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The most dramatic thing about Silent Hill Townfall is its first person perspective. It's the only aspect that has me inching forward in my seat while watching the upcoming horror game's first proper trailer.
Heavy fog creeps through a washed-out, nondescript coastal town called St Amelia – based on a Scottish island, I learn through a 30-minute deep dive. A man cradles a gun, a disembodied woman's voice tells him he "did what he did," there's plenty of hospital imagery, and finally, violent manifestations of his guilt-ridden consciousness swarm him in the streets. It boasts everything that made the best Silent Hill games memorable to begin with. And somehow, that makes Townfall's reveal a bit of a letdown for me.
Déjà vu
Silent Hill f review: The legendary horror series' most unsettling atmosphere and writing to date
I have nothing against Townfall's 1980s Scottish backdrop. On the contrary, I'm glad that Japan-set Silent Hill f kicked off a new trend, challenging the notion that the American town itself needs to be featured or referenced in every series instalment. But Silent Hill f was more than a physical departure from the USA; it elevated my expectations of Silent Hill's style, flair, and artistry going forward.
A huge part of that is its strong visual identity and how intrinsic it is to the game's narrative. Silent Hill f takes place in Japan because it's a story that cannot be told in a generic foggy American town. Silent Hill Townfall's first trailer has me thinking the total opposite – and I'll need some convincing that it had to take the leap across the pond in the first place.
Perhaps it's an unfair comparison. Watch any Silent Hill f trailer, and even if you're unclear on the narrative beats, its setting is immediately recognizable; period-specific buildings, use of Japanese language, intelligent monster design with tangible cultural connotations, even the red spider lilies blossoming from the object of Hinako's horror, all reinforce a coming-of-age story that is inextricable from its time and place.
Silent Hill Townfall has no such distinction – for me, at least. My British colleagues seemed incredulous to the fact that I didn't instinctively recognize the generic cobbled streets, red-white-and-blue bunting which could have belonged to any country whose flags possess those colors, and other apparently obvious signifiers that point to Townfall's Scottish setting. As a British person who grew up in Southeast Asia, I was very confused about how they saw something I’d missed entirely.
Connecting the dots
The artistic intelligence and bravery of Silent Hill f has cast a long shadow over Townfall.
Can you blame me? The protagonist – Simon Ordell, as his hospital bracelet reads – is an American man. A plummy Englishwoman's voiceover is heard at multiple points throughout the trailer, too. If I have to watch thirty minutes of additional lore to get a first sense of place from a game trailer, I have to assume that the setting does not matter at all.
Unless you have an extensive understanding of vaguely British iconography, St Amelia could be anywhere. But Silent Hill, the place, represents that already. It's the everyman setting of survival horror, somewhere that exists perhaps not physically but psychologically. So was there really a need to bring the franchise to Scotland to prove that this meme is correct? And is coastal Scotland really as recognizable as the developer hopes it is outside of the British populace?
It'll take more than a few cobblestones and cups of tea to make Townfall a quintessentially "British" game. Hell, I think Still Wakes the Deep and Atomfall already have this base covered. The potential for a truly spooky Silent Hill incorporating Scottish folklore and history was right there, an opportunity to feed off its location much as Silent Hill f does.
Perhaps that is Screenburn's intention for the final product, but if that is the case, it was lost on me in the trailer. Instead, Townfall looks like Silent Hill distilled to its most obvious parts, with a very naughty boy reminded to have a conscience by a likely dead, imprisoned, or otherwise imperiled woman, who exists as nothing more than a conduit for his punishment or redemption. I sincerely hope I'm wrong, and look forward to being proven so – but so far, the artistic intelligence and bravery of Silent Hill f has cast a long shadow over Townfall.
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