Silent Hill Townfall director Jon McKellan says Konami did not let the dev team know about all of the other Silent Hill projects that were in the works concurrently.

After about a decade in the bin, with the wound of the Hideo Kojima-led Silent Hills being cancelled still fresh on the minds of horror fans, Konami decided it was back. This happened in a single stream announcing Silent Hill 2 Remake, Silent Hill f, Silent Hill: Townfall, and the duo of things we didn't know would be awful at the time – Silent Hill Ascension and Return to Silent Hill.

While the Bloober Team collab on Silent Hill 2 was long-rumored, the announcement of three other Silent Hill games (if you can call Ascension a game?) was a total shock for a franchise that had been as dead as whatever James Sunderland most recently bashed with a big stick.

Speaking at MCM London Comic Con (via VGC) McKellan – the founder of Screen Burn – revealed how he and the development team first found out that there were other Silent Hill games in the works alongside Townfall, saying, "We found out about a lot of those projects when everyone else did. When they announced them." He adds, "we were kind of kept in the dark, which was kind of exciting as a fan to not see behind the curtain too much."

Even after the cats were out of the bag, Konami didn't give the team much insight into what the others were doing either. McKellan says, "[Motoi] Okamoto-san, who's the series producer, was very keen to not let projects influence each other, and not compromise too much." Even without the knowledge of other games in development, if there was too much crossover, the Konami team would step in, he explains.

"They'd not necessarily tell us what it was, but just be like 'there's another thing that's doing something similar, so maybe veer off from that direction.'"

Despite Konami's wishes to keep the three games unique, McKellan stresses it wasn't a restrictive environment either, saying, "It wasn't like a Marvel phase where it would be like 'know your slot and stay within that.'" He adds, "We got to be very creatively free, just with the knowledge that Konami and the team there would step in if they felt they had to."

So what did get changed through this process? Not much from the sounds of things. "I think only once did we have a thing," McKellan explains, "they felt 'this is maybe a little too close, you may want to pivot and just go in a different option' for one of the enemy designs."

The '90s are a "perfect time for horror," says Silent Hill: Townfall dev who wants the game to make you feel technologically vulnerable.

Resident Evil Outbreak, Capcom's PS2 online multiplayer spin-off from 2003, is now playable for free in your web browser. Better still, you can even team up with friends using the original co-op mode to escape Raccoon City, and that's blowing my mind, seeing as I failed to convince my parents to buy me a PlayStation 2 Network Adapter back in my teen years. The catch? The project is allegedly vibe-coded.

Again, you don't need a real PlayStation 2 or even a retro console emulator to play Resident Evil Outbreak or its File #2 sequel (thanks, Men's Journal). You don't even have to download patched ROMs or mess with emulators, as the series is all playable at Outbreakweb with controller support, game saves, and multiplayer rooms. Yes, you can even use a retro handheld like the Retroid Pocket 5, but your mileage will vary compared to on a beefier gaming handheld or a full-blown PC.

That all sounds marvellous, but if you've been keeping up with my retro recomp, decomp, and port coverage, you'll get why I immediately started digging for development details. Resident Evil Outbreak has been playable online using emulation for years, so I initially wasn't sure whether using AI or vibe coding a web browser version would even need to be a thing, but alas, players are sounding the alarm in X posts.

An Outbreakweb Discord server exists for reporting bugs and organizing multiplayer rooms, but questions regarding AI use remain unanswered. The project is seemingly by a developer named “Lucas”, and while not much is known about the individual or any additional devs behind the scenes, a Facebook post credits a "Lucas Gonzalez Falcon."

I should note that since there's no GitHub repository or publicly available code, it's hard to determine whether tools like Claude were used. That's an absolute pain if you're looking for a way to play PS2 games while avoiding AI projects, and it means it's up to the developer to share details so that players can make an informed decision.

Beyond vibe coding shenanigans, the Outbreakweb project also potentially has Capcom to contend with. There's a strong chance that the publisher will take action against the site just like it would with any other instance of unofficial game distribution, meaning you're probably still better off using an emulator. I'm personally planning on pitching up a real PS2 with a CRT in my living room and playing through both games in the lead-up to Halloween, and that sounds like a creepy setup; at least I'm guaranteed to be safe from the horrors of AI.

Swing by the best retro controllers for gamepads that'll bring modern tricks to your original setup.

Resident Evil Requiem reportedly made more money from physical sales on PlayStation than it did on Xbox overall, making Sony's decision to kill discs look even more questionable.

Resident Evil Requiem is probably the biggest game of 2026 – at least until something comes out in a month's time – and Capcom's game has naturally become quite the hit, having sold 8 million copies the last time Capcom checked in, and was the fastest-selling game in the series to date.

Sony is planning to stop manufacturing new PlayStation discs starting in 2028, but Capcom doesn't seem too worried about it, though reports on the sales breakdown of Requiem may tell a different story.

As reported by Alinea Analytics' Rhys Elliott, Resident Evil Requiem sold 1.3 million copies on PS5 through Physical copies, making up about 15% of the game's revenue, as well as 30.2% of the game's revenue on PlayStation overall. However, the 1.3 million physical copies sold on PlayStation also made Capcom 1.8 times the revenue than the entirety of copies on Xbox across physical, digital, and Xbox PC sales.

PlayStation selling more than Xbox obviously isn't surprising, given there are seemingly far more PS5 consoles in homes than Xbox Series X|S consoles, and, on top of that, Resident Evil is a series that has been strongly associated with PlayStation throughout its life.

But this does make Sony's decision to kill off physical disks a bit more questionable, as one of the tentpole releases of 2026 is clearly still bringing in the numbers from physical game purchases. And while they are selling more physically now, being 100% digital doesn't necessarily mean those physical buyers would move over.

You can check out our Resident Evil Requiem review if you're yet to play the horror game yourself, or our guide to Resident Evil Requiem's safe codes to help you through it.

Most Resident Evil fans consider Resident Evil 7 the triumphant moment Capcom turned things around with a full-throated embrace of the series' single-player, survival horror roots after the highly divisive turn toward multiplayer action horror with Resident Evil 5 and 6. However, according to former Capcom manager Miguel Corti, there's a direct precursor to the dark period of action-heavy Resident Evil games, and it's actually one of the most beloved games in the entire series.

While Resident Evil: Code Veronica was universally acclaimed when it released in 2000 for the Sega Dreamcast, its legacy has wavered in the decades since due to what I consider straight-up dated game design that can come across as unnecessarily punishing these days. I'm confident the recently revealed remake will fix most of those problems, but it's safe to say the original release is among the most divisive games in the series, and for Corti, it's single-handedly to blame for what are undoubtedly the most hated Resident Evil games in 5 and 6.

In an exhaustive series of since-deleted Bluesky posts, Corti shared an enormous level of insight into Resident Evil 7's development as well as various tidbits on other games in the series. According to official Capcom materials, Corti joined the studio in 2007 and worked his way up to senior manager, so he's definitely someone who can speak on the series with some authority. In one of his Bluesky posts, he suggested there wouldn't be a Resident Evil 5 and 6 if it weren't for Code Veronica setting the stage first.

"Everyone always mentions the first 3 RE games and they seem to forget about Code Veronica," said Corti. "There is a direct line from CV to RE 5 and 6; CV is the game where the series went off the rails by trying to cram as many locales and plots as a Dreamcast disc could hold." The "real problem" with Code Veronica, in Corti's view, is that "many of the devs consider CV the best of the pre-RE4 titles," even though he "would argue constantly that RE2 is much better."

Is this even a debate? Resident Evil 2 is a universally beloved and iconic pillar of the survival horror genre, while one would be forgiven for calling Code Veronica a cult classic. Corti also points out that Code Veronica's opening cinematic is "a straight-up Die Hard/John Woo pastiche and there's nothing horror about it," which does in retrospect seem to be a tonal setup for Resident Evil 5 and 6. While the rest of the game definitely leans further into traditional survival horror, you wouldn't know it going off the very beginning.

"No shade on CV fans, but seeing how it had a direct, negative development on the franchise means I am pretty biased against it," Corti said. "Take my bias with a grain of salt."

Honestly, this is all water under the bridge for me. Resident Evil 5 and 6 weren't so bad that they permanently stained the franchise. Capcom has been dropping back-to-back survival horror bangers for almost 10 years at this point, and Zach Cregger's awesome Resident Evil movie proves the brand is healthier than ever on the film side, too. I'd say that more than makes up for a couple of so-so action games from 20 years ago, whether or not Code Veronica had anything to do with them.

Resident Evil 7 dev says a lot of the horror game's flaws were "vividly present" during development – "and roundly ignored"

As a huge fan of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, I found Resident Evil 7 appealed to me on a carnal level. The fact that it was a course correction from the glossy, over-the-top theatrics of its predecessor helped too. According to a producer on the sequel, we can thank The Last of Us for the indirect inspiration.

Over on BlueSky, Miguel Corti, a former senior manager of global production at Capcom, went long on the circumstances leading up to the seventh mainline entry of the storied series. "It may surprise you to learn that the originally planned Resident Evil 7 went through a few iterations," he writes.

"Instead of taking cues from Call of Duty, they were all coming from The Last of Us, with even a mandate to focus on narrative, since that seemed like the only rationale to make a single-player game anymore," he adds.

It may surprise you to learn that the originally planned RE7 went through a few iterations. Instead of taking cues from CoD, they were all coming from The Last of Us, with even a mandate to focus on narrative, since that seemed like the only rationale to make a single-player game anymore.

— @miguel-corti.bsky.social (@miguel-corti.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-10-19T16:42:32.632Z

He mentions Call of Duty because the FPS franchise's zombies mode had grown a formidable community by the early 2010s, making it a worthwhile touchstone for what people want from experiences involving the undead. However, Naughty Dog's dystopian parable very much absorbed a lot of that attention once it arrived.

The fact The Last of Us was both a commercial and critical darling was deeply appealing to the team on the ground, even though execs were happy with how Resident Evil 6 performed. "The devs wanted the critical acclaim other games were garnering, especially since many of them were obviously influenced by Resident Evil," Corti says. "So, Resident Evil 7, not only would it be narrative-driven, it would have even more lore connections."

The general approach of 6 was messy - it featured multiple characters, in a confusing story that didn't make clear additions to the mythology. 7 went through many iterations, but, in my view, wound up cleaner, more dialed in, and, to be frank, scarier, making it a win all around.

Sales were lower than The Last of Us, but most games come up short compared to Joel and Ellie's journey across the cordyceps-torn US. Resident Evil 7 re-invigorated the community, leading to 8 and this year's Requiem, and making 6 seem like a distant memory.

Resident Evil 7 dev says a lot of the horror game's flaws were "vividly present" during development – "and roundly ignored"

PATCH NOTES v19.10.2026 – As the latest Resident Evil film gets turned back into a video game and early Edgerunners 2 reviews suggest great things ahead, video game worlds have become the stars of the best adaptations – and it's a blueprint for the future.

What's going on this week in gaming?

• Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 reviews are in and largely positive.
• Zack Cregger's acclaimed Resident Evil movie has come full circle after a fan turned it into a classic PS1 survival horror game.

Why is this happening now?

• Game adaptations are more successful when they build on the source game's universes instead of delivering exact retellings.

Meta Shift

• Edgerunners 2 and Resident Evil prove that game worlds, not characters, offer the best opportunities for adaptation.

Turning a beloved video game into a film or TV show has always been challenging, but Zach Cregger's Resident Evil and Edgerunners season 2 proves it can be done if the respect is mutual. By taking the respective circumstances or settings of the source material – Cyberpunk 2077's Night City and Resident Evil's Raccoon City – and shaping them around new characters, both adaptations retain the spirit of the games while telling a new story.

It's a departure from what we usually see when we think of a game being adapted into a show or film. 2026's Return to Silent Hill beat-for-beat rehashes legendary survival horror game Silent Hill 2, but its 18% score on Rotten Tomatoes proves something was lost in translation. Paul W.S Anderson's slew of Resident Evil spin-off flicks acquired cult status for how famously silly they are, though lined up with more recent adaptations like Return to Raccoon City, are looked back on more kindly these days. The Witcher TV series saw moderate success due to actor Henry Cavill's genuine love of the games and book series, but audiences have been divided since his departure from his role as Geralt of Rivia.

A large part of this is down to audience expectation versus reality. Video games bring us some of the most powerful characters in entertainment, and we get to know them through a specific lens and perspective. Recasting those characters and giving them new faces, voices, or storylines as they cross over to new mediums is tricky because there is already something to compare it to.

The makers of Edgerunners 2 and Resident Evil 2026 understand this. Both feature locations, iconography, and situations that will be familiar to fans of the video games – Edgerunners even features the same HUD players see in Cyberpunk 2077 when calling someone on the holophone – but never to the detriment of new viewers.

Writing new characters into well-defined, preordained worlds also sets firm parameters for the action that can take place there without risking a retcon of canon events as seen in source games. It creates a believable place to tell relevant stories, which has proven a magical combination for Edgerunners and Resident Evil. I hope the directors of the Zelda movie and God of War movie adaptations are taking notes!

Feedback Loop

• The success of Edgerunners and Zack Cregger's Resident Evil reinforces the power of intertextuality.

By writing new stories in familiar worlds, Edgerunners and Resident Evil are adding to a canon universe and have been accepted as a part of it – both by gamers and game developers alike.

To incorporate Edgerunners into the game's own canon, Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red added new items, music, and mission chains that reference characters and events from the anime. Resident Evil was already self-referential, but as a movie about the experience of playing survival horror video games, it now has an extra layer of metatextual irony after being turned back into a PS1-era fixed camera-angled video game. These are just two examples of the different ways games and their adaptations can find confluence with one another when they aren't fighting to breathe the same air. It proves that adapting games into film and TV shows doesn't have to be hard when directors adapt the right things, adding value and layers instead of reshaping what was already there.

Patch Notes summary

Continued hype around the Resident Evil movie and Edgerunners 2's promising reviews are setting a new benchmark for game adaptations in 2026. By understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each medium and avoiding debates around story reinterpretation, these adaptations are proof that game worlds are far more flexible than the characters that inhabit them.

Related stories:

Ex-Capcom producer Miguel Corti says that Resident Evil 7's flaws were apparent during the game's development but were ignored.

In a thread on Bluesky, Corti says "It's great to see this game still generating critical discussion some 10 years later," and that while its flaws stand out compared to the remakes and sequels that followed over the years, he explains, "I can say a lot of the flaws were vividly present at the time, and roundly ignored."

Kicking off a long thread, he says a lot of Resident Evil 7 can be traced back to the critical and fan reception of Resident Evil 6.

"Capcom higher-ups were more than happy with RE6," Corti explains, "but the devs wanted the critical acclaim other games were garnering, especially since many of them were obviously influenced by RE." Notably, The Last of Us, with "a few iterations" taking inspiration from Naughty Dog's title. Corti notes that despite how convoluted the plot of Resident Evil 6 got, the original plan for its sequel was more convoluted nonsense: "It was so all over the place, I lost track of the versions."

Corti notes that a major reorganization at Capcom is how we got the Resident Evil 7 that released: "A mandate came down to redo RE7 from scratch," and, as such, a new dev team and director were attached. One that Corti describes as "very hands-on with the development" was ultimately the one who gave the team the "bombshell of an idea" to make the game first-person. He adds, "A lot of the crazier ideas in RE are just random things that someone on the dev team cottons onto."

While Resident Evil 7 revived the series in the hearts of many, it initially underperformed – at least compared to the panned duo of Resident Evil 5 and 6. Corti notes, "RE fans were confused by it, and non-fans either didn't want to touch horror or weren't sure what to make of it. Capcom was disappointed." And in fact, it was actually "Village and all the memes it generated" that helped the game earn "an RE4-level of reputation."

This prolonged development is also "One of the reasons I'm against genAI in games," Corti notes, saying "If the art director and EP could've had everything they envisioned out the gate, it would have been a terrible game" and that it was the back and forth around the game that made it what it was in the end.

A Resident Evil fan is remaking Zach Cregger's film as a PS1-style survival horror game with fixed camera angles

Resident Evil: The Movie The Game is a fan-made adaptation of Zach Cregger's most recent big screen flick, which itself adapts the iconic survival horror video game series. An adaptation of an adaptation, if you will.

Developer Julian Zamora (chicanogoth on Instagram) recently posted about their Resident Evil fan game "inspired by the new movie," showing off a recognizable scene from the film, this time in video game form.

An early scene from the movie sees Bryan (played by the ever charismatic Austin Abrams) seek refuge in a middle-of-nowhere barn, as he struggles with both a snowstorm and an infected killer dog. Zamora's gameplay clip recreates that scene, with the barn in the background and a dog chasing the player character, though it's clearly earlier days.

Like the classic PS1 Resident Evil games of yesteryear, Zamora's fan game also has fixed camera angles that carefully control what's in (and out) of view. The Movie The Game is currently being built on Godot, and Zamora says they're excited to share more progress very soon.

"I'm still not sure how to do those pre-rendered flat environments from the PS1 days sadly, so yeah, it's giving more [Resident Evil Code Veronica] and I like it," they explain.

Zach Cregger's latest reboot of the Resident Evil film franchise has been a massive box office draw, outgrossing his big horror hit from last year, Weapons. GamesRadar's Resident Evil movie review called it the "best video game movie full stop" and "a horror-comedy to match the best the genre has to offer." No wonder it's inspiring fan-made remakes.

Hideo Kojima reviews Zach Cregger's Resident Evil: "It reminded me how I felt when I played the first [game]"

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.

Why so many game developers don't want to use generative AI

Resident Evil Veronica is the official title for the long-rumored remake of Resident Evil: Code Veronica.

Announced as part of a very memorable surprise reveal during the Summer Game Fest 2026 showcase, Resident Evil Veronica will bring back the cult classic 2000 release with a modern makeover. With Capcom confirming the upcoming horror game will be arriving in 2027, the developer is setting out to "preserve the essence of the original game", but just like the many excellent Resi remakes we've seen over the years, you can expect shiny new and improved graphics, plenty of gameplay enhancements, and more.

There's a lot of excitement surrounding the new game, with the remake quickly racking up two million Steam wishlists within a month of its reveal. That's not so surprising given Capcom's winning streak in 2026, with its new sci-fi IP Pragmata and Resident Evil Requiem, which has already earned its place (along with many other Resi games) as one of the best survival horror games around right now. So whether you can hardly wait to join Claire and Chris Redfield or you're curious to learn more about their sibling team-up, read on as I break down everything you need to know about Resident Evil Veronica.

Resident Evil Veronica release date speculation

The Resident Evil Veronica release date is currently set for sometime in 2027.

The surprise announcement of Code Veronica's return came with the news of the 2027 launch window, but we're still awaiting an exact release date to be confirmed. The line-up of upcoming games dropping in early 2027 is already quite stacked, with the likes of Stranger Than Heaven, Fable, and Exodus, and more all releasing within the first four months of the year.

I'm curious to see if Resident Evil Veronica will add another release to a very busy period, but it would be fitting if it was released later in 2027 for the spooky season. I'll be keeping an eye out for updates from Capcom.

Resident Evil Veronica platforms confirmed

Capcom confirmed the Resident Evil Veronica platforms in the initial reveal trailer, with the remake set to land on PC, PS5, Switch 2, and Xbox Series X.

With lots of Resi goodness landing on the Switch 2 in 2026, it's great to see Veronica complete the set and join the likes of Resident Evil 2 Remake, Resident Evil 3 Remake, and Resident Evil 4 Remake along with Resident Evil 7, Resident Evil Village, and Requiem. Better still, it appears Veronica will be launching on all platforms simultaneously in 2027.

Resident Evil Veronica trailer

Resident Evil Veronica story

Resident Evil Veronica's story is set to be something of a reimagining of the original game's storyline that promises to deliver a "chilling new entry in survival horror".

Claire Redfield, who appeared in Resident Evil 2 Remake alongside Leon Kennedy, is one of two leading protagonists, with Veronica taking place three months after the biological disaster she survived her way through in Raccoon City. As we see a nod to in the initial reveal trailer when the older woman says, "I hate to say, but your brother is, well, quite odd", Claire has traveled to France in search of her sibling, Chris Redfield. But things take a turn when Umbrella steps in (those dastardly fiends!).

Umbrella captures Claire and brings her to the mysterious, remote Rockfort Island. And because she can't get a moment's peace, this island has also been hit by another biological disaster. With no cozy family reunion on the cards, Claire now finds herself in another fight for survival in classic Resi fashion.

The original game became something of a cult classic for some of its goofier aspects and memorable moments, of which fans have been fondly remembering since the remake was officially confirmed. It also features Resident Evil 1 and 5 baddie Albert Wesker back in his evil villain throne for one of the most iconic instalments in the franchise.

With a Wesker clone named Zeno having appeared in Resident Evil Requiem, I have a feeling Capcom is building out the connective tissue between Code Veronica, as the most popular among the Resident Evil spin-offs, and Resident Evil 5 – which could well be the next mainline Resi game to get the remake treatment.

Either way, it's clear that Capcom is aiming to keep the essence of the Code Veronica alive, and I can't wait to see how they bring this story into the modern era and put a fresh spin on it.

Resident Evil Veronica gameplay

Resident Evil Veronica's gameplay will be modernized to bring it in line with some of the latest Resident Evil games in the series. While we've yet to see any gameplay in action, or see what changes it will include, we expect it to be like other remakes in the Resident Evil timeline, with all of the survival horror goodness that comes with.

And while the reveal trailer was in first-person to keep us guessing, a producer has confirmed Veronica will be a third-person experience.

In the original, which was broken up into chapters, there were more playable characters during certain sections. While Claire still took center stage for the most part, there was also Steve Burnside, a prisoner on Rockfort Island, and Chris Redfield, who we haven't seen since Resident Evil Village. We're guessing this will once again be the case in Resident Evil Veronica.

For more Resi goodness, check out our ranking of the best Resident Evil games, or explore the Resident Evil movie.

If you haven't seen Chandler Rigg's Resident Evil 7 short film, you absolutely should fix that as soon as possible (embed below if you so choose). Whether or not you're a fan of the game it's based on, the fan film is a pulse-pounding 20-minute romp adapting one of the most intense scenes in an extremely scary game: Ethan Winter's gruesome struggle with the terrifying Jack Baker. We already knew Riggs could act thanks to his eight season run as Carl from The Walking Dead, but now we know he's also a talented horror director, perfectly capturing the relentlessly dreadful tone of Resident Evil 7 while adding a more action-adjacent flair. It's also jam-packed with subtle and not-so-subtle references to the game it's adapting, which is a treat for fans of the series.

Anyway, you don't have to take my word for it, as the short film has earned itself the single-highest honor a Resident Evil movie can get. As captured by Genki on Twitter (and verified by yours truly), Koshi Nakanishi, the acclaimed director behind both Resident Evil 7 and this year's Resident Evil Requiem, shared his reaction to Rigg's film on his personal Instagram account. In a clear supportive gesture, Nakanishi shared a screenshot of the movie's YouTube thumbnail with a colorful banner reading "Wow" with two hands drawing a rainbow in-between them.

Obviously, it's not the most detailed review, but Nakanishi was clearly, well, wowed by Riggs' work. I've long said that Resident Evil 7 is the scariest game in the series, and I don't think that's changed with Resident Evil Requiem. In fact, Resident Evil 7 is quite possibly the scariest game I've ever played, especially in VR when it becomes frankly unbearable. To get such an explicit seal of approval from the person behind such an iconic horror game must feel like a potential catalyst for a long and successful career in horror filmmaking, which seems like a pretty natural next step for Riggs.

Hideo Kojima reviews Zach Cregger's Resident Evil: "It reminded me how I felt when I played the first [game]"

Dead Space creator Glen Schofield's 2022 survival horror game The Callisto Protocol might have been met with lukewarm reviews, but the director says this came after he was "forced to ship the game" three months earlier than expected, prompting him and the other devs to release a whopping 86 patches after launch.

In a new interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Schofield discusses The Callisto Protocol's troubled development, noting that the devs at Striking Distance Studios had been working on the game for around six months when the COVID-19 pandemic kicked off, which was "a real pain in the ass," to put it lightly.

As well as struggling with remote work – with Zoom meetings replacing the ability to speak to devs face to face in the studio – there were also apparently some management issues with publisher Krafton. Specifically, Schofield alleges, he'd previously been promised three extra months to work on The Callisto Protocol to make up for the disruption that COVID had caused, which would have seen the game launch in March 2023. However, it's claimed that the publisher then decided it wanted it to launch in December 2022 regardless.

"I was forced to ship the game. I'm mad at myself, there's no doubt. I was so stunned by that decision, because we had fucking COVID," he states. "A million people died in America. I lost one of my best friends. Every single month, four to six people in my company were getting sick. There were times our small team in Spain was shut down; it goes through a small place like that and you lose your rendering team for a while. The main thing you're concerned about, not that you aren't normally, is the health of your team. Making a game just became secondary because this is about life. This is about humanity."

As you'd imagine, all this saw parts of The Callisto Protocol change from what Schofield originally had in mind, with certain levels, bosses, and enemies removed from the game altogether.

And, alas, The Callisto Protocol wasn't the success that Striking Distance Studios or Krafton were hoping it would be. "They thought Callisto was a complete failure," Schofield says of Krafton. "What they didn't know while all they were doing was complaining, we were doing patches. I waited until I finished all the DLC and put out 86 patches. That was a lot of fucking work. Every day you're going in, you're making changes. Some are little, others are massive. That was all to get it back to where it needed to be."

After all that, it's not exactly a shock that Krafton wasn't interested in a Callisto Protocol sequel, either. Schofield says it would have been a bigger game – about a whole plague rather than an outbreak – set in a "giant junkyard" of spacecraft docked in a massive space station. "We had a lot of drawings and a lot of some of the stuff that didn't get in the first game was going to be in this one," he reveals. Unfortunately, it seems we'll probably never see this vision brought to life.

While you're here, be sure to take a look at our roundup of new games coming this year and beyond.

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.

These are the best Silent Hill games of all time.

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.

Explore all of the upcoming horror games we're dying to see this Halloween... and beyond

I haven't had this much fun waking up in a strange diner and fighting for my life since Fahrenheit. Silver Pines wears its influences on its traditional detective coat sleeve, and that's by no means a bad thing. It fuses together the elements it's taking from each masterfully, resulting in a survival horror Metroidvania that is powerfully gripping from start to finish as Detective Walker investigates a strange, forgotten, and abandoned town on the trail of a missing musician.

Beautiful painterly visuals contrast the grimness of the setting very nicely. As does the relaxing ambient music from jukeboxes or radios that breaks up some of the quietness of exploration. The dreamlike quality combined with nightmarish content invoke a very strong and moody atmosphere that perfectly accompanies its investigative storyline where reality itself comes into question.

Silver lining

Not only does Silver Pines look and sound good, it also feels good thanks to excellent pacing across both its narrative and with how you progress through its haunting, dense world.

Unlocking new items allows Walker to traverse new areas of the detailed map, making it exciting to revisit past areas to push further into the secret corners of Silver Pines. While inventory juggling and unlocking is vital in the likes of Resident Evil as well with its many, many keys, Silver Pines bridges that gap to feel more Metroidvania shaped in how the map unfurls and you keep feeling like you're pushing at the space's boundaries.

This system interplays spectacularly with the inventory management in how tools have multiple uses. The crowbar, which can pull down wooden panels, is a lot more versatile than the box cutter, but naturally takes up more space. It does at least double as a melee weapon though, so it doesn't feel like wasted item slots to be taking it everywhere with you. The manhole cover key, on the other hand, is a little more of a nuisance. Where key items in Resi frequently get used up, they stick around far more often in Silver Pines.

You can combine items, find upgrades for your guns so they take up less space, and often leave key components in the puzzle you know they're for so you're not left carting them around while you look for the rest. There are also plenty of storage boxes so you can swap out what you need or think you might need (i.e. more guns) so you're always prepared. But you really do have to move, transfer, combine and rotate things in your inventory on a regular basis to optimize what you're carrying. "I'll never run out of empty bottles," I said, and then did and wondered if I could pour my Molotov cocktail all over the floor so I could stuff some herbs into it instead.

Silver Pines' camera system is a wonderful way of making it easier to keep track of mysteries and areas, which builds on the now-beloved mechanic from Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Found a point of interest? Take a quick pic. Silver Pines encourages you to do so while examining objects or coming across key areas on the map, but you can and should use it a lot more of your own volition, as any good detective would.

I take snaps of signs with numbers I want to call. Signs that may hold some secret information on a second glance. The price of cigarettes? Yeah, that could be important. Snap it. You also don't want to find yourself thinking it will be easy to come back to an item when you have the space to pick it up and then wandering the town in a daze searching for it later. Don't be like me. Use your camera plenty.

Little touches like the item vending machine and using the pay phones for both saving and story purposes add an extra layer of shine to an already polished game. Yes, you do have to pay to use the phone, so it's always worth giving the coin slot a good rummage.

Checking in with your client, Mr Jackman, by saving also helps remind you what you're up to when you pick up a save and lets you know when you're on the right track. Even when I'm sure of my path ahead, I'm always curious to hear what Walker's updated report will be. The game is kind enough to sometimes have Jackman call you after particularly big story moments (usually capped off with a boss fight) so there are a few free save opportunities if you're totally short on coins too.

Come Pine with me

Silver Pines is a game that sticks with you. I rolled from one ending right into the next and into the next, trying to scrape together whatever clues I could while finishing off what I needed for them and turning everything over in my mind even while I wasn't playing.

I scoured the map for vents I hadn't opened, ledges I hadn't yet thrown myself off to see what was down there and I usually found something to make it worth my while. I ended up going back and wiping out any last straggler enemies just so the whole town was safe for me to bring up my inventory and pore over my notes at any given time. And because no one wants a Silent Hill-esque monstrosity lurching after them while they're desperately looking for a vending machine.

Really the only problem I have is that Silver Pines can get in its own way with its storytelling. Even with a strong idea of where the story was heading, I was gripped to learn and discover everything I could. It does such a strong job of worldbuilding and creating intrigue into the town as a whole, not just Walker's own objective, that three endings later I still have questions and wild theories that I want more information on.

I'm left here going full Jonathan Frakes in Beyond Belief: What's the importance of the TV shows? Why let me call the Conmag number? What does it all mean?! Everything is so well-choreographed that it feels off for there to be loose ends.

While it's true that great horror keeps mysteries spinning long after you've finished with them, it feels like all the Silver Pines endings I've uncovered (which is all of them) stop just short of arriving in the sweet spot, feeling like I've missed something rather than being truly haunted by forbidden discovery.

As things are, it's a disservice to such an excellent game to be left unsatisfied. Maybe it's about the journey rather than the destination, but I don't feel like the journey is over and honestly I don't want it to be. I'll be messing with my pushpins and red string a while longer, hoping there is more to come, as it's a world I'm not ready to be done with. Perhaps this whole thing is an elaborate ploy to teach me that perfection is unattainable.

Silver Pines was reviewed with PC code via Steam Deck, with a code provided by the publisher.

Check out our best survival horror games ranking for more!

• Heartworm is perfect if you want a throwback to PS1 horror like Silent Hill, Resident Evil, and Clock Tower, but with a modern indie sensibility

Here's the 60-second pitch for why you should play Heartworm this weekend: Haunted by the past, Sam sets out to contact the dead with only a camera at her side. An abandoned house leads her on a path through surreal, liminal spaces haunted by memory, which her camera flash can dispel as she puzzles her way to the heart of a strange cathedral. Retro-style survival horror feels slick to control here with fresh twists like the camera adding to the action, while feeling a love letter to the genre.

Why play it today?

• Heartworm is now out on consoles, bringing its slick take on classic survival horror action to players outside of PC, and it's been a long time coming

Heartworm has finally jumped off the PC to come to all platforms, and publisher DreadXP mean it – coming to PS5, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch 2, but also the older generation as well. A love letter to PS1-era survival horror, plenty of options allow you to decide how hardcore you want that to be, including the choice to go with tank controls or to turn them off.

With a tremendous horror atmosphere, early hours of the game are tense as you explore with just a camera at your side, able to hit the flash to temporarily light some otherwise pitch black spaces. From there, the game opens up across distinct and surreal environments, each area changing up the style of play slightly, and feeling like they nod towards different survival horror games of the past.

There's a Silent Hill 4: The Room vibe to how Sam navigates the strange, liminal realm she's ended up in to explore these vastly different spaces, from tight hallways in suburban houses to a forest full of its own creeping terrors. Rather than being completely lost in recreating classic survival horror, the moments where Heartworm does its own thing shine, with its TV-static unifying aesthetic being striking, as well as the constant use of your camera.

Time commitment:

Heartworm takes about about 4-6 hours to beat depending on how anxious you get about needing to save your game, how long puzzles stump you, and whether you grab every collectible. Each area is clearly delineated as well, meaning there's easy points to take a break.

Play Heartworm if you love:

Skip Heartworm if you want:

One thing to know:

There are a handful moments in Heartworm that can be a bit too referential, with the final act's breadth of environments sometimes nodding quite directly to survival horror classics in a way that can pull me out. Even so, they're not overbearing, and you're not missing anything if they pass you by, either.

A moment you'll remember:

Like the best horror, Heartworm has a fantastic opening as you explore an abandoned house and the tension rises for just when you'll be thrown into danger for the first time. Thanks to the camera flash mechanic allowing brief bursts of light, Heartworm can make the most of some truly dark locations. These become less prominent later, but it makes for a really memorable beginning.

The final verdict:

In my Heartworm horror spotlight when it launched on PC last year I said that "if, like me, you love retro survival horror from the '90s and '00s, you owe it to yourself to make an evening out of this one" and I stand by that. But, I'll also accept if you need to make it a few evenings rather than binge this snappy adventure in one go. In the time since launch, my fondness for this blend of modern ideas with retro concepts has only grown, and I look forward to seeing more from developer Vincent Adinolfi in the future.

So, where can you play it?

Heartworm has just launched across all major platforms: PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch 2, and Nintendo Switch, joining its original PC release. Across them all it's about $15 making this well worth picking up as a budget release.

Have your say:

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For now, it seems we're getting a steady diet of new Resident Evil games alongside remakes of the classic series. But, eventually, Capcom's going to run out of games to remake, right? It seems the publisher is already prepared for this eventuality. In fact, executive producer Jun Takeuchi says the company's been preparing for an eventual "crossover" between these two lineages since Resident Evil Village.

"Currently, 'Resident Evil' operates on a two-pronged approach: the numbered titles allow players to experience the ongoing drama of the series, while the remake series lets them experience the past," Takeuchi says in a Japanese magazine special published for the series' 30th anniversary.

"Eventually, the remake series will catch up to the era of the numbered titles, and the mechanisms for that are already being considered. In fact, preparations for this have been gradually underway since 'Resident Evil Village,' including the appearance of names like Umbrella and Spencer, and the reappearance of Raccoon City in 'Requiem.' This is all in preparation for a crossover."

At least, that's one version of what Takeuchi has to say, as presented by the Resident Evil Wiki. You'll find it translated slightly differently from other sources, whether that's RENEWS on Twitter or a DeepL or Google Translate rendering of the Japanese text. The gist seems to be the same in every case, though – Capcom's been preparing for the remakes to catch up to the newer numbered games, and it's been seeding references to the OG lore in preparation for a future "crossover."

Naturally, some fans are already taking this as confirmation that remakes of Resident Evil 5 and 6 are in development, but you should probably hold back your excitement for now. Given the success of the previous Resident Evil remakes and the fact that Resident Evil Veronica is currently on the way, it's a pretty safe bet that more remakes will follow, but this quote stops several steps shy of actually confirming that.

Personally, I'm much more interested in what this "crossover" is. In a way, Requiem already served as a crossover between old and new Resident Evil games, pulling elements from all the games that had come before into an expansive blend that brought Umbrella Corporation and Raccoon City back to the forefront of the story.

"'Resident Evil RE:2' was a title we decided to make if '7' was successful. The 'Resident Evil' series, which began on PlayStation, didn't have easy access to its early titles at the time, and even if people could play them, they were decades old. So, it also embodies the meaning of 'reboot' and 'response,'" Takeuchi explains, seemingly referring to the "RE" in both "remake" and "Resident Evil."

"You should understand the meaning of the crossover before the 'Resident Evil' series celebrates its 40th anniversary," Takeuchi continues. "Since we're on the subject, let me give you a hint: 'Requiem' isn't just a title chosen for its meaning of 'requiem.' The spelling of Requiem (REQUIEM) contains not only the 'RE (response)' mentioned earlier, but also a 'Q (question).' In other words, this 'Requiem' presents both an 'answer' and a 'question.' I will explain the meaning of that at some point in the future."

I think Takeuchi is saying that we'll see this crossover bear fruit by 2036, though I don't even want to try to start unpacking all this "question" and "answer" business. I believe we can be confident on one count, at least: Capcom definitely wants to give us another decade of Resident Evil.

These are the best Resident Evil games of all time.

Look, I wanted to like End of Abyss; and I did! Sometimes. When everything's going smoothly, it's an atmospheric and excellently-paced survival horror that's harsh but fair. The problem is that when everything isn't going smoothly – which is more often than should be the case, especially in the latter half of the game – it's a pretty good example of what not to do in the genre.

The distant camera and smoky darkness may well put you in mind of Little Nightmares (studio Section 9 is made up of former Tarsier devs), but a better comparison would be classic Resident Evil. Partly this is down to the (great) monster design – many of End of Abyss' creepy horrors wouldn't be out of place for Leon Kennedy and friends to face, with dashes of the sort of abominations that haunt The Last of Us and indeed Little NIghtmares. But, End of Abyss feels built in the Resident Evil mold right down to the gameplay.

Abyss of a problem

Though you can sprint, avoiding the lumbering pace of old-school Resident Evil (the controls are, thankfully, significantly tighter too), one survival horror element End of Abyss channels excellently is teaching you to be wary of, and respect, uncharted territory. There could be an enemy just off screen at any time, and you don't want to run in for a hug. Especially not when most of the beasties can delete a huge dollop of your health with one hit.

Your scanner also serves to reward more careful exploration, but with mixed results. Although it can provide useful info, such as what notes say or which keycard is required for which door, it's nothing that a simple button tap wouldn't achieve faster with equal efficiency. The only unique use it really has is for a bit of classic 'follow power lines through the walls' in order to find door-opening nodes to shoot.

The Resident Evil comparison comes in not just through keycard use, but intentionally imperfect combat against resilient enemies. There are also safe rooms, though saving works differently to the Capcom classics. When you die, you retain any items you picked up, and any opened doors or extended bridges stay as you left them. However, all enemies – apart from bosses and ambush setpieces – respawn. Any expended ammo, however, does not.

Combat while exploring is usually tough, just the right level of awkward, and manageable (make sure you upgrade your weapons, though). Unfortunately, End of Abyss has a nasty habit of cheaply synthesizing challenge by forcing you into a tiny arena. This is especially true of the boss fights, most of which are awful. When facing multiple enemies, this results in silly situations where you're leading monstrosities in circles like a Benny Hill chase, occasionally stopping to take potshots at them until it's over.

Bugs aside – I have a few instances of enemies hitting me through walls, an elevator that doesn't load properly, and a soft lock that loses me progress in the final area – my journey to the end of End of Abyss is frequently marred by small but cumulatively annoying gripes, a different kind of horror to where the game shines. Gloomy environs, for example, contribute to the great atmosphere, but it does mean that levers and other objects can sometimes be hard to see. At one point, I completely miss a progress-crucial destructible section of floor because the subtle pale coloring melts out of view.

My greatest nemesis is a radiated area where, without the correct (and missable) suit mod, you take minor but constant damage while exploring. Once I eventually get hold of the mod, I find that it requires four energy points to activate… and my suit only has three! Cue hours of aimless wandering until I finally stumble across what I need – wait for it – deep into the area I need it for. Doubtless I missed at least one of these energy pickups somewhere earlier, but it shouldn't have been possible for me to find myself in that situation. While there's a touch of Metroidvania – I regularly encounter doors and devices before I'm able to make use of them – the fact that there's only one piece of traversal gear to find (a grappling hook) brings me back to Resident Evil as a reference point.

A combination of darkened corners and missable items means that I spend a lot of hours wandering around in this way, and I often yearn for fast travel between safe rooms. It doesn't help that information from the scanner isn't very useful for many doors, cheerily informing me that they're locked without any indication of how I might remedy the situation.

That said, End of Abyss does hold some juicy rewards for those willing (or, in my case, forced) to stray off the main path. Not only crafting materials and snippets of lore, but meaty weapons and entire boss fights that you can otherwise roll credits without seeing. There's even a way (it seems) to soften the difficulty of the final boss by finding certain items scattered across the game, but by then I've had more than enough of running around overfamiliar areas to even consider the idea.

I spend way, way longer than I'd like doing laps of the shuttle system trying to find something to help me progress, and I'm not a huge fan of the fact that, if you run out of crafting materials for ammo by repeatedly failing a boss fight, the only way to get more is to revisit areas you've already rinsed to kill enemies you've already killed. It was bad back when Bloodborne did it, and it hasn't suddenly become good now.

However, there are enough sprints of enjoyment between the swamps of frustration to just about hold End of Abyss together. There's lots to enjoy if you live for immersing yourself in a complex environment to explore backwards and forwards with little consideration of plot; but if you're after something where you can follow the story path with relative ease, expect to make plentiful use of guides.

End of Abyss was reviewed on PS5, with a code provided by the publisher.

This isn't where your gaming journey ends. If you want more like this, check out our best survival horror games ranking, or keep an eye on our upcoming horror games list!

Strange things are happening to a strange game – Abandoned, the survival horror shooter indie studio Blue Box Game first announced in 2021 and initially planned to release that same year, is suddenly back on the PlayStation store after the PS5-exclusive was previously taken down, and then added back, and taken down, and…

Some people think of Abandoned as "The Survival Horror Game That Never Existed," because, well, it doesn't exist. Blue Box delayed the game indefinitely in 2022, saying, "We will continue to work on the game and we will notify you when we are ready." That hasn't happened yet. So, while the game's latest PlayStation store listing carries what should be an intriguing 2027 release window, its game description is still too sparse to inspire new confidence: "Abandoned is a horror survival shooter with the focus on realism."

All Abandoned is really doing by returning to the PlayStation Store is confirming it was not a shared delusion. I can't go any further than that and say it's becoming The Survival Horror Game That May Exist, since the game's history is already defined by so much conspiracy and controversy.

Many people were convinced in 2021 that Abandoned was secretly a Hideo Kojima project, thinking the gray woods and sparse trees that show up in its announcement teaser would fit into a Silent Hill revival by way of Metal Gear, iron-colored realism. Remember, "Abandoned is a horror survival shooter with the focus on realism."

Other theorists in the half-joking subreddit r/TheBlueBoxConspiracy decided Blue Box itself was actually a Death Stranding reference since both Kojima Productions and Blue Box are indie studios, and Death Stranding protagonist Sam sometimes heaves blue boxes, and, one time, Sam dropped a box of oranges (orange box), and the complementary color for an orange box would be a blue box.

"This takes us straight to the Blue Box Studios, the game studios that is widely considered to be just a cover for Kojima's next big project," decides one tin-foil hat owner. "Does it sound crazy? Yeah, maybe. But the sudden Box/Box connection and the Orange/Blue as opposite colors may be too much for a coincidence while talking about such a suspicious topic."

Unfortunately, Blue Box outright denied the connection, and it took a while, but people finally internalized it. That's around when Abandoned started to seem truly… abandoned. Its playable Prologue never materialized. Blue Box stopped using social media, and now its YouTube page doesn't even display Abandoned's existing trailers. People started calling the game a scam, with one Reddit comment from four years ago saying, "It's unbelievable that so many people thought this was Kojima just a year ago. [...]

"The alternative was simply thinking the game was vaporware and/or a scam. And sure enough that's exactly what it was in the end."

So, I don't think Abandoned's vague, new 2027 release window is enough to change this perception. But it's something.

Hideo Kojima's Physint isn't costing Xbox $400 million after all, with new reports suggesting the Metal Gear successor's actual budget is "significantly less."

I had a feeling Zach Cregger's new Resident Evil movie was exactly what the franchise needed, and now data from Alinea Analytics proves it: several Resident Evil games have received a nice sales boost, especially on PS5, after Capcom unleashed some well-timed discounts when the film released this month. While Capcom discounts helped encourage the surge, Resident Evil film lead Austin Abrams' screaming face sweetened the deal.

Alinea head of market analysis Rhys Elliott explains in a September 25 Substack post, Cregger's perfectly obscene Resident Evil movie about a medical courier (Abrams) stupidly getting stuck in Raccoon City after dark had "the biggest opening in the 24-year history of Resi films." It's also the most successful video game movie yet with 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, and its biohazardous blockbuster effect is spreading to the Resident Evil 2, 3, and 4 remakes.

When ignoring Capcom's franchise-wide discounts, data suggests Cregger's movie directly influenced a 64% and 54% uptick in PS5 sales for RE2 and RE4, respectively.

"On Steam, the same movie effect is a much milder +11% to +14%," says Elliott.

In terms of pure player count, which would also include people who own the game jumping back in after the movie's release, "Resident Evil 2's remake jumped +48%" in daily players across PlayStation, Xbox, and PC, says Elliott, as the game went from about 78,000 daily active users to nearly 116,000. Its price was chopped into bits, from $39.99 to lucky $7.99.

Cregger told GamesRadar+ his Resident Evil movie – which doesn't feature any characters from the games – unfolds "on the periphery" of Resident Evil 2's t-Virus outbreak, so it also makes sense that Resident Evil 2 benefits from it most. The 2019 remake's sales "nearly doubled on PS5," Elliott adds.

Meanwhile, Resident Evil 3 remake's daily players are up 25%, and Resident Evil 4 remake's player count lifted 24%. The new Resident Evil Requiem got a tinier bump with only a 20% daily player increase after Cregger's movie and Capcom discounts, but it didn't necessarily need the help – Elliott says, "Revenue-wise, [Requiem is] outpacing every other game in the franchise and will certainly leapfrog the Resident Evil 4 remake's $600M+ when all is said and done."

"Almost all the copy movement was on PlayStation," Elliott reminds us. Resident Evil players don't care about their Steam points, or maybe it's just that the franchise has been associated with PlayStation since its macabre beginning in 1998. But now that the Resident Evil franchise finally has a film that made me laugh and white-knuckle my popcorn bucket with equal intensity, there's no telling where it goes next.

Resident Evil has some other movie gems – just see our list of the best Resident Evil movies ranked.

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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Resident Evil is already available to pre-order on Blu-ray, which are words I love to type as a horror movie fan. It's still in movie theatres the world over, and I've not even had the chance to drag my frightened fiancé to see it. But physical copies are now available, should you want to avoid the horrors of a loud and phone-lit theatre screening.

Starting from $36.99 at Amazon, you can secure your copy of the 4K release, a standard Blu-ray, or even a DVD copy. Amazon US and UK have all three versions available, though I'd recommend sticking with the 4K release if you've got a PS5 or compatible player around. While its extras have yet to be confirmed, it includes a digital copy of the film, and the Walmart listing reveals a swanky limited edition steelbook, which is sure to look the part amongst any horror movie collection.

As a warning, this itchy tasty release has yet to receive an official release date or have its final look confirmed. While the live Walmart listing shows off Bryan running through the snowy and bloody streets of Raccoon City, the Amazon listing is different, so just be prepared for any changes going forward and availability of the steelbook to differ from retailer to retailer. As 4K Blu-ray releases have a tendency to sell out, I personally pre-ordered it regardless, and I've included the best places for you to do the same for both the 4K and standard Blu-ray copy down below.

Are you building a physical movie collection? Check out our Spider-Man Brand New Day Blu-ray pre-order page and our thoughts on the Rings of Power Seasons 1 and 2 4K Blu-ray while you're here.

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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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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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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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!

With a new movie now out in the wild I've decided that it is time to rank all the best Resident Evil movies. That's right, from Milla Jovovich's outing as Alice in Paul W. S. Anderson's movies to all the reboots set in Raccoon City (including Zach Cregger's new Resident Evil flick), you'll find all eight T-Virus-inflicted films ordered from worst to most entertaining right here.

But before you dive into this ranking, first a disclaimer: even as a massive fan of these flicks and of the Resident Evil games, I will say that these aren't masterpieces in the traditional sense. I've seen every single Resi movie and can honestly tell you that only a few are coherent. Most only reference the best Resident Evil games, and none adapt them faithfully. However, they are a ton of fun, and at this point, iconic in the realm of video game movies in general. Whenever I'm looking for a B-Movie that I know is going to be wild and action heavy I still go back to the Resident Evil movies, and still recommend them (well, at least some) wholeheartedly.

So, if you want to take a trip down memory lane or want your Umbrella Corporation fix while avoiding the truly bad zombies of the bunch, then read on to find out what I believe are the best Resident Evil movies to watch right now and what are the worst. And if you are also a massive fan, let me know your personal rankings in the comment section below.

The best Resident Evil movies, ranked from worst to best

8. Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City

Year: 2021
Director: Johannes Roberts

Before the 2026 Resident Evil movie, in 2021, they tried to reboot the Resi franchise with Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City. Now, I will say that there are a lot of game tidbits added in this movie as it draws on the first and second Capcom games. But, even with zombies and iconic characters trying to survive, it's for the most part pretty boring and just not that scary.

The script feels painfully generic, the characters' dialogue is corny, and even when you spot scenes from the game, instead of being excited, I was often disappointed because the games simply did it so much better. Also, as a Leon S. Kennedy fangirl, I will admit I have a bias against the film because of its portrayal of the agent. Seeing a version of Leon who is supposedly an incompetent cop, paired with bad CGI and a surprising lack of pacing and stakes, cements Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City as the worst Resi movie to date.

7. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter

Year: 2017
Director: Paul W. S. Anderson

The final Paul W. S. Anderson Resident Evil movie wraps up Alice's story and is the director's worst one. The story has pretty much been abandoned at this point, and instead the film is filled with action scenes and an eyebrow-raising amount of jump scares that, because of their frequency, become annoying instead of scary very quickly. I will also say that if you get motion sick easily, this isn't going to be the Resident Evil movie for you since its editing is wild and so frantic you can't tell what is going on at times.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter is full of Easter eggs and fan service, but another reason why it's ranked so low on my list is that it completely takes the wind out of the ending of Retribution. We were set to see the fight to protect the White House, and the movie opens up with it already having happened off-screen…great. All in all, it's not fun enough to indulge in, and as a send-off to the franchise, it just underdelivers.

6. Resident Evil: Retribution

Year: 2012
Director: Paul W. S. Anderson

Resident Evil: Retribution's story is again another mess; however, it is at least very wacky and a lot more enjoyable than its successor, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. My main issue with this film is that the characters lack clear goals beyond simply trying to survive, and after four movies, that simply feels overdone at this point. Sure, there are also some clone storylines going on, but that isn't really explored in any kind of depth either.

However, despite my gripes, I have to give praise to some great choreographed action scenes here that really make Milla Jovovich shine. Also, I personally love the Umbrella Corporation training facility moments in terms of striking visuals and memorable action set pieces we get in the entire franchise. Also, its opening sequence is one of the most successful and original moments in the films. Still, I can't in good faith rank it higher because there really is no story structure here, and at some points it's even incomprehensible.

5. Resident Evil: Apocalypse

Year: 2004
Director: Alexander Witt

Resident Evil: Apocalypse is personally my favorite Resident Evil movie and has become a cult classic and fan favorite film in recent years. It does technically suffer from the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score out of all the films, but that was a case of bad timing since we only had the first film to judge it by. In retrospect, it is miles better and more enjoyable than the majority of its predecessors by an undead landslide.

Structurally, it is the most successful sequel as its story (while generic) actually makes sense. It also introduces Jill Valentine and Nemesis for game fans. Jill is one of the most charismatic characters in the franchise by far, and from the moment we see Nemesis firing a mini machine gun, we know we are in for a good time. Resident Evil: Apocalypse is wacky, and it takes big, smile-inducing action swings. If you are after just a silly good time in Raccoon City, I highly recommend this one. But be warned, you aren't going to get a narrative masterpiece here either.

4. Resident Evil: Extinction

Year: 2007
Director: Russell Mulcahy

OK, so firstly let's get one thing out of the way: Resident Evil: Extinction has some very clear Mad Max vibes going on with its Mojave Desert setting, and seems to be channeling Day of the Dead more than Resident Evil. However, it also has some amazing action scenes, choreography, and features the Tyrant from the games, so you have to give it credit. It is also one of the few Resi movies that really manage to capture the B-movie charm that makes these fun at the end of the day.

The movie's script is still a mess; the characters (especially the game characters) are disappointingly hollow and generic, but all the creative kills and fights make this movie feel punchy by the time the credits start to roll. It is silly, but it isn't boring, and Alice really shines as a character in this flick. It's a great reminder as to why Milla Jovovich was chosen as the face of the series; she has the charisma and skills of an action hero in spades.

3. Resident Evil: Afterlife

Year: 2010
Director: Paul W. S. Anderson

Out of all the Resident Evil movies, Resident Evil: Afterlife feels the most like a traditional zombie movie as we follow Alice still navigating a wasteland of a world following Extinction, so it has a special place in my heart. While it does suffer from the same plot issues as the rest of the flicks in this franchise, it does manage to capture that feeling of dread that will keep your eyes hooked on the screen. This is largely thanks to some amazing fight sequences that are the best in the franchise and keep you on your toes.

Now I will say, the reason why Afterlife is ranked so high here is because of how entertaining it is. Similarly to Apocalypse, it gives enough for action movie fans to love and enough game tidbits for Resi fans to gush over as well. Albert Wesker is the best version of himself in this movie, with Shawn Roberts giving us the most dedicated and gleeful rendition of the baddie to date. If you are a game fan, witnessing Wesker in this flick is a must; trust me.

2. Resident Evil

Year: 2002
Director: Paul W. S. Anderson

The movie that started it all, the 2002 Resident Evil movie, at this point is a pop culture icon and still the most enjoyable of all the Paul W. S. Anderson-directed films in the franchise. This is also the only Resi movie (apart from the new 2026 reboot) that is a horror movie first and an action flick second, as its setting of the underground facility called the Hive successfully builds up feelings of dread and the sense that something will pop out to attack our heroes at any moment.

It's a lot smaller and more contained than the sequels, but that is what makes it work so well, as the feeling of claustrophobia adds to the terror. It also captures what we all love about the Resident Evil games: feeling constantly on edge whenever you walk into a confined space, not knowing what bizarre mutant will jump out of the shadows. Alice is also at her most interesting in this film, with Milla Jovovich giving a great performance. And, lastly, that laser corridor death scene is still one of the best kills in cinema, so gotta show some respect.

1. Resident Evil (2026)

Year: 2026
Director: Zach Cregger

The latest Resident Evil movie is also the very best (as we mentioned in our Resident Evil movie review). Director Zach Cregger (Weapons) is a self-proclaimed Resident Evil superfan, and despite the controversial absence of game characters like Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield, Cregger's back-to-basics survival horror reboot is a more authentic Resident Evil experience than any previous installment, as hapless hero Bryan encounters all manner of horrid, T-Virus-infected creatures across Raccoon City. Best of all, it's a taut, unrelenting 95-minute thrill-ride that's paced to perfection.

Prioritizing horror over action, it's a movie that wants you to feel the tension and fear of pressing ahead with only three bullets in the clip, as the groan of some unseen BOW echoes from the shadows. It's also very funny; Bryan is hopelessly out of his depth and spends as much time screaming as he does shooting. Cregger incorporates the language of the games in some cool ways too: the camera frequently flips between a third and first-person perspective, Bryan is constantly coming up against environmental obstacles like padlocks and treacherous ledges that need to be shimmied across, and, of course, it all builds to a climax in a sterile white Umbrella lab. Cregger gets it.

Zach Cregger's Resident Evil movie is currently out in cinemas. If you want more spooky fun, be sure to check out our list of the best horror movies of all time and the best zombie movies to watch today.

Across a quarter century and seven live-action movies, Resident Evil has had a rough ride on the big screen. While the Capcom-developed video game series has gone from strength to strength since its 2017 revival, the live-action movies have always been, at best, guilty pleasures and, at worst, affronts to the cherished survival-horror series. Turns out eighth time's a charm, as despite much pre-release griping over the absence of iconic game characters like Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield, director Zach Cregger's Resident Evil isn't just the best Resi movie by a distance; it's the best video game movie full stop.

Cregger is a self-proclaimed Resident Evil superfan, and among the most exciting filmmakers working today following his arresting debut Barbarian and horror sensation Weapons – a film so undeniable even the horror-averse Academy recognized it with an Oscar for Amy Madigan's Gladys. Cregger's first foray into franchise filmmaking is just as singular and fuelled by invention as his original work, telling a new story in a recognizable world that feels wholly authentic to the spirit and ethos of the games. It's among the more invigorating pieces of IP moviemaking in recent memory, and the first to accurately translate the immersive feeling of playing video games to film.

Clocking in at a refreshingly taut and unrelenting 95 minutes, Resident Evil is stripped back to the point its plot beats could be sketched out on a coaster. Austin Abrams' Bryan is a medical courier about to clock off when he's hired to transport a mysterious biological cargo from the sticks to Raccoon City General Hospital. Unfortunately for Bryan, this happens to be the night of the Raccoon City incident, during which the Umbrella Corporation's DNA-altering t-Virus transforms the population of the city into your garden-variety living dead, and even gnarlier BOWs (Bio-Organic Weapons), which Bryan has to haphazardly fight his way through en route to his final destination.

Don't hate the player

Cregger's movie may take place in parallel with Resident Evil 2, but don't expect any crossover with the games; it's better to think of the movie as a separate and distinct Raccoon City story that is simultaneously taking place on the fringes of what happens to be going on elsewhere in the city. Neither is it totally consistent with established Resi lore: some BOWs exhibit traits of the Las Plagas parasite, for example, which doesn't show up till Resident Evil 4, and the precise way the t-Virus escapes the lab contradicts what we know.

Does any of this matter? Not in the slightest. What matters is that Cregger understands far better than previous stewards of Resident Evil on screen what makes the series tick. Gone is the daft post-Matrix gun-fu; here it's replaced by bullet-counting, resource-scrounging and cautious tiptoeing around dark corners.

Cregger also incorporates the grammar of video games in subtle but effective ways: the camera is frequently hovering over Bryan's shoulder in third-person fashion, he 'upgrades' his firearms across the night, and is constantly coming up against familiar obstacles, like padlocked gates and treacherous ledges that need to be shimmied across.

Bryan, in fact, is a very different protagonist for Resident Evil. While the movies (in Alice) and the games (in Leon, Chris, Claire, and co.) have typically featured very capable leads who take out the undead with ease, Bryan is a doofus with commitment issues whose only experience shooting guns is, amusingly, in video games. This makes every encounter a major life-or-death situation, the movie ramping up the peril with some devilishly effective jump scares and gloriously horrid creature design.

It's scary, no question, but marketing materials to date have majorly undersold how funny Resident Evil is. Despite stripping out many of the jokes after test screening audiences reacted negatively, Resident Evil remains a no-bones horror-comedy where the extremity of the situations Bryan finds himself in elicits nervous laughs and screams in equal measure.

A standout among the Weapons ensemble as addict James, Abrams is at the center of every frame here. The character and performance are reminiscent of Bruce Campbell's slapstick Ash in Evil Dead II, mixing out-of-his-depth everyman with a Wile E. Coyote-style streak of bad luck as the ill-equipped-for-action Bryan screams, panics, and dissociates his way through one hellishly terrible situation after another.

The running joke of the film is that if something can go wrong for poor Bryan, it does, and Cregger seems to take endless pleasure in tormenting his unlikely lead. It can teeter on sadistic, with gruesome moments involving both mutated children and even babies. Somehow, it never feels exploitative. Instead, it adds to the outrageously gonzo, anything-goes nightmare of it all.

Undead nightmare

There are a handful of supporting characters – Paul Walter Hauser, Kali Reis, and Zach Cherry all pop up – but their appearances are so fleeting they barely register as Bryan is pursued across Raccoon City, Nemesis-style, by a relentless multi-limbed monstrosity. It's a movie that doesn't stop for a moment; even the cursory (and mercifully brief) mid-movie exposition dump is delivered on the move. The Fury Road comparisons are apt: Resident Evil is paced to perfection, moving from one environment and grisly encounter to the next at a thrilling clip.

There are some deleterious consequences to this approach. Character development and plot are so bare-bones they're practically non-existent, and don't even think about trying to identify themes. Before it all kicks off, Bryan reacts indecisively to a call from his girlfriend that she may be pregnant, and this regret weighs on him as the film goes on. But this exact character motivation was utilized far more effectively mere months ago in Exit 8, another video game adaptation.

Clearly, Cregger's priority here is experiential. Resident Evil is a gloriously gnarly film. Heads explode (in more ways than one), distended stomachs erupt with rats, and there's a very memorable evolution of the way the t-Virus operates that will no doubt irk die-hard fans. Some may question the choice not to utilize the many iconic creatures we know are roaming the streets of Raccoon City at this time, but Cregger is far more interested in putting his own twist on the world than creating a live-action facsimile. It's arguably the smartest way to approach an adaptation like this when a Last of Us-style faithful rendering doesn't make sense.

Resident Evil might not match Barbarian or Weapons for sheer formal inventiveness, and perhaps won't live as long in the memory as a result. Nor is it likely to replicate Weapons' Awards-season-crashing success. But unless you're a stickler who can't live with the idea of Cregger failing to adhere to the letter of Resident Evil lore, it's hard to imagine anyone with a tolerance for the grisly not having a blast watching this. After 24 years, the big screen finally has a Resident Evil that lives up to the legacy of the games.

Resident Evil releases in theaters on September 18. For more, check out our rankings of the best video game movies, and the best Resident Evil games.

The first reactions to Zach Cregger's Resident Evil movie are in, and they're pretty glowing.

The new take on the iconic game franchise tells the story of Bryan (Austin Abrams), a hospital courier charged with making a delivery to Racoon City General Hospital. However, on his way he gets caught up in a horrifying outbreak, leaving him fighting for his life.

Rather than focussing on game characters, the new take on the IP is set instead on the periphery of Resident Evil 2. According to Cregger, it's more focused on translating the feeling of playing video games than being a direct adaptation. It seems like the risk has paid off based on the movie's first reactions.

Collider's Perri Nemiroff calls it "one of the best video game adaptations I’ve ever seen" She adds that it's "also one of the best horror comedies I've ever seen. Cannot believe how many hilarious beats this movie has without ever diminishing the stakes or sheer terror of the situation."

According to Fandango's Erik Davis, the movie is "less an adaptation of a game and more a movie that makes you feel like you're playing one." He adds: "Don’t get stuck on what is or isn’t in the Resident Evil games. This is a film that takes the spirit of playing those games and runs wild with it."

"Zach Cregger is cookin' with napalm," writes Variety's Courtney Howard. "It's a wild, hilarious, unpredictably bonkers thrill ride from start to finish. Kinetic action leans heavily on demented body horror. Mutant mayhem galore! Austin Abrams is perfect as our doofy, hapless hero."

Film critic Mark Cassidy wrote on Twitter: "#ResidentEvil may not feature recognizable characters/storylines, but by tapping into the relentless tension of the games, Zach Cregger has actually delivered the most faithful take yet."

Check out some more below.

Resident Evil arrives in theaters on September 18. For more, check out our guides to upcoming horror movies and all the upcoming video game adaptations you need to know about.

One of the reasons Leon Kennedy is such a great horror protagonist is that he carries himself with an unshakeable sense of humor despite always being faced with the most unimaginable atrocities. Even after barely escaping the clutches of a giant, mutant alligator with his life, Leon still manages enough levity to quip, "Chew on that, you overgrown son of a" you-know-what.

For me, Leon being an absolute himbo genuinely breaks up the tension I feel while playing a Resident Evil game, and this contrast was put to especially good use in this year's Resident Evil Requiem, which features some of the scariest sequences I've ever experienced in my 30-plus years playing horror games. But as it turns out, some of Leon's funniest lines were actually left on the chopping block, as proven by newly leaked cut voice lines from Requiem and Resident Evil 4 Remake.

Two separate videos, one that lets you hear close to 400 cut voice lines from Resident Evil Requiem, and another with more than 600 cut lines from Resident Evil 4 Remake, were recently posted to YouTube by prominent modder Keff0 (via PC Gamer). As a longtime Resident Evil diehard, it was fascinating hearing all of Leon's bad puns, Grace Ashcroft's panicked breathing, and even lines from less central characters like RE4's Merchant and Requiem's Chef Zombie, that Capcom for whatever reason decided didn't cut the mustard. As for the Leon one-liners, I'm disappointed they were left out, because some of them sound like they could've been genuinely great in the right context.

"Shucks, no time for an encore."

"Someone needs to work on their parallel parking."

"Eight legs, no brains."

"That again? You're a bit of a one-trick spider."

Naturally, longtime Leon actor Nick Apostolides delivers his lines beautifully, but I would love to see the exact scenarios onscreen that would've triggered them. Unfortunately we'll probably never know, and Leon's not the only one with some gems in the vault. I mentioned RE4's Merchant, and he's another that had some lines cut that I would've loved to see in the actual game.

"This'll perk you up," he says in one cut line. "Relax mate – it's not that kind of herb." I think all Resident Evil fans can imagine the exact situation that would've prompted that line, and I can understand why Capcom ultimately decided against including it, but man, what a loss.

"It's important to stay young at 'eart. Especially at times like these," is another line from the Merchant I would've smiled at in the game.

At this point, I feel like I'm spoiling these gems for fans, so I'll leave the rest for you to uncover on your own. There's even a cut line from RE4 Remake that seems to reference Resident Evil Village, which is completely unnecessary but fun nonetheless.

Lies of P director says Resident Evil Requiem is one of the games he enjoyed most this year because Leon is "still as cool and tough as ever."

"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

Creepy Until Dawn 2 will get to be the nightmare after Christmas this year, launching January 28, 2027. Developer Firesprite revealed the date at PlayStation State of Play alongside a new game trailer that makes the anthology sequel look like an episode of Ghost Adventures gone wrong – which, if you're a voyeuristic horror freak like me, is ideal.

The interactive drama game is out 12 years after the Supermassive original about beautiful teens getting their necks snapped on Blackwood Mountain, and it'll carry on some of that game's haunted history with a trip to the nearby Blackwood Sanatorium. The team of unscrupulous YouTubers and fake paranormal investigators Dead True eventually make their way to the abandoned Akishima Island on the other side of the world, where they're confronted with the same tough questions: slit your palm, or a chicken's soft throat?

Fargo actor Peter Stormare will reprise his role as the sinister psychoanalyst Dr. Hill, while Baldur's Gate 3 star Neil Newbon joins the cast as Sebastian, who Until Dawn 2's new pre-order trailer depicts as a cruel network executive. He urges the Dead True team – led by obnoxiously blond host Owen (Stranger Things' Dacre Montgomery) – to turn the fragile supernatural into an on-screen spectacle. This is a path that ends in nosebleeds, cracked jaws, and, shown by the pre-order trailer in fleshy detail, leeches that latch onto Owen's chest like milk-fed babies.

Dispatch developer AdHoc Studio is assisting with production, Firesprite creative director Stu Tilley says in a PlayStation blog, so I'm hoping Until Dawn 2 will have more of the mean sense of humor the disappointing Until Dawn movie left in Supermassive's game.

Supermassive is in a painful spot right now, having recently laid off up to 75 employees in its third round of layoffs in three years, and it's been squeezing out middling dramas since the flabby Dead by Daylight spinoff The Casting of Frank Stone in 2024. Now it's Sony who owns the Until Dawn IP, not Supermassive, but I'm still hoping Until Dawn 2 might help repair the horror studio's reputation by association. I love what it used to be: an expert at crafting tense survival situations that make you yell at your screen and imagine yourself in the survivor's place – imagine yourself as a survivor.

Helpfully, Tilley writes in his blog that AdHoc's contributions make Until Dawn 2 a game "packed with rich characters, razor-sharp dialogue, fraught relationships, tough decisions, and yes… more than a few gruesome deaths. Every choice, every interaction can ripple with dramatic consequences."

Until Dawn 2 could be a real homage to found footage movies like 2018's Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum and 2011's Grave Encounters, which lampoon ghost hunters' half-hearted search for proof with the wry suggestion that people can only handle tragedy if it's entertainment. It's horror that makes me judge and understand myself, and after so many years since the first Until Dawn game from Supermassive, that's still what I want.

Pre-orders begin September 10 and include cosmetics and in-game Dr. Hill bobblehead collectibles to see when you close your eyes.

Until Dawn 2 has sold me with its campy teen slasher vibes, and it proves there's nothing like old-school scares.

Hideki Kamiya, legendary Capcom veteran behind gems including Resident Evil 2, thinks newer games from the studio like Resident Evil Requiem are… too scary?

Yes, indeed, Kamiya finds games like Capcom's more recent Resident Evil entries a tad too spooky for his tastes, as per a recent interview with VGC.

First declaring that "this is not a joke," the Devil May Cry mastermind says he's "being one hundred percent serious when I say that I wish they would make it so that their games can also be enjoyed by people like me, who can't handle scary games at all." And… honestly, I get it.

Look, even Resident Evil 7 director Koshi Nakanishi admitted his game was "possibly too scary" and "some people couldn't handle it" last year (and as somebody who loves the seventh entry, I'd most certainly agree).

Requiem, according to Kamiya, isn't any better. "Just recently this year we had Resident Evil Requiem and the big return of Leon Kennedy, and he went back to Raccoon City… reliving all of those memories and all of those experiences."

He then states that, "As somebody who directed that original game, Resident Evil 2, I was curious to know how that panned out for him." Unfortunately though, the horror-adjacent side of Requiem made that impossible for Kamiya.

"I wanted to experience that myself as a player," as he says, "but the game was way too scary, and I couldn't." So, what's the solution, then, so that all flavors of player can enjoy Capcom's stories? Apparently, a less scary game mode.

"It's not a joke," Kamiya explains. "I legitimately wished it would include some kind of non-horror mode for people like me." He outlines how he's spoken to "folks who are on the Resident Evil teams at Capcom" and admitted as much to the devs.

"I tell them that their games are way too scary, and they're like, 'What, come on, they're not that scary,'" the Resident Evil 2 legend recalls.

Kamiya concludes that the devs "seriously seem to have no awareness of how scary the things they make actually are, so I really hope they address that at some point" – even if that means just making it "so that the zombies' faces aren't so scary."

You know, "Why not have a mode that just puts, like, brown paper bags on all of their heads, or instead of having these dark, dingy rooms everywhere, they could have really pleasant mood lighting" – which I'm not too sure I agree with...

These are horror games, after all, and this isn't the first time he's brought the topic up. Earlier this year, Kamiya said Capcom "should make a 'non-scary' mode" because "look, I just want to enjoy the puzzles."

So, there you have it – Resident Evil has become too frightening for the very folks who helped mark its name amid other survival horror giants.

If you're yet to play it, be sure to check out our Resident Evil Requiem review to find out if it's worth your time, or our Resident Evil Requiem safe codes guide to help you through it.

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 moment within many survival horror games where the player goes from terrorized to terrorizer. From 2019's Resident Evil 2 to last year's Silent Hill f, the process of prey becoming predator is a satisfying transition that refreshes the gameplay experience and improves replayability. Cronos: Lazarus is a DLC seemingly built upon this premise, and the result is an action-focused experience that I'm desperate to dive back into.

Cronos: The New Dawn – Bloober Team's time-bending sci-fi scarefest – puts you in the role of the Traveler, as you explore a desolate Poland, investigating an apocalyptic event, intermittently traveling back to the 1980s to rescue select individuals. As you carve your path, you encounter Orphans, body-horror entities that were once people but now resemble something out of Dead Space.

Stand your ground

Cronos: The New Dawn's base game asks you to think about when to pull the trigger, as ammo is precious and foes are capable of swallowing bullets like a blue whale with a magnet in its ass, meaning the Traveler is a protagonist that's meant to survive the survival horror. Cronos: Lazarus focuses on the second word in the genre name, putting you in the role of the Warden and their delicious arsenal of firearms.

Playing as the Warden at Gamescom 2026, I spend much of my time in a behind-closed-doors build of the Lazarus exploring worn-out halls in the style of the original. Dark corners intimidate while twisted cadavers remind me of the vicious abominations that could catch me off guard at a moment's notice, if I wasn't aware what I'm up against. After all, I'm no stranger to the world of Cronos, so I fancy myself to handle what lies ahead.

So imagine my surprise when Cronos: Lazarus throws gangs of enemies at me all at once. As vile as they are voluminous, I unleash shotgun rounds and handgun pistols with speed and precision, determined to pulverize any and everything that dare charge towards me. It's at this point I forget to incinerate the fallen, with corpses on the ground merging with those that remain in motion to form wretched chimeras. However that doesn't save them from my firepower as I hold my nerve, stand and shoot, albeit the stress of them requiring more ammunition to disintegrate being a lot.

A developer then switches my build over to the demo available to the public at this year's Gamescom, and the momentum only increases from here. Once again playing as the Warden, I pull out my handgun and set about exploring a different but equally depressing area of cataclysm-stricken Poland. Once again I'm outnumbered by grotesque entities, but I'm moving through the crowds and dropping them like they're the opposite of frozen.

It's at this point I'm formally introduced to two of the Warden's abilities: Decoy and Teleport. The former allows me to throw out a holographic replica of the protagonist, distracting enemies while I run by or surprise them with gunshots (I prefer the latter). For larger enemies, this strategy is borderline vital, as they can make up the distance between us quickly no matter how much I keep moving away.

Teleport is less relevant to the combat encounters in this demo, presented as a means to cross gaps when the path is missing or obstructed. It's easy to use at the drop of a hat, so I can imagine there'll be encounters that benefit from its use, but the demo is short and there's only one serious challenge which comes at the very end.

An enormous Orphan, roughly twice the Warden's height, spews acid and runs at me while I spend every bit of ammo in their dome. I begin to wonder if I've misread the situation, as there are no signs of my lead's lethal intent registering. I take a firm strike and go on the run, zig-zagging my way around a relatively tight area.

Nothing presents itself as a better course of action than simply shooting this behemoth more, so that's what I do, sending every shotgun shell I have to get acquainted with its body. Torso, head, anything within range is pelted as the thing finally starts to stagger and wail. With only two shells left, the boss keels over, and the demo ends with a teaser trailer for the DLC, which is yet to have an official release date, but should arrive in 2026.

Cronos: The New Dawn won me over with its ability to induce fear, but Lazaus appeals to the primal, violent-loving side of my horror-soaked brain. Teeming with enemies all begging to be blown away by satisfying weaponry, the Warden is exactly the character I want to play as next in this terrifying world.

Make like Lazarus and rise again for your next scary adventure with our best survival horror games recommendations!

Zach Cregger's Resident Evil movie has been (unfairly) divisive for its creative deviations from Resident Evil canon, and for telling a Resident Evil story without fan-favorite characters like Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield. Nevertheless, it's set to open huge later this month, and could potentially double the opening weekend box office takings of the biggest Resident Evil movie to date.

Early tracking (h/t IGN) has put Resident Evil's opening weekend figure at some $40-50 million in the US. Even at the lower end of predictions, that's far higher than any movie in the Milla Jovovich-starring series, the biggest of which, Resident Evil: Afterlife, opened to $26.6 million in 2010. The most recent Resident Evil movie, Welcome to Raccoon City, opened to just over $5 million in November 2021. Even factoring in that more faithful adaptation's pandemic-era handicap, this is a big improvement.

Cregger's Resident Evil movie seems to be resonating for a few reasons. The fact that it's telling an original story that anyone can jump into is certainly one. Cregger himself is becoming something of an event filmmaker after his original horror-thriller Weapons opened to a massive $43 million last summer. And the self-proclaimed Resident Evil superfan seems to have learnt all the right lessons about video game adaptations, in that he's staying true to the "spirit and tone" of the games (and even the power progression) rather than simply re-telling one of the games' stories on screen.

Even a bumper box office is unlikely to result in more Resident Evil movies from Cregger, however, as the writer-director is set to helm original sci-fi The Flood next. He's also penning Weapons prequel, Gladys, centred on that movie's twiggy witch, and he's reportedly scripting a Siren Head movie for director Brian Duffield. So Cregger is booked for years to come. But given how lucrative adaptations of the Resident Evil series have proven to be over the years (some seven live-action movies and an ill-fated Netflix TV show have been made to date), it's unlikely to be the last.

Resident Evil stars Austin Abrams as a medical courier tasked with transporting biological materials across a zombie-infected Raccoon City. Late last year, we visited the Resident Evil set in Prague, where Cregger, Abrams and the team took us through their full-throttle vision for the movie.

Resident Evil opens on September 18. For more scares, check out our guide to upcoming horror movies and our list of all the new video game adaptations on the way in 2026 and beyond.

Alien: Isolation 2 art director Ana Sopikova has one very simple piece of advice for anyone who might struggle to overcome their fear while playing what's sure to be a terrifying sequel: just crank down the music.

GamesRadar+ sat down with Sopikova during Gamescom 2026, and we asked about Creative Assembly's approach to balancing tension so that players feel appropriately oppressed but not consistently panicked to the point of risking a cardiovascular event. Basically, how scary is too scary? As a horror geek with the unfortunate affliction of being a total wuss, this is important information.

"My advice for all the people who are too scared is just honestly to turn the music down," Sopikova says. "Many people don't realize how much music plays in building that tension. And actually the alien might not even be there, but it's just a dark corridor, and this very low-key scary music is playing, and instantly you're paralyzed, and you just can't move anywhere."

Sopikova says things like music, lighting, and of course gameplay all go into crafting a tense atmosphere that can be dialed up and down as needed to strike a balance somewhere between boring and "on the verge of having a heart attack."

"We don't want players to constantly be on the peak of horror, on the verge of having a heart attack, because then they just get used to it, and it's not scary anymore," says Sopikova. "Obviously, it's a narrative game. There is a story to follow. So you see, we take in all the elements, both visual and audio, how everything comes together, animation, and gameplay, and we're just trying to build that experience with all the different moving parts to really support the peaks and valleys."

Alien: Isolation, along with Resident Evil 7, is one of very few games that I can admit were a little too scary for me at times. As much as I applaud Creative Assembly and Capcom for having the chops to make a seasoned horror veteran as stressed out as I was playing those games, I remember having genuinely unpleasant reactions to certain scenes, to the point where I had to take breaks to catch my breath.

I think Capcom's decision to break up the tension with Grace and Leon chapters in Resident Evil Requiem was brilliant, and I hope Creative Assembly has something in mind for the perpetually anxious in Alien: Isolation 2.

15 years after the first game made horror history, Alien Isolation 2 unleashes a smarter, meaner Xenomorph

"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.

Ashley Graham is unfairly seen as one of the more controversial characters in Resident Evil lore due to some clumsily tuned AI during her escort missions in the original Resident Evil 4. That was all fixed in Resident Evil 4 Remake when she became a much more fleshed out, supportive character.

Admittedly, the 2023 remake also makes Ashley a lot less prone to being captured and restarting your mission, which is nice, but stronger writing and a convincing performance from voice actor Genevieve Buechner help endear her even further. Point is, Ashley Graham doesn't deserve the hate, and she definitely didn't deserve to have her prologue scene from Resident Evil 4 Remake cut during development, but that's reportedly what happened. And now, you can play that prologue mission thanks to a newly released mod.

As spotted by RENews on Twitter, the Chapter 0 Restoration mod (via NexusMods) does precisely what it says on the box: "Restores the cut Chapter 0, a playable prologue as Ashley, seamlessly integrated into the New Game flow as a real chapter that runs before Chapter 1."

According to modder Keff0, Ashley was originally going to be the first playable character in Resident Evil 4 Remake before transitioning to Leon in the infamous village scene, which as an aside is also a lot less punishing than it was in the original game.

"A Chapter 0 existed at some point during development, but it was cut before the game's release: a short prologue played as Ashley, at night, ending in her capture," reads the mod's description.

The modder says the scene takes place on a path that's not in the final release but was dug out of the game files with "most of its details and collision removed." In it, Ashley stumbles upon some murderous cultists whose victim is the woman from the very first cutscene in the official game. Apparently, that cutscene goes back even further, showing a shocked Ashley turning and running, leading into the playable chapter, which ends with her capture.

Going full circle, the only downside to more Resident Evil 4 Remake is having to see Ashley tortured even more than what she's already endured both in the game and in Resident Evil communities everywhere. I'm not even an Ashley stan and never thought I'd say this, but at this point I think we need an Ashley Graham spinoff, or at least her own DLC at some point in the future, but I think it's safe to say that's unlikely to happen in the current timeline. Justice for Ashley.

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.

The Sinking City 2 locker room safe code in the Fish Market has possibly some of the most obscure clues in the game. The main hint is a situational nod that might mean nothing if you read it anywhere else other than where you found it, and you can't even get the clue you need unless you first find and solve the Salt Storage code, which it's linked to. It makes it one of the least satisfying puzzles to solve here, despite the useful reward it hides. I have at least done it for you so you don't have to worry about it. So get the code below, open it, and forget it ever happened.

The Fish Market locker room safe code

The locker room safe code in Sinking City 2 is 1496.

You can use that on its own, without ever having to worry about the obtuse and unclear way it's worked out. However, if you want to know where that number came from then here's what's going on...

There are two notes you can find - the Sacrifice (and Safe!) note found next to the safe itself, and the Surprise in the Safe note you can only get once you've opened up Salt Storage. The two clues they give you are:

• 'The last number can't be 16! It's 6' from Sacrifice (and Safe!)
• 'Possibly the same as the door' from Surprise in the Safe?

While it's not entirely clear, the 'same as the door' bit, which you can only get inside the Salt Storage room once you've cracked that, means it's the same code you used to open that door. That code was I-IV-IX-XVI or 1-4-9-16 and the 'it's not 16 it's 6' changes the last number to fit into the 1-9 range of the safe. So it's not inaccurate information, just a very odd clue that, to me, lacks enough clarity to really lock it down.

Anyway, despite my opinions of it, it's very worth opening the safe as you'll get Pyre's Ocularum, an upgrade for the grenade launcher that deals more damage if multiple enemies are caught in the explosion. That's a very useful thing to have as the monster count starts to ramp up.

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