Silent Hill speedrunner smashes through the horror game's hardest difficulty in 4 hours using a dance mat: "Do not ask me for this s*** ever again"

Silent Hill speedruns have ascended to a new level, as one speedrunner has now managed to clear the original game in little over four hours using nothing but a dance mat as a controller. 

Twitch streamer Punchy has played plenty of Silent Hill in the past with a regular controller, even securing a new personal best Any% record of 30 minutes and 20 seconds just last week. However, while this latest challenge took significantly longer, it's easy to see why. Every single controller input – from moving around to aiming and shooting at enemies – were bound to the soft dance mat, and the streamer even decided to take on the survival horror game's hardest difficulty to amp things up even further. 

Perhaps the most important decisions of the whole run were made right at the start – which controls went where. It was determined that aiming and shooting, for example, would use the cross and square buttons placed in two opposite corners of the mat, allowing the streamer to adopt a dramatic diagonal stance when fighting enemies, which looks pretty funny. As you'd expect, even simply moving around took some getting used to, but Punchy was still able to complete the run in four hours, three minutes, and 30 seconds. 

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"The roughest part of that by a country mile was definitely Split Head," the streamer concludes after reaching the ending, referring to the game's first boss fight. "Absolutely fuck that boss. Awful on this setup. Oh, my hips are crying, as you might imagine."

Over on Twitter, although triumphant about the hard-earned victory, Punchy reiterates: "MY HIPS HURT TREMENDOUSLY." The streamer adds: "This is the definitive word on Silent Hill gimmick controller runs, do not ask me for this shit ever again!!!!"

Dance mat controller runs might be some of the funniest and most impressive gaming challenges out there – we've previously seen streamers take on Elden Ring's monstrously difficult bosses using them, which really takes the action-RPG to the next level. Streamer Luality even managed to destroy the notoriously hard Malenia fight using a regular, soft dance mat, which is an absurd feat, but hey, it's one way to keep things interesting even if you've already played the game a ton. 

If you love Silent Hill, be sure to check out our roundup of the best horror games for more spooky experiences.