"You have a dodge, people are like, 'Ah, that's a Soulslike'": Silent Hill f leads "disagree" melee combat makes it a Soulslike, say "the most authentic" way to play is story mode

I like getting my Heather Mason on and slicing through nightmares with a katana, sure, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried to discover in our Silent Hill f preview that the first mainline Silent Hill game in years features "parry-heavy" combat – that's a little too worldly and Soulslike for my favorite small town franchise. But, speaking to GamesRadar+ at Gamescom Day 1, Silent Hill producer Motoi Okamoto and director Al Yang have blessedly cooled me down by instructing us to play Silent Hill f in story mode.

"What we would like to emphasize is that the core experience of this game leans heavily on the script of the game, which has been handled by [...] Ryukishi07," Okamoto says through a translator. "And so, in order to have the most authentic Silent Hill experience you can, we highly recommend that everyone just try it out on the story mode difficulty."

"We see a lot of people trying to refer to [Silent Hill f] as a 'Soulslike,'" Okamoto explains, "which we disagree with."

Silent Hill f World Premiere Trailer | gamescom Opening Night Live 2025 - YouTube

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Yang adds that, "Once you have a stamina [...], you have a dodge, people are like, 'Ah, that's a Soulslike.'"

"But honestly," he continues, "we went back to look at a lot of classic Silent Hill titles to basically try to replicate that kind of classic experience" in combat while refreshing some details to make Silent Hill f more of a true action-horror title. Yang says, "You'll see in Silent Hill 4, there's a charge meter in there, and it served the same purpose."

"Even though" Silent Hill f is new, Yang says, "it still feels and has that kind of classic Silent Hill flavor and atmosphere to it."

Silent Hill f is out September 25, though you'll still have plenty of the biggest new games of 2025 to look forward to after.