monsters' paths, terrified you'll hear a 'found you' scream.

Getting caught either leads to a messy, dangerous fight or a desperate run to escape and hide. In open areas like town streets the latter isn't too bad, leading to heart in your mouth sprints away from danger. However, in more claustrophobic interior areas your options become limited, leading to several arduous levels where you're just stuck hiding with no clear route ahead, or fleeing with nowhere to go to end up torn apart in a corner. The copious abundance of healing items and a resurrecting IV bag mechanic seems to be in place partly to counter this, and prevent you being murdered all the way back to your last save too often.

The dark side

A few of these overly harsh moments really can push Townfall from terrifying to a bit of a chore – one section takes away your ability to fight or resurrect, for example, while hampering your detection of threats, and is immediately followed by an almost as harsh section of a similar length, making for a grinding few hours after an excellent opening. There's also a particular special enemy, capable of insta-kills, that appears occasionally and seems stuck on you, even when it doesn't know where you are. That creates irritating moments where you're just sort of trapped in a room while it patrols endlessly outside, often giving you little choice than to take a hail mary dash hoping it won't see you. You can throw distracting bottles and bricks to buy a gap to get away in, but somehow it always ends up wandering right outside wherever you are.

Those moments can be grueling, and largely responsible for this just missing a perfect score. Partly because it pushes the tense stealth past the point of being fun, clags up the pacing and, whenever the insta-kill creature appears, you just know the next bit is going to be horrible and take forever.

But, for every annoyance, Silent Hill Townfall has many more moments of pure horror magic. In particular a late game level pulls a deliciously subversive power flip with a shotgun and some cat and mouse scares. Then there's just a list of puzzles, reveals, character, or story developments and more that had me scribbling 'Oh my God' repeatedly in my notes.

There are some areas where nothing's happening, but just taking it all in is just amazing – the atmosphere and vibes of just existing are incredible. The foggy town streets are flawlessly eerie and forlorn, creating an isolated and foreboding pressure as you explore. I swear I could smell the cold, briney sea mist I was wandering through. It's specifically set in Scotland, but the amazing recreation of its '90s streets, estates, and shopping centers will resonate with anyone who can remember the UK of that era.

The Otherworld on the other hand takes on a weighty, cinematic, concrete brutalism, harshly lit in monotone slabs of colour. I've taken more pictures of Townfall than any other game recently, and it doesn't even have a photo mode, it just looks that good. Wherever you are, the warbling, drowning piano, shimmering skeezy guitar, and honking synths build an edgy tension as metal clangs in the distance and as yet unlocated wet skinned breathing shreds your nerves. I haven't played anything that looked, sounded, or felt this good in years.

As you explore you'll uncover puzzles which, for the most part, ditch cryptic poems and ornately overengineered door mechanisms in favor of more realism – an early challenge has you getting a pre-paid card for the electricity meter from the newsagent. There are some way out there puzzles there, especially in the Otherworld when they tie explicitly into the story, and the CRTV even comes into play – letting you tune into disjointed videos that tease clues and locations – but most of it feels grounded and practical. There's a much more investigative feel and plenty of satisfying 'it can't be?!' moments when it all clicks. A couple of sequences are basically overly long fetch quests that feel like a chore, and there's one puzzle at the end that seems to just involve guessing symbols that drove me mad, but the majority of it is all very satisfying.

Through all this, the story takes its time to reveal anything, and you'll be a good ten hours in before you have anything more than half-guesses and assumptions that I guarantee will be wrong. All you'll know for almost three quarters of the game is that something truly awful happened, and letting your mind run rampant with that is far more effective than telling you anything (although the reveal is a worthy pay off). There's only a handful of characters but they're all fascinating as you learn more about them and why they're there. One in particular is extremely interesting, for reasons, given the state of the world right now, and how they deal with what's happening.

The narrative weaves through the substance of the game as you make connections and join the dots. There were so many 'OH. Oh. Ohhhhh' moments making connections; realizing things, like what a certain monster was using as a weapon, or why one of the first 'keys' you get is a scalpel. A new game plus playthrough is just this times a million, as things you didn't really register before are reframed with what you now know.

This is an astonishing horror experience, full of the sort of fear and unease I haven't felt from a game in a long time. The world and atmosphere Screen Burn Interactive has created here really feels like it's set a new bar, and it's done it in a way that feels utterly Silent Hill – reimagining what it can be, while staying utterly true to what it is. It's not perfect and I suspect a few people will struggle with how unrelenting it can be. But even with its flaws it's about as good as horror gaming gets.

Silent Hill Townfall was reviewed on PC, with code provided by the publisher.

Don't go quiet, check out our best Silent Hill games and best Japanese horror games rankings for more!

"The 8 years I spent developing Silent Hill 1, 2 & 3 at Konami, I gave up on getting a girlfriend," reads a new tweet from Masahiro Ito, the legendary Team Silent artist best known for designing Silent Hill 2 antagonist Pyramid Head. The tweet largely echoes something Ito said back in 2024 about not having the time for a girlfriend when he was working at Konami, but now he straight-up suggests he regrets sacrificing his love life for the his work.

"Never even went on a single date w/ a lady," he says. "I sacrificed my days off & slept on cardboards spread out on the floor, but I never in my wildest dreams imagined I'd end up like this on X."

That is... incredibly sad. Ito is a horror icon and should be eternally proud of the work he's done for its unparalleled influence on the genre. That said, as a married man who wouldn't trade my family for the world, it's fair for him to long for love.

"To be honest, lately, I've been thinking that if I hadn't sacrificed my personal life, found a girlfriend, and gotten married early on, I probably would have been happier."

Ito's comments section is filled with encouraging words from his adoring fans, so he doesn't need my advice, but I agree with one commenter that "hindsight is a bitch." Not much is known about Ito's personal life, but professionally he's had an undeniably successful career. If he had never worked on Silent Hill and instead chose to pursue a wife and family, who knows how that would've turned out? One thing's for sure, horror would've lost one of its all-time great bad guys, and I'm selfishly glad he stuck to games.

Silent Hill Townfall's atmosphere is spot-on, but slow-burn terrors leave a tepid first impression

St Amelia is where dreams go to die. Not unlike many other British towns, I think. I can tell as much as soon as I wash up on the shores of Silent Hill Townfall's Scottish-coded (though never stated outright) island, where fog sinks into the spaces between each cobblestone. I've lived in the UK full-time for about four years now, so there are many jokes to be made about feeling right at home in its dreary gloom (I'll save those for another time). But even if the setting's subtle iconographic accuracy is lost on those less familiar with Great British environs, it's the perfect canvas for a Silent Hill game.

The first thing that strikes me about Silent Hill Townfall is how deserted it is. That, and how choppy the animations get when you climb or descend stairs. You've got smudgy grey fog. You've got empty streets with lights still flickering in vacant apartments, as if the town's inhabitants vanished on the spot mere moments ago. You've got an amnesiac protagonist wearing a hospital bracelet. Let's go, am I right?

Pacing through the town center from a first-person perspective – a series-first for a mainline game, as seen in PS5 freebie Silent Hill: The Short Message – I expect some sort of glimpse of an enemy. An early warning that I'm not as alone as I feel, just like in Silent Hill 2.

But even after getting curiously turned around while picking through St Amelia's detritus, I don't come across a single bad guy. This wouldn't be a problem if the rest of my hands-on demo session had more to show for itself than 70 minutes of walking and cutscenes, always keeping me at arm's length as I experimentally press against its edges, getting little in return

These dark times

Don't get me wrong. Silent Hill Townfall is a gorgeously rendered nightmare. Developer Screen Burn has clearly put a lot of love for its Scottish roots into this place, which is as immersive and spooky as you'd expect from one of the best horror game franchises that built its name specifically off creating oppressive vibes from the get-go. But I feel more like a ghost haunting the streets than a character inhabiting the world, because there's very little to actually interact with.

I spend most of my session inspecting things. Leaflets on the ground, hand-scrawled notes left in the local doctor's window. Information boards at viewpoints dotted along the boardwalk, looking out upon the murky waters encircling St Amelia.

By the time I reach the telephone box – ringing, of course, with no one on the other end when I go to pick it up – I feel like a local historian. One who fails to clock that I have to type in a specific number, listed on the short telephone directory as "save yourself", in order to save my game and trigger a cutscene. So I instead go back out into St Amelia to see if I missed anything. Spoiler alert: I have not missed a single thing, and lose another 10 minutes retracing my steps.

The above is entirely my fault, but it does mean that after being rescued from my predicament by a fellow demo player, the frustration gets compounded by having to sit through a lengthy cinematic that teleports me to a brand new location: a hotel room.

Here is where the radio mechanics and minigames come into play. For all the distance I feel is being put between myself and the game world, Screen Burn incorporates analog technologies in a beautifully on-theme way, tying back to Townfall's setting in the mid-'90s. I have to tune my device to individual frequencies, picking up either echoes of the past (or present? Who knows) that give me hints to solve puzzles or the staticky outlines of nearby enemies projected on the palm-sized screen.

Except I don't actually see any before my eyes. Delaying the moment we first lay eyes on a monster is a clever way to build up tension in any horror game or film – fear of the unknown, the unseen – and suggest the ephemeral manifestation of the character's guilt and trauma. But by this point in my hands-on demo, I am desperate for something a bit faster paced. I've just spent ages wandering barren streets only to be met with the winding basement of an abandoned hotel. Enemies seem so far away that I couldn't stumble into one if I tried.

Silent Hill Townfall has the makings of a brooding horror game. It just fails to communicate that in a vertical slice demo by virtue of its slow-build horrors being so excruciatingly slow. Here's hoping that I'm able to get a bit more absorbed in it from the comfort of my own home than I was on the bustling show floor of Gamescom 2026.

Konami wants Silent Hill to have "an annual release of new games," and it's already working on "many" unannounced projects

"There's a couple of different reasons for" Silent Hill: Townfall's 1996 setting, writer Jon McKellan tells GamesRadar+ at Gamescom 2026. But they're all meant to make you feel uncomfortable.

"Some are narrative," McKellan continues, referencing the state of small, working class towns in Scotland during the post-Margaret Thatcher '90s. By 1996, consequences of Thatcher-driven class tension were still covering the UK like a cloud, and Townfall siphons that animosity for its story about the unhappy Scottish town St. Amelia, which McKellan reminds us is riddled with protest signs lamenting the missing "heart" of the community. Developer Screen Burn also wants players to feel awkward in a more physical sense – by taking away their iPhones.

"It's almost like the perfect time for horror," McKellan says about the '90s, "where you don't quite have enough technology to help you. You don't have a smartphone. You don't have maps on your device to help you get around, but it's also not so far back that you don't have anything at all."

"Especially, like, Screen Burn's history" – gameplay in developer's 2017 game Stories Untold utilizes '80s hardware – "our games are quite, you know, dealing with archaic technology and old computers, and we were able to bring some of that into Townfall by setting it in a period where that kind of tech is new for Silent Hill, but not too modern." The earliest Silent Hill games, which were shipped only a few years after real-life 1996, hardly get more tech-heavy than a twitchy flashlight and a rusted steel pipe.

"It feels like the right time period for that," McKellan concludes. "A couple of different factors all made the '90s feel like the right time for horror."

Silent Hill: Townfall is out on September 24.

After Silent Hill f combat discourse, Silent Hill Townfall goes all-in on stealth as "evasion is your only option" sometimes.

The Silent Hill franchise is fully awake after years spent frozen in at the back of the fridge, and Konami tells GamesRadar+ its psychological horror series is only going to get healthier. Healthier, like, in its output – but probably not in its content, since there's an officially licensed James Sunderland body pillow now.

"Our aim is to, hopefully, have an annual release of new games," Silent Hill franchise producer Motoi Okamoto tells GamesRadar+ through an interpreter at Gamescom 2026. This plan also motivates Konami to keep moving Silent Hill far away from its original home in fall-apart Maine, as Okamoto says, "If we stay laser-focused on the same American setting, that would exhaust [narrative] possibilities, and also potentially cause fatigue for the playerbase."

Okamoto wants anyone working on a Silent Hill game to tailor the IP, so keeping it flying around the world lets developers "work within the types of environments and the types of storytelling that works best for them." Every main Silent Hill game released or announced this decade was made by a developer that wasn't Konami, so it sounds like the publisher will continue to experiment with who gets to define Silent Hill.

The days of Konami's adored, defunct in-house Team Silent are past sunset and well into the misty night – but Konami's loyal to Bloober when it comes to remakes, ensuring there's at least one developer out there who cares about Silent Hill for longer than one development cycle.

OK, yes, I'm a bit worried about Okamoto's dream of having yearly Silent Hill releases. I worry having so many games will dilute the series I love so much. But Okamoto seems confident fans will be pleased with the apparently "many" secret projects Konami is working on right now.

He says, "There are still many projects that are still under the works and very unannounced titles. So obviously, we can't go into specifics. But there are still many projects that we are currently exploring and working on as we speak."

"We would like to let players know," Okamoto continues, "that we have more experiences coming up, and many types of games that, we believe, will be able to provide positive kinds of surprises for players waiting for this for the series." As more new, spiritually pristine details come out about Silent Hill: Townfall – I mean that in a negative way, I want spiritual orange slime in my horror games and no soap – due September 24, I grow more skeptical of Okamoto's pledge to positive surprises.

But my bad feelings about Silent Hill: Townfall might just be the fog in me talking. I better keep an open mind if I don't want to end up with a James Sunderland body pillow.

Silent Hill: Townfall goes Until Dawn mode with celebrity cameos from The Odyssey and Lost actors.

Konami gave a particularly chilling Silent Hill: Townfall update at Gamescom Opening Night Live 2026 with a murky new trailer that reveals a few celebrities in developer Screen Burn's new psychological horror game. Townfall's voice cast will include Lost star Terry O'Quinn, as well as The Odyssey actor and It: Welcome to Derry hero Jovan Adepo.

Until now, main Silent Hill games have only ever gotten close to Hollywood by stealing Christina Aguilera's 1999 Teen Choice Awards outfit for hot pink fantasy girl Maria. The cast of Silent Hill: Townfall, then, is another example of how Screen Burn is preparing to overturn Silent Hill convention.

Townfall is the first full Silent Hill title to be in first-person perspective, and the game set in 1996 features a handheld CRTV for navigating the miasmic Scottish island town St. Amelia, instead of the Silent Hill franchise's usual hissing radio that reacts to skinless monsters nearby.

I was a little annoyed by some of these franchise firsts' arbitrariness when I previewed a live demonstration of Silent Hill: Townfall earlier this summer – and, really, the game's new Gamescom trailer doesn't do much to talk me down. But there's an almost visible cloud of anxiety surrounding protagonist Simon that I want to understand better.

Simon, who wakes up in St. Amelia confused, with a cannula embedded in his hand, doesn't seem aware that he's in danger.

The Gamescom trailer shows us Terry O'Quinn's character calling Simon on the phone, instructing him breathlessly "to come back to the town and put some things to rest." A press release explains that O'Quinn plays "Richard, the enigmatic man who summons Simon back to St. Amelia and sets in motion the events of SILENT HILL: Townfall. As Simon's journey unfolds, Richard's connection to both the town and its troubled past becomes increasingly difficult to ignore."

Mewgenics and Final Fantasy Tactics actor Kezia Burrows then stars as "Zoe, a compassionate nurse whose voice reaches out to Simon through layers of static on the CRTV, urging him to 'come back to her,'" the press release continues. In the Townfall Gamescom trailer, Zoe warns that "we're all so angry," which probably isn't what Simon wants to hear as spider-legged kaiju creature emerges from the mist and thuds toward him.

Even more unlucky for Simon, voiced by Jovan Adepo, he is haunted by "fragments of a past he can barely remember," and he feels drawn to St. Amelia without knowing why.

But I'm in the opposite position: I'm feeling repelled by Screen Burn's take on a franchise I fell in love with for its outlandish, freakish sexual energy and occult mayhem. Silent Hill: Townfall – especially now that it has some fancy cast members – seems a lot more proper than that, like a rabbit rather than the roadkill I like.

But O'Quinn's performance in the underrated thriller The Stepfather (1987) and Adepo in Welcome to Derry make me hopeful that Screen Burn is hiding something more uncontrollable under Townfall's (relatively) stable-looking surface, and I want to know what it is. I will know once the game is out September 24.

The 1998 horror game that haunted my dreams even more than Resident Evil 2 is back, "modernized," and available on consoles for the first time.

Fog clings to the island of St Amelia like taut plastic on skin, but I'm still not convinced Silent Hill: Townfall makes sense in the Konami psychological horror franchise. The 30-minute hands-off demonstration developer Screen Burn shows me during Summer Game Fest 2026 is laden with Silent Hill's trappings, milky fog and scabby monsters, but it's missing the cigarette-burned soul.

It's all too clean. Leading man Simon Ordell has ripped himself out of a hospital bed with all the tape and needles attached. A cannula pokes through a vein between his fingers, allowing healing liquid to revive him when he's injured, and a tight medical bracelet sticks to his wrist. But Simon is otherwise spotless while investigating St. Amelia in 1996, with vague instructions to find a brunette who I need to double check isn't Mary, the missing brunette from the soul-tearing Silent Hill 2. In only 30 minutes, I notice many callbacks to fan-favorite, early Silent Hill games – and I worry the unique parts of Silent Hill: Townfall can't compare.

Take me upstate

Townfall follows 2025's Silent Hill f, which was set in Japan, in taking Silent Hill international. I still yearn for the original lakeside town in Nowhere, USA, and the slow, somewhat inviting decay it represented, but I appreciated Silent Hill f's invention of a highly stylized, red spider lily landscape, too. Townfall's Scottish island St. Amelia is ruled by realism. Its cobblestone streets and neat white houses are hyper-realistic, looking better-suited to Call of Duty than an introspective horror game. Nonetheless, they are impressive. When the camera lingers on a bit of patterned wallpaper in an abandoned home, I can imagine what it would feel like just by looking at it.

Less tantalizing to me, someone whose favorite aspect of the best Silent Hill games is the poetry of their strangeness, is that Silent Hill: Townfall also employs realism in its puzzles. Rather than adding names to the Grim Reaper's list, as you do in the original Silent Hill, or burning pork liver to reveal a path in Silent Hill 3, the Townfall demo I saw has Simon searching for a prepaid electric card common in '90s Scotland to get the house's lights working.

Again, Screen Burn is demonstrating an impressive attention to detail here. But I don't play Silent Hill games for their faithfulness to history, and especially not to reality. I love them for the way they use magic to reveal our skeletons. Whenever the occult Otherworld falls over a Silent Hill protagonist, you're confronted with the rust under the hospital room paint, blood beneath a young woman's skirt, denial before freedom. I've always thought the supernatural was more real than real, so I've found comfort in past Silent Hill games, which lie on the cliff between observable life and hidden feelings. They push into each other, yin and yang, to make a whole world.

But Silent Hill: Townfall seems more oriented toward its surface. I'm first introduced to Simon as he's seated near a town monument littered with protest signs – "We Need The Truth," "Whatever Heart This Town Had Has Stopped" – and their unsubtle nature reminds me of Dead Space graffiti that routinely took me out of that game's horror. A Screen Burn developer also suggests during my Summer Game Fest session that Townfall uses first-person perspective because the series' usual third-person does more to coddle you from horror. In a sense, that's probably true. It's more viscerally horrifying to play Resident Evil in a VR headset than with ungainly tank controls, after all.

But third-person also encourages players to connect with a game's protagonist, as you can observe them as you control them, linking your movements with their mind. And since the average Silent Hill story is a storm whipped up to torment its main character, specifically (there are very few all-purpose spooks aimed at you, the player), third-person helps its effectiveness.

Though, Townfall isn't completely devoid of fantasy. It pays homage to the series' early convention of letting you identify monsters with a stammering radio by replacing the tech with a handheld CRT TV, which also swaps the need for on-screen UI by flashing cryptic images of your next location. It's an intriguing change, as the CRT TV is an elegant way to focus the player's attention on their next game objective while still being immersive in its story. However, I don't think a Silent Hill game's user interface has ever dulled the impact of its corpse nurses and brown toilets for me.

Ultimately, I feel like Screen Burn is worried about iterating on the wrong genre conventions.

I'm confused by all the changes I see in my Silent Hill: Townfall demo that are neutral at best. When the monster finally arrives, it's a melted flesh humanoid with its head sharpened into an axe. It looks like a struggling Lying Figure from Silent Hill 2... except with an axe for its head.

I thought this was supposed to be the fun part, but it's still too tame.

Refresh your memory of the Silent Hill we left behind with our list of the best Silent Hill games.

During yesterday's PlayStation State of Play showcase – the first big event to come out of this year's Summer Game Fest – we got a new glimpse at Silent Hill: Townfall, as well as our first word of its precise release date of September 24, 2026.

It was a big moment for longtime fans of Konami's beloved horror game series, as Townfall marks a very different entry to Silent Hill – and one that features a greater emphasis on stealth-based gameplay, apparently.

As per Sony's official blog post on the upcoming title, combat might feel a bit removed from predecessors as evasion, hiding, and general stealth seem to be more of a necessity at times rather than a workaround.

"The trailer also gives us our first glimpse of a new creature, seen stalking Simon in the darkness of the Otherworld," it reads.

"With some enemies, combat is an important aspect of survival. In others, evasion is your only option. Using the CRTV and peek mechanic to assess the situation as you navigate, staying out of sight and moving carefully is paramount, as being seen can lead to a terrifying chase and dire consequences."

That certainly makes it sound as though stealth is a core component of Townfall's gameplay – and, coupled with its new focus on a first-person point of view, something tells me that fans are bound to have thoughts on how it plays come this fall.

I'm immediately reminded of Silent Hill f and its divisive action-packed combat, which left fans unable to decide whether or not it was a positive change or a negative one.

Thankfully, Sony's little SGF update on Townfall does make it clear that it's still got many of the features Silent Hill players know and love. I'm personally hopeful that the game's blend of old and new works, but I suppose we'll just have to play it to see.

Silent Hill Townfall, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and Control Resonant all launch a day apart in September as everyone gets the hell out of GTA 6's November.

It's that time of year, as Summer Game Fest rolls around with various new reveals and sneak peeks – and today's big PlayStation State of Play showcase from Sony certainly offers no exception there, giving us another look at Silent Hill: Townfall.

That's right – Silent Hill: Townfall is back in the limelight after its big release date reveal during tonight's State of Play event, finally confirming just when Konami's new horror game is set to launch.

There's apparently not too long left to wait, as the exciting trailer unveils the title's arrival: September 24 of this year. While we already knew it would come in 2026, the precise day is news... good news.

After all, it's nearly been a year since Silent Hill f, the previous series gem, dropped in September of 2025 – and yes, that means that Silent Hill: Townfall is marked to launch around the same time of year as its most recent predecessor.

Will it be as good as the last series entry, though? Only time will tell, but honestly, if this new trailer is anything to go by, then I'm voting that it almost definitely will be.

Just look at the terrifying creatures and scenes protagonist Simon will witness in St. Amelia, the new Silent Hill setting – it's all too reminiscent of an old-school camcorder horror film for me, but I'm loving the eerie vibes.

And, what's more, we can finally put a face to the mysterious voice previously heard on the CRTV in Konami's reveal trailer... Zoe. As per Sony's blog post on Silent Hill: Townfall, she's a nurse from a local family clinic. Simon evidently doesn't recognize her, much like he doesn't recognize St. Amelia itself.

We also get a quick look at some of the upcoming Silent Hill: Townfall puzzles – and, yep, it's looking like the game will feature the series' iconic mind-boggling scenarios to solve between all of the monstrosities and mystery.

As Sony puts it, "Solving these puzzles isn’t just a way to progress in the game, though, but rather a way to understand the situation Simon finds himself in." Hm – that's a bit of a head scratcher in itself... but it does leave me all the more excited.

Here's hoping Silent Hill: Townfall is as promising as it appears it'll be so far. September 24, 2026, please don't be late.

Searching for something else to wishlist? Here are the best new games coming this year and beyond to look forward to.

There is a fight boiling over in Silent Hill – not for love, lust, nor the pendulous future of your sinner's soul, but over pop legend Madonna and how much she influenced the horror franchise's 2001 sequel. Silent Hill 2 artist art director is adamant the answer is barely at all.

A popular Twitter post says facetiously that Madonna's music video for 1998 anthem 'Nothing Really Matters' was "inspiration for the atmosphere of silent hill 2 so technically we have madonna to thank for the perfection that is silent hill 2." They're referencing a deleted post Ito made in 2019 naming the 'Nothing Really Matters' video as one of his influences while curating Silent Hill 2's rotten mood. But the horror artist says he's been misunderstood.

"I said I inspired by Madonna's Nothing Really Matters video," Ito writes in a May 21 Twitter post, "but I meant the Butoh-like dances by Asian dancers painted entirely white in the video, not herself/her song." Butoh is a beautiful, nauseating form of Japanese dance theater defined by sharp and labored movements. Artists of all kinds have used its tender-to-touch action as inspiration for their own vulnerable horror – the blurry ghosts of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 2001 film Pulse, for example, twist into Butoh-like configurations before inspiring victims to kill themselves immediately. Guillermo del Toro also had actor Jacob Elordi learn Butoh in order to become the miserable Creature in 2025's Frankenstein.

In Madonna's music video, background dancers wearing all-white shiver and moan in a Butoh style while the singer pulsates in red, dancing against Silent Hillish rust-stained hallways. "Just a coincidence," according to Ito.

Nonetheless, the video was simply "1 of inspirations for the Lying Figure, BHNurse's etc [animations]," Ito says about Silent Hill 2's armless sacks of skin and nasty Bubble Head nurse enemies, who both approach you while trembling like flies. "That's all. Plz don't jump to conclusions."

He's warned fans of this before, clarifying in 2024 he was inspired "NOT from the song BUT from the video." He's very insistent, and he does not like Madonna.

But the subset of horror fans who happen to also love Madonna – personally, I've been known to occasionally have 'Like a Prayer' on replay – are distraught. They're denying Ito's own memory, informing him that Madonna "birthed silent hill." Meanwhile, Ito is growing increasingly aggravated, saying, "Even if that person posted it as a joke, once it spreads, many people take it at face value."

And he is right. At the same time, though, I'd really love to introduce Pyramid Head to 'Like a Virgin.'

Konami seemingly confirms Silent Hill Townfall will be a PlayStation console exclusive at launch.

Hideo Kojima has shared his verdict on Return to Silent Hill – and he says a lot with very few words.

"Watched 'Return to Silent Hill' on Amazon Prime," he wrote on Twitter. Ouch.

Kojima is known for his long, poetic reviews for movies he loves, but he never posts a negative review. When he posts shorter, sparser summaries, then, fans immediately assume he hates what he's just seen (by contrast, for example, Kojima's glowing review of Stephen King adaptation The Long Walk clocked in at 219 words).

And he wouldn't be the only one to have a less favorable view of Return to Silent Hill. The movie has a score of only 18% on Rotten Tomatoes, with our own Return to Silent Hill review giving the film 1.5 stars. Our reviewer criticized "a confusing plot, mediocre visual effects, and over-the-top acting" in director Christopher Gan's new take on the franchise.

Loosely based on the 2001 video game Silent Hill 2, Return to Silent Hill stars Jeremy Irvine as James Sunderland. The movie does what it says on the tin, as James returns to the town of Silent Hill after he receives a letter from a former lover. But, when he gets there, he finds that the town is now covered in fog and most of its inhabitants have left or died due to a mysterious disease.

Return to Silent Hill is now available to rent at home. For more, check out our guide to the best upcoming video game movies on the way in 2026 and beyond.

Silent Hill: Townfall is out now, and it is living up to the spooky hype. After a brief period of advanced access for Deluxe Edition players, the new game is now unlocked for everyone, and the reviews so far are promising that it will likely be one of the scariest games of 2026.

The spin-off comes hot on the heels of 2025's Silent Hill f, and is continuing the trend of fresh new settings away from the titular American town that we've become all too familiar with. This time, Townfall takes us to Scotland, and from the gameplay we've experienced already in our own playthroughs, the grey setting is perfect for fog-laced nightmares and jump scares galore.

In terms of horror, I will say that Townfall is one of the best Silent Hill games if you are looking to feel unnerved. It is different from past titles in the franchise, though, such as with its first-person perspective. So, to make sure that this is the right game for you, I've made a handy guide. Below you'll find my round-up of everything that you need to know about the new psychological horror, from Silent Hill: Townfall story breakdowns, setting details, reviews, and more. So what are you waiting for? Scroll on for all the traumatic fun that's awaiting us.

Silent Hill: Townfall release date and reviews

Silent Hill Townfall's release date came our way on September 24, 2026. However, if you picked up the Deluxe Edition, you got 48 hours of early access.

Since the release, the game has gotten some stellar reviews at the time of writing. The current Metacritic score is at an 81, and in our own Silent Hill Townfall review, we gave it a glowing 4.5-star rating out of 5.

This is one of the scariest games that we have played in a long time, so it's the perfect pick as we head into spooky season, folks.

Silent Hill: Townfall platforms and price

The only platforms where you can play Silent Hill: Townfall are PC and PS5. Sorry, Xbox and Switch 2 fans.

There are two editions that you can choose to buy here as well. The Standard Edition of the game costs $49.99/£44.98, while the Deluxe Edition costs $59.99/ $49.99.

The Deluxe Edition will grant you a few extras, like a new outfit for Simon, a digital artbook, and the soundtrack. It isn't a lot, but if you want some more customization options, it will be worth it.

At least for the moment, it does seem like the game is a PS5 exclusive. And honestly, at least we have a PC version, considering that Sony is reportedly scaling back PC ports for PS5 games as well. However, Silent Hill f did release on Xbox Series X/S systems, so who knows? Maybe it'll be added to the console in the future.

Where is Silent Hill: Townfall set?

Silent Hill: Townfall takes us away from the titular American town to a brand new setting of a fictional Scottish island called St Amelia during 1996.

The game's story takes place in a small town on St Amelia, covered in thick grey fog and sea mist. Perfect conditions for monsters and psychological torments, if you ask me. According to Konami's website, the town in question is also "seemingly abandoned but not at rest", very spooky indeed.

St Amelia may be fictional, but it's actually based on the real village of St Monans in the East Neuk of Fife, and in an interview with the BBC, Screen Burn co-founder Jon McKellan explained how the team studied the fishing village's features to bring it to life in the horror game. This is especially true with the real-life Haar (sea fog) that features very heavily in Townfall.

Art director Paul Abbott also shared that his team "had painstakingly recreated recognizable elements of the town" for the title. After checking out the game myself, I can confirm that exploring the cobbled streets and misty alleyways feels more authentic and immersive as a result.

This is the second Silent Hill spin-off that isn't set in America, following Silent Hill f's rural Japanese setting (which was incredible and added a unique flair to the art direction of monsters). Silent Hill f proved that the franchise works amazingly when it goes international, and Townfall's Scottish setting continues that trend.

Is Silent Hill: Townfall a new story?

Yes, Silent Hill: Townfall is a brand-new story separate from the mainline Silent Hill games.

Like 2025's Silent Hill f, it's a spin-off with its own standalone plot but still employs the same Silent Hill markers of "creepy fog causing trouble" and the main character having to deal with horrors that are a manifestation of their own psyche.

To get specific, though, Silent Hill: Townfall has you playing as the character Simon Ordell, who mysteriously wakes up in St. Amelia. I won't get too much into story spoilers here, but if you have watched the game's trailers, then you know that he is determined to "put things right."

Oh, there is also a CRTV in his possession, which appears to be picking up voices that could lead him on his way to find whatever it is that he is looking for…I'm sure nothing bad will happen from listening to those, right? There also seems to be an environmental disaster going on, but again, I won't get into spoilers here. Just know that it is very unsettling and very scary, friends.

Silent Hill: Townfall trailer

The Silent Hill: Townfall trailer dropped during the February PlayStation State of Play showcase, and it's a beauty. You can check it out for yourself above!

In the footage, we see Simon interacting with a CRTV that is picking up a video of a woman who says, "you have to come back to me" and "I can't stay in this room forever". We then see shots of St. Amelia covered in fog, with notes scattered around the town saying "nothing we can do until help arrives" and "stay safe", obviously hinting that something bad has happened. Not great news for Simon, who can't seem to remember anything, is it?

We also get to see some monsters and Simon using a gun to take them down. The monsters in question look very gnarly, too, with uncomfortable medical imagery.

Silent Hill: Townfall gameplay

Silent Hill: Townfall is a psychological horror game that gives us a first-person perspective as we control Simon through a foggy nightmare.

Like previous Silent Hill games (excluding Silent Hill f's strictly melee combat), here you face off against monsters with both firearms and melee weapons at our disposal here. While there are some non-traditional features at its core, Townfall sticks to the classic Silent Hill formula of trying to solve environmental puzzles in order to progress the story, while also trying to stay alive as monsters attack and stalk you through the fog.

A unique spin with Townfall, though, is how Simon's CRTV comes into play. The tool isn't just a narrative one with voices tuning in every now and again, but it also shows the outlines of enemies while you're ducking behind cover. The outlines of all those creepy monsters show up in its static, which is pretty cool.

Who made Silent Hill: Townfall?

Silent Hill: Townfall is made by the Scottish development team Screen Burn and is published by Annapurna Interactive and Konami.

Screen Burn is behind titles like Stories Untold and Observation, and is an award winner with a history of quality writing. So, yeah, Silent Hill: Townfall was set up for greatness. Previously, Screen Burn was known as No Code until a rebrand back in 2025, and it's been working on the game since 2020.

If you are keen for more scares, check out our list of the best Silent Hill monsters of all time.

It seems Silent Hill Townfall, a spinoff of Konami's legendary horror series set in Scotland, will be a PlayStation console exclusive, at least at launch.

Silent Hill Townfall emerged from its four-year hibernation for last week's PlayStation State of Play with its first full-on trailer, showing its protagonist, Simon Ordell, arrive in the fictional Scottish town of St. Amelia in order to "put things right." There's fog, melancholic music, and clear evidence that something's gone horribly wrong here. In essence, a classic Silent Hill setup, for better or worse.

It also seems Silent Hill Townfall will continue Konami's long-running partnership with PlayStation as a PS5 console exclusive. Bloober Team's Silent Hill 2 Remake had a one-year PS5 exclusivity window before launching on Xbox, although NeoBards' Silent Hill f launched on PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X at the same time last September.

According to the official Silent Hill Townfall website, the game is only confirmed for PlayStation and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store. Also, looking back at press emails from last week, the only platforms listed are PS5 and PC. I'd be surprised if it never releases on Xbox, but it seems there's an exclusivity window similar to Silent Hill 2 Remake. I've reached out to Konami for clarification and will update this story if I hear back.

Whatever the platforms, Silent Hill Townfall is due out sometime in 2026.

There's still time for Silent Hill Townfall to join our list of the best horror games to play in 2026.

The most dramatic thing about Silent Hill Townfall is its first person perspective. It's the only aspect that has me inching forward in my seat while watching the upcoming horror game's first proper trailer.

Heavy fog creeps through a washed-out, nondescript coastal town called St Amelia – based on a Scottish island, I learn through a 30-minute deep dive. A man cradles a gun, a disembodied woman's voice tells him he "did what he did," there's plenty of hospital imagery, and finally, violent manifestations of his guilt-ridden consciousness swarm him in the streets. It boasts everything that made the best Silent Hill games memorable to begin with. And somehow, that makes Townfall's reveal a bit of a letdown for me.

Déjà vu

I have nothing against Townfall's 1980s Scottish backdrop. On the contrary, I'm glad that Japan-set Silent Hill f kicked off a new trend, challenging the notion that the American town itself needs to be featured or referenced in every series instalment. But Silent Hill f was more than a physical departure from the USA; it elevated my expectations of Silent Hill's style, flair, and artistry going forward.

A huge part of that is its strong visual identity and how intrinsic it is to the game's narrative. Silent Hill f takes place in Japan because it's a story that cannot be told in a generic foggy American town. Silent Hill Townfall's first trailer has me thinking the total opposite – and I'll need some convincing that it had to take the leap across the pond in the first place.

Perhaps it's an unfair comparison. Watch any Silent Hill f trailer, and even if you're unclear on the narrative beats, its setting is immediately recognizable; period-specific buildings, use of Japanese language, intelligent monster design with tangible cultural connotations, even the red spider lilies blossoming from the object of Hinako's horror, all reinforce a coming-of-age story that is inextricable from its time and place.

Silent Hill Townfall has no such distinction – for me, at least. My British colleagues seemed incredulous to the fact that I didn't instinctively recognize the generic cobbled streets, red-white-and-blue bunting which could have belonged to any country whose flags possess those colors, and other apparently obvious signifiers that point to Townfall's Scottish setting. As a British person who grew up in Southeast Asia, I was very confused about how they saw something I’d missed entirely.

Connecting the dots

Can you blame me? The protagonist – Simon Ordell, as his hospital bracelet reads – is an American man. A plummy Englishwoman's voiceover is heard at multiple points throughout the trailer, too. If I have to watch thirty minutes of additional lore to get a first sense of place from a game trailer, I have to assume that the setting does not matter at all.

Unless you have an extensive understanding of vaguely British iconography, St Amelia could be anywhere. But Silent Hill, the place, represents that already. It's the everyman setting of survival horror, somewhere that exists perhaps not physically but psychologically. So was there really a need to bring the franchise to Scotland to prove that this meme is correct? And is coastal Scotland really as recognizable as the developer hopes it is outside of the British populace?

It'll take more than a few cobblestones and cups of tea to make Townfall a quintessentially "British" game. Hell, I think Still Wakes the Deep and Atomfall already have this base covered. The potential for a truly spooky Silent Hill incorporating Scottish folklore and history was right there, an opportunity to feed off its location much as Silent Hill f does.

Perhaps that is Screenburn's intention for the final product, but if that is the case, it was lost on me in the trailer. Instead, Townfall looks like Silent Hill distilled to its most obvious parts, with a very naughty boy reminded to have a conscience by a likely dead, imprisoned, or otherwise imperiled woman, who exists as nothing more than a conduit for his punishment or redemption. I sincerely hope I'm wrong, and look forward to being proven so – but so far, the artistic intelligence and bravery of Silent Hill f has cast a long shadow over Townfall.

Replay some of the best survival horror games while you wait for Konami's next sare-'em-up

Silent Hill is a spreading sickness, and Konami is determined to keep propagating it in a variety of great, fine, and startlingly terrible ways. The publisher has just confirmed that – shortly after the disastrous Return to Silent Hill movie, alongside Bloober's promising Silent Hill 1 remake – it's also currently working on the new Silent Hill: Townfall.

Don't confuse it with middling Silent Hill: Downpour from 2012, or the awful interactive TV series Ascension from 2023 – though Townfall was originally announced at the same time as the latter, in a 2022 stream. Konami hasn't spoken about the mysterious game at all in the four years since then, though it's told Japan gaming news site Gematsu that Townfall is indeed its "brand-new Silent Hill title" currently in development.

Otherwise, Konami simply vaguely referred to the game as "a continuation of our ongoing efforts" in its latest earnings report, and even Townfall's reveal announcement was obscure. In a one-minute teaser, an unknown voice commends you for being "here to be punished" while indistinct images of bloody hands and empty hallways flash onscreen.

Konami is co-publishing the game with Annapurna, the Outer Wilds and Stray publisher, and Screen Burn Interactive (formerly known as No Code) is handling development. That's all fine. But as a long-suffering Silent Hill fan, what am I supposed to think? In a 2025 post announcing its name change, Screen Burn explains that Townfall was first conceived in 2020. "We keep saying 'we can’t wait to share more' and it's still true," the studio behind sci-fi drama Observation says. "We're getting closer and closer, but we're a small team making a big game."

So, Townfall is in approximately its sixth year of active development, with no release date, gameplay, or more than a minute of trailer footage behind it. I feel neither enthusiastic nor concerned. Konami raised my expectations for its games with the elegant Silent Hill f, then mashed them into the ground again with Return to Silent Hill. I'm going to give up and see if Pyramid Head will give me his number.

Silent Hill legend Akira Yamaoka doesn't think the franchise has changed as much as you do, since Konami's "philosophical approach" has always been the same.

Like most great American towns, Silent Hill has changed, I think. Snow had already turned it gray by the time you're introduced to it in the first game from 1999, but the next few decades pulled the series into real, bloody purple decay – the original Team Silent development team was defunct by 2007, and Konami made a pachislot spinoff game, for example.

After decades of fan frustration with what seemed like a perfect survival horror series left to die, 2025's excellent Silent Hill f revived the franchise by transporting it to the Japanese mountainsides, polka-dotted with red flowers and flower monsters. While I think the widely disliked new Return to Silent Hill movie confuses things again – read about it in my Return to Silent Hill review – former Team Silent member and long-serving Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka tells GamesRadar+ he disagrees.

"To me at least, there's no significant change [in the Silent Hill franchise] since I first got involved 30 years ago," Yamaoka says to me through an interpreter during a recent interview. "The main reason for that is, at the time, we were trying to create a new experience – a new, totally different approach [to horror]."

"We had strong, original creative ideas for creating the Silent Hill franchise," Yamaoka remembers, and he feels like Konami has been true to that beginning: "the philosophical approach has been the same."

With that in mind, Yamaoka says he was "honored" to be the first person director Christophe Gans allowed to watch Return to Silent Hill, including its multiple edits. On his initial watch, he remembers thinking, 'This really reflects what I have envisioned for Silent Hill 2.'"

And yet it's difficult to resist the draw of that American town from 30 years ago, softened now by both fog and memory. Yamaoka eventually muses when I ask, "I have a very special feeling about [every protagonist], but if I had to pick [a favorite], probably Harry from the first Silent Hill."

"We worked together to create the character," he says. "And we have very wonderful memories of the process. Until then, I don't recall there being any game where the father tries to find his daughter."

"We're catching the beauty within": Silent Hill legend Akira Yamaoka says horror isn't as important to the franchise as "emotional complexity."

The man Akira Yamaoka is as much a part of Silent Hill as its ashen sky or molten fog. Ever since Konami released its first Silent Hill game in 1999, the composer has made dark ambient music for nearly the entire franchise – including its new movie, as we note in our Return to Silent Hill review – that is unnervingly gorgeous. That's the goal, he tells GamesRadar+.

"Silent Hill, to me – it's not just about the fear and anxiety. There are many elements that the franchise has, that Silent Hill has," Yamaoka tells me through an interpreter. "It's our emotions when we see something beautiful, and we feel, 'Oh, wow. This is very beautiful.'"

My favorite moment of Return to Silent Hill inspires this muscle-deep sensation of awe that Yamaoka is describing; while I'm introduced to another one of director Christophe Gans' pained abominations, the new Yamaoka song "Moth Mary" begins to play.

It interpolates music the composer wrote for Silent Hill 2 in 2001, the waterfall mist of tears that is "The Day of Night." "Moth Mary" grounds some of that other song's airiness with a marshmallow-soft piano melody and vocals that sound like a bittersweet farewell. It makes me want to both recoil from the Silent Hill monster on the screen and kiss my kitten on the head, tell him I love him.

"That emotional reaction is very important in the world of Silent Hill, but it's not so much of a simple, one-directional emotion," Yamaoka observes. "Our emotion is much more complex. Sometimes we see something, and it has certain elements that make us feel fear, and we feel anxiety.

"But within that experience, somehow, we're catching the beauty within."

Experience Yamaoka's complicated music in many of the best Silent Hill games of all time, ranked.

Silent Hill f writer Ryukishi07 says that series producer Motoi Okamoto explained to him that Silent Hill isn't a town but a phenomenon when he asked how the game could be set in Japan. This further confirms the theory put forth in Silent Hill: The Short Message that was divisive among fans.

The series of Silent Hill originally was set in or around the titular American town, but has expanded far beyond these boundaries in the games developed and released since the series' rebirth. The Silent Hill revival has been rocky to say the least, with fans receiving emotional whiplash from the lows of The Short Message and Ascension, juxtaposed against highs of the Silent Hill 2 remake and Silent Hill f.

While the name Silent Hill comes from the town, the series is more centrally themed around the otherworld, a supernatural space that reflects the occupants' tormented inner psyches. In various Silent Hill games you can find notes that describe people seeing the otherworld as being infected by a disease, but this never truly matched what was being told through the gameplay.

As the legendary writer behind the Japanese horror franchise When They Cry, Ryukishi07 found after he was asked to bring his expertise to what would be the first Silent Hill game set in Japan. Speaking to Famitsu in an interview that's been translated by GamesRadar+, Ryukishi07 says he questioned how a game named after an American town could be set in his home country.

"I discussed a lot of things with series producer Okamoto in a meeting after I received the request [to write Silent Hill f,]" Ryukishi07 recalls. "Like 'Why is it set in Japan?' and 'What exactly is Silent Hill?' In the end, we came to the conclusion that Silent Hill is not just the name of a place, it is a phenomenon. Looking back I think I was able to create a pretty satisfying base for the story and world from this."

This theory was first stated explicitly in The Short Message in a note that describes the appearance of the otherworld as, "the 'Silent Hill Phenomenon,' named after a similar event that occurred in an eponymous U.S. town." With this new entry set in Germany, Konami made it clear that it wanted to expand the setting for Silent Hill beyond the former tourist town.

Much of the Silent Hill series is left up to players' interpretation, and this idea is no different. While fans might not be enamored by this explanation, they seem united under their joy at the series expanding outside of the U.S.

After Silent Hill 2 remake and Silent Hill f got the series "back on track," Konami aims to release "about one title per year" in the horror franchise

I still almost can't believe Silent Hill f actually happened after years of nothing from the series. I also almost can't believe how good it was, after the okay Message, and bizarre and wildly unpopular Ascension. But happen it did, and it was great - becoming probably my favorite horror game of this year.

As surprising as it was actually happening after over a decade of inactivity, the bigger surprise was its relocation to Japan. For a series that's built its entire identity on horror infused midwestern Americana (to originally woo a western market) it was an unexpected jump, but one that totally worked.

This 1960s rural Japanese setting feels far more mysterious overall. After all the rust and chain link fences, the new red themed spider lily and coral otherworld weaving through its period wooden buildings and streets, felt like a fantastic refresh. Most importantly this new setting made its Japanese-ness an uncompromising part of the experience and, out of all the challenges I had to deal with, I wasn't expecting my inexperience of Japanese culture to be the sticking point.

The Silent Hill f ema and Shrine Vault puzzle, for example, makes no attempt to explain what an ema is when it first asks you to look for one. (While being chased by a monster that can't die.) Japanese culture, unsurprisingly, pervades everything in f, unapologetically. From from the Silent Hill f Omamori charms you can collect and use to add skills to protagonist Hinako, to things like the Altar puzzle where you have to work out where to leave traditional offerings.

Even more recognizable things, like the Silent Hill f puzzle box you have to solve to escape a classroom, requires some pretty on point knowledge of Japanese cherry blossom silhouettes. It's refreshing to play something that doesn't bend over backwards to accommodate you and, instead, really forces you to work it out yourself.

There were a few bits that were just plain unclear, regardless of setting. One thing that remained unhelpfully opaque until well into the game were the Silent Hill f difficulties. While you have to make choices there long before you can even play, the info and details about what it all does only appears when certain things unlock or happen. As a result I only really felt like I knew what I'd chosen a good 4-5 hours in. That's quite a big chunk of game considering the overall Silent Hill f length.

Combat was one of of the more contentious issues overall, although I didn't get on too badly with it. Especially once I'd upgraded stamina which ends up being probably the most important stat in a fight. The Silent Hill f Scarecrow puzzle is a good test or your skills, as you'll be attacked every time you make a mistake. So you'll definitely want to learn from my mistakes. Similarly, finding the Silent Hill f School key can involve a full on mini boss fight unless you have my guide to tell you where to go so you can avoid danger, or at least cut down the risk.

Probably the one main thing I wanted to know the most, overall, was just where everything was. Stuff like trying to open the sacred door in Silent Hill f, or when you have to find Sakuko, all involve convoluted or obscure searches for various things. The missing object part and the Silent Hill f locker codes straight up misdirect you as well, confusing what you're looking for, or where it is.

Overall though, only one thing in the game really did a number on me and that was trying to get the key infront of the cage in Silent Hill f. While I understand how that puzzle works technically I, in no uncertain terms, solved it by pressing button until I got lucky. Take the wins where you can get them.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Publisher Konami has revealed plans to launch roughly one new Silent Hill game per year after getting the iconic horror series "back on track" with this year's excellent Silent Hill f and last year's also excellent Silent Hill 2 remake.

Silent Hill series producer Motoi Okamoto shed light on the company's ambitions in Famitsu's end-of-year feature asking developers what their hopes for 2026 are, translated by Gematsu. "Following the release of Silent Hill 2 in October 2024, we were able to deliver Silent Hill f in September 2025, and the Silent Hill series has begun to get back on track," Okamoto said.

"Including both announced and unannounced titles, we're aiming for a release pace of about one title per year," he continued. "I'm not sure how much of that we'll be able to realize, but I'll continue to do my best as producer of the Silent Hill series. Ideally, we'd like to keep excitement around the Silent Hill series going at all times. We're working hard to share new updates, so I'd appreciate it if you could wait just a little longer."

Up next for the series is Silent Hill Townfall, a still mysterious project coming from the indie studio No Code, developers of the lonely space thriller Observation. We also know Bloober Team are now remaking the very first Silent Hill game after giving the second a foggy makeover. Otherwise, everything else is up in the air - maybe Konami will let NeoBards continue what it started in Silent Hill f.

Turning any game franchise into an annual expectation can certainly lead to rote, sometimes plain boring stuff. But if some of these annual releases have more in common with The First Message - the short, free, first-person Silent Hill game - to fill out years without a big-budget title, then Konami's plan could definitely work. Okamoto doesn't sound like he wants to push out unfinished games for the sake of it, either.

Silent Hill f writer knows you don't really want to see "a happily ever after," and the game's horrific portrayal of young womanhood makes it my GOTY

Freud offers several options for why men are so afraid. Castration is a big one. Lacan then posits a bit nervously that "there is no such thing as Woman" – since her existence is encompassed by mankind, isn't it? But the philosophy of Silent Hill f scriptwriter and When They Cry manga creator Ryukishi07 is more simple. To the horror legend, men are scared, women are scary, and that's just a beautiful thing.

"These are my personal opinions, so allow me to apologize in advance if my answers seem off," Ryukishi07 tells GamesRadar+ when I ask him, "What is the importance of female characters in Japanese horror?"

We can take the shortcut. "My understanding is that the horror fanbase tends to skew towards men, and in the eyes of men, the opposite sex can be something that conjures in them a variety of contrasting emotions, from endearing to terrifying," says Ryukishi07. "I feel that women are often featured in Japanese horror as characters or themes because the emotions that surface as a result of their existence becomes the sources of intricate drama."

But the way Ryukishi07 himself feels is labyrinthine. Silent Hill f is a good example of that – set in strict '60s Japan, the psychological horror game sees disturbing expectations for good girls and good wives as legitimate cosmic horrors. The game's enemies include pregnant tumors that burp out murderous babies, a bride in white who spreads fog like disease, and the most helpful thing Ryukishi07's sweet protagonist Hinako can do is kill everyone. With a pipe.

"For me personally, the opposite sex (women) is something that I respect, revere, befriend, and fear – something that I am enamored with, forever scared of, yet fascinated by," Ryukishi07 explains. "To this day, I have penned severed stories that fall under the horror umbrella, but not one would I have been able to complete without the existence of women."

That said, telling stories hasn't necessarily helped Ryukishi07 demystify women – who are kind of lovely cosmic beings to him, too. The horror he writes for them is like a prayer. He tells me, "None of us will ever truly understand the opposite sex. Claiming to do so would be direly presumptuous. We must properly revere, respect, love, and understand that we will mutually misunderstand one another."

"Working on themes based around women is, to me, the greatest act of respect that I can dedicate to them," Ryukishi07 concludes.

Silent Hill f writer knows you don't really want to see "a happily ever after," and the game's horrific portrayal of young womanhood makes it my GOTY.

There are a lot of Silent Hill fans who don't consider the latest game in the series, Silent Hill f, to be a 'true' Silent Hill game because it doesn't take place in the fictional town of Silent Hill, Maine that defined the series for decades. And to those fans, I say, you might want to start getting used to the idea of Silent Hill games not being set in Silent Hill.

Nothing's set in stone just yet, but in a new interview with Inverse, series producer Motoi Okamoto pondered aloud about moving future games to other parts of the world and exploring new cultures and local folklore.

"We believe we could perhaps take similar approaches [to Silent Hill f] with other cultures across the globe," Okamoto said (via Inverse's translation). "For example, in Central or South America, we could perhaps tap into the more local, shamanistic beliefs and see how that ties in. But we could also try to expand our horizons and look into other regions, like possibly Russia, Italy, or South Korea, because all those areas have their own unique types of belief systems. I believe that will be a gateway for us to expand our concepts further."

As a huge fan of the series, I'm as eager as anyone to see a brand new Silent Hill game set in that titular foggy town that feels like an incredibly scary, dangerous second home to so many fans. That said, Silent Hill f bangs, and I would not be upset to hear the next game in the series is going the same route and starting fresh in a new locale. One big problem, according to Okamoto, is finding game developers in some of these regions that are established enough to be trusted with the Silent Hill franchise.

"Central and South America do not have very many prominent development studios for video games capable of handling an IP like Silent Hill," he added. "So while they have a lot of interesting movies, books, and tales, how we would translate that into games is something we still have to explore."

Konami has yet to announce a new Silent Hill game.

Silent Hill f writer knows you don't really want to see "a happily ever after," and the game's horrific portrayal of young womanhood makes it my GOTY

The town is a crucial aspect of any Silent Hill game, including the series' latest installment Silent Hill f, which ditches Americana to instead cattle prod its tortured protagonists in the fictional Ebisugaoka. But developer NeoBards tells me the haunted mountaintop – based on a real Japanese location – barely existed when it first started working on the horror game.

Director Al Yang knew whatever NeoBards pitched to publisher Konami had to ensure "the story would undoubtedly feel like a 'Ryukishi07 work,'" he tells GamesRadar+. Scriptwriter Ryukishi07, celebrated horror writer behind the When They Cry manga series, had already outlined his sympathetic story for Silent Hill f – and the development team had to honor it.

"I first read the initial draft of the script a few years ago," reflects lead level designer Kaiyu Chang. "At the time, I was pregnant, which made the story's depiction of the expectations and constraints placed on women by traditional society resonate with me even more deeply. Many scenes struck a strong emotional chord."

So while "the core essence of the story never changed," Chang continues, "we made a number of adjustments to its presentation." In fact, "many of the locations in Silent Hill f did not exist initially and were carefully selected to enhance not only the script, but also the atmosphere and world of the game," Yang adds. "An example of this is the school, which was initially proposed by the team at NeoBards, and then discussed carefully with Konami and Ryukishi07."

And Protagonist Hinako's house – one of the most substantial puzzle sections in the game, where family secrets are revealed – "was originally conceived simply as a labyrinth with an otherworldly atmosphere," says Chang.

"Later, we introduced the element of 'memory,' added multiple timelines, and allowed the space to shift depending on the route and ending," she continues. "Throughout this process, Ryukishi07 continuously wrote new text and lore to support gameplay needs. After countless rounds of discussion and refinement, the in-game version you see today finally took shape."

Then the team ended up with another one of Silent Hill series' characteristic towns swaddled in fog – where horror is unavoidable, but hope still lives.

Silent Hill f writer knows you don't really want to see "a happily ever after," and the game's horrific portrayal of young womanhood makes it my GOTY.

I am not Silent Hill f protagonist Shimizu Hinako, but I could be. I'm not Rinko, the antagonist with a crush, but I have also been moth-eaten with jealousy like she is. And while I'm not Sakuko, who dies young, I understand her need to be closer to God. Silent Hill f coaxes these moments of empathy from me throughout its story of young womanhood like pulling out stitches, and its ability to do so makes it not only one of the best games of 2025, but also one of the most painful in Silent Hill's 26-year history.

I rarely feel so respected by a horror game. The 2000s were a blessed time for cursed games like 2005's Haunting Ground, 2006's Rule of Rose, or Konami's impeccable Silent Hill 3 from 2003, which revered their female protagonists even while dunking them in ice-cold catastrophe. Horror games have since shifted their focus to friendlier fare like survival co-op, until Konami made the genius decision to let writer Ryukishi07, who also created the devastating When They Cry visual novel series, into Silent Hill.

Welcome to paradise

Before Bloober's impeccable Silent Hill 2 remake in 2024, the survival horror franchise suffered middling spin-offs and pachislot games – and producer Motoi Okamoto could see it had "declined."

"I came to the conclusion that this was because we had clung to the eponymous town," he tells me, "which in turn led to the games having the same kind of experience, story, and gameplay." Silent Hill f needed to be excised from the dying body, and so Konami made the "big decision" to set Silent Hill f in Japan.

A month after first meeting with Okamoto to discuss Silent Hill f, Silent Hill f scriptwriter Ryukishi07 had started planning the game's concept: a woman challenging the exhausting expectations for her gender in 1960s Japan.

With help from illustrator kera and developer NeoBards, this woman became Hinako, who's trying not to think about a few different things. She doesn't want to think about dolls, for example. Love is also a touchy subject. Thank you, but she'd rather not consider the possibility that a girl dressed neatly in her school uniform is only practicing to be a wife, wrapped like hard candy in her shiromuku wedding kimono.

Her friends and family punish her for resisting their expectations. This is bigger than thought, this is reality, they try to remind her – but then their placid mountain town Ebisugaoka starts to change. It's inexplicably overtaken by Silent Hill's characteristic fog, scarred monsters, and red spider lilies, and it seems Hinako is better off learning how to carry a steel pipe rather than kiss her drunk husband.

Woman's work

But by the end of Silent Hill f, I realize nothing really changes for Hinako. Every pregnant enemy and crazed note found in nightmare Ebisugaoka pursues the same ancient question: where is a woman's place? The question has just stretched and mutilated, which is how Ryukishi07 shows women like me he loves them.

I do feel it, despite the gore of Ebisugaoka. Ryukishi07 himself acknowledges that his emotions are complex, telling me that, "to this day, I have penned severed stories that fall under the horror umbrella, but not one would I have been able to complete without the existence of women."

"I respect, revere, befriend, and fear" women – they are "something that I am enamored with, forever scared of, yet fascinated by," he adds. "Working on themes based around women is, to me, the greatest act of respect that I can dedicate to them."

This is evident in every one of Silent Hill f's female characters, who I believe are all complex, highly motivated, evil bitches. On certain days, I see myself similarly. Watch out for spoilers ahead.

Rinko, who's infuriated with Hinako over monopolizing her crush, traps herself in the role of the devoted girlfriend and is miserable for it. Sakuko, a strange bunny, seems to spend her afterlife haunting ex-best friend Hinako with her pigtails, wasting her time with the wrath of the gods when she could be moving on.

Then there's Hinako herself, who's revealed at the end of Silent Hill F to be a woman "in her twenties," Okamoto confirms to me, not a little girl. "The fog obfuscates the line that defines delusion from reality," he adds.

She's having a psychotic break on her wedding day. Spider lilies swell upon the empty sidewalks around her, beautifying Hinako's dissolution as Silent Hill f progresses and she comes closer to marrying the mysterious Fox Mask. The clean schoolgirl outfit she imagines herself wearing gets torn by ritual and madness – ripped at the arm, ripped at the skirt, Hinako's back is bare and vulnerable. Her fate is unavoidable.

Really, for every Silent Hill f character, doom is a given. Ryukishi07 emphasizes that "Shu, Sakuko, Rinko, Hinako's parents, Fox Mask – every one of them may have had their own hell. Please do not forget that, or the fact that Hinako was oblivious to those hells, as she was too consumed by her own personal hell to notice."

"Your personal hell is a world of solitude that no one else can perceive, but please do not fall into the trap of assuming that others around you have no hell of their own," Ryukishi07 warns. "I would love it if everyone kept this in mind."

My personal hell

He should have told me that sooner. After spending three Silent Hill f playthroughs as Hinako, my identity inevitably melds with hers, and I feel the rage of a thousand Courtney Love songs. Both Hinako and I spent a childhood in disbelief of our mothers, who stayed with our disappointing fathers, and of the world, which seemed to find it more appropriate we follow in her footsteps than be alone.

I want to start a club for me, Hinako, and Silent Hill 3 protagonist Heather Mason, who spends the game resisting a cult trying to impregnate her with God against her will. Or, as the Virgin Mary would agree – more girl stuff.

Ryukishi07 agrees with me in thinking Hinako and Heather would be good friends, observing that "neither Heather nor Hinako merely weep in the face of their ill fates, with each having the strength to stand on their own two feet and pave their own paths." Then, they have slumber party matters to attend to, like talking about boys and shotgun ammo.

"As soon as the subject becomes about how guys are always so selfish and automatically assume that girls are weak, the two would click and get all excited," says Ryukishi07. "Hinako would be surprised at how Heather had used all sorts of guns and would probably say that she wants to try shooting one herself. (No doubt Hinako would have had a much easier time with guns around)."

"Heather, on the other hand, would go on about how amazing and exciting it was for Hinako to have a monster arm and take out enemies with that very arm," Ryukishi07 says about the ultra-powerful werewolf arm Hinako eventually replaces her dainty lady fingers with. "She might be envious and think of it as cooler than guns, since there would be no need for ammo. She might even talk about swapping out one of her own arms, which would inevitably cause Harry to swoop in with a firm 'no'."

Happily ever after

This type of cute discussion is what keeps me forever interested in Silent Hill games. While their tormented lakeside or, now, mountainside towns increase their cosmic terror per capita as a game goes on, its protagonist always remains unflinchingly, refreshingly human. You can gossip about them and imagine them doing nice things before the fog arrived. These people are not the unblemished angels or unconquerable heroes of another franchise. Rather, characters like Hinako and her new BFF Heather are simply people who decided to keep living.

In the spirit of rallying together, for choosing life even when it's horrifying, Ryukishi07 offers several tenets for Silent Hill f fans to live by: "Do not laugh at or act condescending towards someone else's personal hell. Do not use your personal hell as a means to look down on anyone. Believe that no matter what one's personal hell may be, that hell will eventually come to an end. Believe that no matter what the personal hell is like, there is always a way out."

"The key to the way out of your personal hell lies in the hands of your family, friends, or your local hotlines," he adds. "You have endured through your personal hell so much. You have already persevered enough, so please, be proud of yourself, and rely on the help of others."

I've always known there's no outrunning what's inside. Silent Hill f's multiple endings suggest that Hinako learns the same lesson – anger and avoidance only ever spreads sadness, like trying to mop up a spill with tissues you've already used while crying.

But I still want to know: is happiness possible without trying in Silent Hill? Ryukishi07 answers, "if the parties involved consider themselves happy, then that for them is a happy ending."

"However, as we are on the other side of the fourth wall, I ask you this: Do all of you fans out there really want to see a Silent Hill game end with a happily ever after?" he continues. "That's not Silent Hill, is it?" Ryukishi07 admits he thinks "the poor souls who wander into the clutches of Silent Hill will never encounter happiness, so long as we wish against it."

"Silent Hill is the literature of quaint delusions," Okamoto reminds me, "where imagination is constrained by the harsh circumstances of the real world." Happy endings do not fit in stories written in blood, but at least Silent Hill f embraces young women trying to make it work.

Here's a small joy for Silent Hill f – it's in good company as we determine our best games of 2025.

The pills don't seem dangerous. The slender red capsules are immediately useful in Silent Hill f, like money you didn't know you had in your pocket, though nervous protagonist Hinako's increasing reliance on them may be unsettling to some people. Not to me, though. I'd never let anyone take away my pills.

(Major spoilers for Silent Hill f ahead).

It feels wrong to say that. I resisted taking medication for my obsessive-compulsive disorder for most of the nearly 10 years since being officially diagnosed, but then a period of extreme insomnia hit me like cold water at the end of 2024. I felt like I might drown if I didn't start exploring medication, and I think Hinako's supposedly evil little pills might have saved her, too.

Self-help

Hinako gratefully places the red capsules I find into her mouth like they're indulgent chunks of cake, not just sugar-coated mystery drugs. I don't question her. The red capsules are a good last resort for fighting the increasingly disgusting monsters which have taken over her hometown –– naked, ball-jointed dolls with puckered scars where their nipples should be, pregnant bellies protruding from a faceless mass of hair and legs the way swollen grapes hang on a vine. The pills don't restore my health as effectively as a cloth bandage, and they don't soothe my dwindling sanity meter as much as bubbly Ramune, but they're decent enough at both that I come to rely on them.

By the end of Silent Hill f, I have at least 50 pills piled like stuffed animals in my inventory, and I've learned the truth. Hinako is not the schoolgirl she portrays herself to be, shoving herself uselessly against the locked door that is the unfriendly world of '60s Japan – she's a woman. She's getting married. Those weren't monsters I've been brutalizing with a steel pipe, but guests at Hinako's wedding ceremony. Puddles of their blood in the first possible Silent Hill f ending, Coming Home to Roost, purples the ground.

Earlier, I watched as Hinako was enraged by her dysfunctional parents and older sister Junko, now a pacified wife, as they nudge her toward getting married. She defies them by gobbling handfuls of those red and white pills, the ones I've been feeding her through my entire game. Junko is shocked – she doesn't understand how Hinako keeps swallowing lungfuls of the medicine, which she swears helps her relax. In truth, they seem to be keeping Hinako in a state of fragile psychosis, and the spider lily horror of Ebisugaoka is ultimately all in her head.

Self-flagellation

Most of the other, more "true" endings for Silent Hill f require you don't take any pills for the entirety of your playthrough, which, to me, confirms their mind-altering properties and apparently evil nature. Shu, Hinako's childhood friend with a secret crush, never told her what they'd do to her head. Because of this, I'm initially inclined to think of the capsules as just another method for the men of Ebisugaoka to control Hinako. But I change my mind once I take my nightly fluvoxamine.

Self-care

There are many reasons why I, for so many years, hesitated to take medication. First, there was the nature of my OCD – the disorder is defined by unwanted, intrusive thoughts known as "obsessions" and illogical, ritualistic behavior to suppress them called "compulsions," and I frequently obsessed over the idea that taking meds would ruin my life. What if SSRIs completely changed my personality? What if they didn't work, and I became stuck in the barbed wire of my mental illness forever? What if they made things worse? What if they made my fiancé break up with me?

In 2024, I couldn't sleep. I obsessed over it, compulsively read nightmarish articles about insomnia, and clawed my way down into a dirty, depressive hole. I decided I had no choice but to die. Instead, my therapist suggested medication.

For the first time in 25 years of debilitating symptoms, I decided pills were worth the risk. Later, I listed off the new medications I was initially prescribed at the pharmacy – gabapentin, trazodone, Lexapro. I remember bristling against the societal stigma I felt wrapping me like shedding snake skin. These were crazy pills, I thought. Why couldn't I be like the beautiful, normal people I imagined all around me, floating from happiness to happiness like all-natural fairies? I hate asking for help. But I was in desperate need.

It's now been a year since I started taking medication for my mental health, and, for the first time in my life, I feel safe. I'm no longer worried about what people think of me for taking meds, and I'm proud of myself for taking them. They've calmed my symptoms and helped me love being alive.

I imagine Hinako's red and white capsules make her feel the same way in the patriarchal confines of her reality – they allow her to transcend it. A woman in a blood-stained wedding dress, Hinako on meds defies societal expectations. She isn't nice, she's a goddamn murderer, but she'd rather be on the run than a wife.

It's her ideal self. In my case, my ideal self is a person who doesn't waste daydreams on sharp knives. We aren't quite the same, but I believe our pills set both me and Hinako free. We're two flightless birds finally ready to look up at the sky.

The best part of Silent Hill f is also my favorite from Bloodborne, and it has nothing to do with "Soulslike" combat.

Silent Hill f saw a stellar start after Konami's release, between its "Very Positive" beginnings on Steam and over one million sales in just four days – but according to its developers, a big reason why the new horror game is so successful is its community.

Speaking in a recent interview with Dengeki Online (as translated by Automaton), director Motoi Okamoto and writer Ryukishi07 both explain that Silent Hill f attracted more players worldwide than the Silent Hill 2 remake – and this phenomenon is especially apparent in Japan, where people have circulated everything from fan theories about the game to memes online, perhaps contributing to the greater popularity.

Okamoto sees this – the community rallying around a title – as a potential key to long-term success, especially when hype tends to die down far more quickly now than ever before. "Recently, discourse about games has been consumed at a rapid pace," describes the director. "But games that do get talked about even months after release are the ones that are fun to theorize about and analyze, and they usually get a lot of character fan art."

He continues: "From my experience, titles which are able to show us that kind of hype tend to live on for longer." Silent Hill f, with its ability to stand apart from Konami's series thanks to its unique premise and setting, is one such example. Ryukishi07 agrees, saying games like the new horror gem "ultimately boil down to how much the player resonates with them." He says that's why protagonists in such games are less talkative – to allow for immersion.

Although these kinds of characters have a "dark kind of appeal," they're not as marketable, so to speak. Silent Hill f stands apart because its protagonist, Hinako Shimizu, doesn't follow this formula, making room for fan art, memes, and you name it. That doesn't, however, mean that Ryukishi07 wants every Silent Hill to make rounds on the web like Silent Hill f – it's not necessarily the "way the series should follow" forever.

The writer hopes it just shows there's more than one way to go about things. "If the direction we took with f is well-received, hopefully it could become one of the examples of the Silent Hill series' expressive range," as he concludes.

Silent Hill f's lead actor can't catch a break: As Konami announces new "casual mode," fans are naming it after Hinako's VO after she went viral for streaming the game in terror.

I felt guilty enough laughing my ass off watching Silent Hill f's lead Japanese actor squirming in terror while streaming her own game, but now I'm full-on regretting piling on poor Konatsu Kato.

For some context, late last month, like a total jerk, I wrote a story about Kato, who plays player character Hinako in the Japanese version of Silent Hill f, streaming the game and making all sorts of uncomfortable facial expressions and gestures in reaction to the freaky stuff in the game. Frankly, there wasn't much to the story beyond taking pleasure in Kato's horror. Again, not my finest moment professionally.

Well now, I wish I could take it all back, because Kato is getting roasted all over again for the innocent act of being scared by a scary game on camera.

The official Japanese Silent Hill Twitter account announced that patch 1.10 has launched and includes a new Casual difficulty option, the option to skip through some parts of New Game Plus, and a reduction in the amount of forced combat areas. Because the update is generally aimed at making the game easier and more approachable, there's been a flood of responses poking fun at Kato and in some cases, naming the update after her.

Here's just a few examples:

Of course, I'm not saying my silly little article had much if anything to do with the memeification of Kato's streams, but I do feel bad for taking part at all. Wait, it just dawned on me that, in writing this follow-up article, I'm... yeah, I'll just go ahead and apologize to Kato full-stop now. I'm sorry, Konatsu Kato. If it's any consolation, I've been on the record for years as being a huge scaredy cat despite horror being my favorite game genre, so you're not alone.

Here are the full patch notes for the new update.

Speaking of which, here are the best horror games you can play right now.

Microsoft itself has leaked the Xbox Series X|S release date for Silent Hill 2 Remake, and anyone hoping that the game's rumored DLC will coincide with the port will be happy to hear that Xbox version is coming out very soon.

A now-deleted Xbox Store listing recently revealed that last year's acclaimed horror remake is due to launch on Xbox Series X|S on November 21, 2025 - in just a couple of weeks, if you aren't keeping count! - ending a year of console exclusivity on PS5 and PC. (Thanks, trueachievements!)

The Xbox listing also came alongside a Deluxe Edition version, which includes a digital artbook and soundtrack, plus a Pyramid Head pizza box cosmetic that'll also come out on November 21, as well as another bundle featuring this year's excellent Silent Hill f.

What was missing, sadly, was any mention of the long-rumored Born From a Wish DLC. For anyone out of the loop, the OG Xbox also received Silent Hill 2 several months after it had launched on the PS2, but to make up for the wait, the port was bundled in with a bonus scenario called Born From a Wish. Many fans speculated that Konami might try the same trick twice with its remake.

One of developer Bloober Team's lead writers, Grzegorz Like, even responded to some fan copium by saying, "Born from a what?" and adding more fuel to this fire. Either way, Bloober Team is far from done with the foggy streets of Silent Hill, as the horror dev recently announced it was turning its gaze to the first game in the series.

If you want more spooky action, check out our list of the best horror games you can play today.

The Silent Hill 2 remake hit its one-year anniversary last month, and with that the PlayStation console exclusivity was ended for the game. Naturally, everyone began wondering when an Xbox Series X/S port could arrive, and if it might follow in the footsteps of the original game's Xbox release and include the Born from a Wish story expansion. And now, a Bloober Team writer has not-so-subtly implied something may be happening.

Bloober Team's Grzegorz Like, who was the lead writer for Layers of Fear and Cronos: The New Dawn (with a "Special Thanks" credit in Silent Hill 2), in a now-deleted tweet quoted the news that the ESRB has rated an Xbox edition of Silent Hill 2 remake, saying: "well whaddya know!" And while an Xbox version was basically an inevitability given it was confirmed to be a one-year timed exclusive for PlayStation ahead of launch, the other big question is, 'will it get DLC?'

The original Xbox release of Silent Hill 2 was released a few months after the PS2 edition (and almost a year later in Europe) and included a bonus scenario titled "Born from a Wish," which followed Maria just prior to meeting James in the main game. And what better time to release it than with a new Xbox version? A user responded to Like's tweet, saying, "I wonder if it's gonna come with Born From A Wish like the original Xbox release did," to which Like replies: "Born from a what?"

While obviously not confirmation of anything, someone from Bloober acknowledging Born from a Wish is somewhat hopeful, even if Maria's actor, Salóme Gunnarsdóttir, said last month that she hadn't recorded anything for the DLC. Leaker Dusk Golem (who has a mixed track record, best taken with a grain of salt) previously claimed that an Xbox version, a PS5 Pro patch, and the Born from a Wish DLC are happening and will possibly be timed around the release of the upcoming Silent Hill 2 movie adaptation, Return to Silent Hill, with that movie set to release this coming January.

Silent Hill 2 remake actor's "most difficult scene" is an iconic moment from the horror game: "I was really making sure I didn't cry"

Silent Hill f is a game with many freaky sights and sounds, and it's very clear that not even the actor who voiced and mo-capped main character Hinako is immune to its horrors.

Over on the official Silent Hill f YouTube channel, you can watch about 90 minutes of Hinako actor Konatsu Kato anxiously exploring the beginning of the game, wincing in horror at some of the grotesque imagery, and letting out exacerbated sighs after being defeated in battle. Some of her facial expressions our genuinely priceless, even if I feel slightly guilty for finding so much amusement in her discomfort. Regardless, here some of my favorites:

You can watch the full stream below. Naturally, it's in Japanese, but the machine-translated subtitles provide some probably imprecise but nonetheless entertaining accompaniments to what you're seeing on screen. I think my favorite part of the whole stream is around the 55:30 mark, when Kato inspects a bloody mask and recoils in horror, before turning it around, seeing the face, and reeling even further back into pure disgust.

"No, no, no, I don't want to do anything. What is this? What? What? What?" she exclaims. Right after that is a chase scene in which a visibly frightened Kato seems to very nearly give up, saying, "I can't take this anymore," "How long should I do this?" and, upon coming face to face with her pursuer, "stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, wait a minute, stop."

Alright, this is all starting to feel a little cruel, so I'm signing off here. That said, I will absolutely be back for the next video. This one's titled Silent Hill f #1, so it's safe to assume Kato plans on streaming more of the game, unless this seemingly traumatizing experience scared her off for good. Let's hope not.

Silent Hill series producer says Konami announcing SH2 remake, f, and Townfall all at once was so fans could "feel how serious we were" about reviving the horror series

The infamous playable trailer for Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro's scrapped Silent Hills game – known forevermore as just P.T. – has been an outlier in horror gaming since it was removed from the PlayStation Store in 2015. Never allowed to grow past its infancy, P.T. exists only informally as one of the most frightening games ever made, so I'm glad one Japanese secondary school imbued it with the new purpose of teaching kids English.

The Tsunan Secondary School in Niigata wrote in a blog – found and translated by Automaton – that one of its assistant language teachers recently decided to have their tweenage students play the approximately 20-minute Silent Hills trailer in English, helping them pick up important phrases like "meat cleaver" and "murder his entire family."

The blog explained that, during their lesson, the teacher would periodically pause P.T. to ask students what they should do next, like "walk around the room" or "answer the phone." Though, I'll note that most of P.T. is soundtracked by ambient noises – groaning doors, disembodied moaning, muffled footsteps. Sometimes the radio crackles and urges you to "look behind you," and there are at least enough words to warrant archiving the script on the Silent Hill Memories archive, but I think Tsunan's assistant language teacher just wanted to play P.T. in class.

I can't blame them. I remember watching P.T. no commentary playthroughs as soon as I came home from school in 2015 – Tsunan's method here is simply two birds, one stone. The school even goes out of its way to note in its blog that some students were "startled by the sudden ringing of the in-game telephone" which, again, doesn't sound purely educational, but it is awesome.

Konami dev responds to Hideo Kojima's thoughts on AI, claiming that Silent Hill f contains "the kind of bold choices AI would never be able to make."

Hideo Kojima shared his thoughts on generative AI in video game development recently in an interview – one that Motoi Okamoto, Silent Hill series producer at Konami, has now responded to with his own opinion on the matter.

Kojima stated that he thinks "of AI as more of a friend," but one he'd only let "handle the tedious tasks" of development "that would lower cost and cut down on time" – not one that he'd allow to take over the creative process of production. Since then, Okamoto has left a reply to the interview with Kojima in an online post (as translated by Automaton), explaining why he doesn't believe AI could manage a game like Silent Hill f.

"In that sense, it would be quite difficult for AI to replace works that take a significant departure from the original path of the series, like Silent Hill f," explains Okamoto. "AI may be able to put together a project for a sequel that takes place in the Silent Hill universe, but things like changing the story's setting to Japan or getting Ryukishi07 on board as a writer are the kind of bold choices AI would never be able to make," he adds.

His thoughts here make sense. After all, Silent Hill f really does depart from the "original path of the series," both in regards to its Japanese setting in the 1960s as well as its subject material. Having Ryukishi07 work as a writer on the new horror game is also certainly a factor – there's a level of depth to the developer's creativity and choice-making that AI simply cannot replicate, and it's evident to see even as a fan on the outside myself.

Kojima and Okamoto aren't the only figures within the gaming industry to discuss the rising technology – generative AI, that is – with legendary Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu recently describing how he's "never used AI and probably never will" as it's not rewarding. Arc Raiders lead Patrick Söderlund also spoke on the matter, stating that games "can't be built by an AI" and "I hope they never can."

It seems then that most of the industry is in agreement – AI can probably be used as a tool for more "mechanical" things, but generative AI is incapable of harboring the necessary human touch, so to speak, that creative processes like game development ultimately require.

While you're here, be sure to take a look at our Silent Hill f review, as well as our guide to Silent Hill f's endings if you've already started on the new horror release.