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

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

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

Welcome to paradise

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

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

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

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

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

Woman's work

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My personal hell

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

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

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

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

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

Happily ever after

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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