I’ve been a Silent Hill fan ever since I rented the original game on the PS1 over twenty-five years ago. Ever since that day in 1999, I have been drawn to the foggy streets of that town, lured there like a sailor listening to the wailing call of a rusted air raid siren. I’ve found things to appreciate in all of the games, including the much maligned Western developed titles like Downpour and Homecoming, and I even consider the original 2006 feature film one of my favorites despite its many issues, simply because it captures the visual aesthetics of the games so well. Last year’s Silent Hill f was also one of my favorite games of 2025 (though it came up just short of claiming my top honors), and this year’s journey into the fog has easily been one of my most anticipated titles.

Silent Hill: Townfall meets most of my expectations, providing a stellar atmosphere to nurture an engrossing tale of utter sorrow and fear, although the areas in which it comes up short definitely have a significant impact in the overall quality of this horror adventure.

The game is the latest title in the classic survival horror franchise that features nearly a dozen original stories, along with remakes, spin-offs, comics, three feature films, and more. Published by Konami, the Silent Hill series helped popularize the genre in the late nineties, quickly becoming the second biggest name in horror behind only the great Resident Evil. After a string of exceptional games, the franchise took a sharp downward turn beginning with 2008’s Homecoming, and the series sadly became dormant after 2012’s abysmal Book of Memories.

Then, after a decade of mostly silence, Konami resurrected the cornerstone franchise with 2024’s Silent Hill 2 Remake and have since promised new games to arrive annually for the foreseeable future. Instead of developing these games in-house, Konami has been granting other studios permission to steer the franchise in their own unique direction. Townfall as such was created by the UK studio Screen Burn Interactive–formerly known as No Code Limited–which is largely made up of designers who had worked on the acclaimed horror masterpiece Alien: Isolation, a game in which Townfall bears many similarities.

Synopsis

Silent Hill: Townfall takes place in the quiet Scottish village of St. Amelia: a small fishing town that has more recently become home to a noteworthy industrial complex. Players take control of Simon Ordell, a man who washes up on St. Amelia’s shore with little knowledge of why he’s there or even how. The American immediately notices that he has a mysterious medical IV lodged into his hand, delivering a strange, dark fluid directly into his bloodstream, yet when he fiddles with it he experiences visions of extreme terror as well as immense pain. Simon only knows that he was called to come back here by someone, and thus he has no choice but to brave the abandoned, foggy streets of St. Amelia in his search for a nurse named Zoe and an older gentleman who goes by Richard.

Analysis

Simon makes for a good protagonist. From the first moment, we sympathize with his situation, sharing his confusion, and eagerly join him in his curious search for answers. He’s not a fighter, so we forgive him for his lack of combat prowess when he finally comes face-to-face with the grotesque monsters that haunt this town, and we celebrate his victories when he manages to overcome these horrific trials. Unlike some Silent Hill protagonists, we get a sense that he is genuinely a good person who has been met with a complicated fate.

Townfall doesn’t just leave us with Simon though, and in a rare instance for the franchise, we get to experience this story from multiple perspectives. Because of this, I regrettably believe that Simon—good as he is—is actually the weakest character in this tale. Again, it’s not because he is bad, per se, but because the others as so much more intriguing, and their specific scenarios are easily the most memorable sections of the entire game. While Simon is a brave soul who is willing to confront the horrors before him despite his skill, another character is far more ruthless in their approach to the monsters, while another still cowers in fright at the nightmares that frequent them.

Silent Hill: Townfall’s plot is soaked in grief and despair, and is much less scary as it is truly disheartening, which is perfectly fine for a psychological horror game. The story also does a great job of both directly and indirectly confronting many fears ordinary people have in the modern day, such as the concern of data centers wreaking havoc on small communities, destroying the environment, running mom-and-pop stores into the ground, and stuffing the pockets of greedy CEO’s and Fortune 500 corporations. The game also mimics the terror brought upon by the Covid-19 pandemic, with healthcare professionals feeling immense anxiety at the insurmountable amount of dead, and seeing so many of their neighbors suffer.

I will say though that most of the game’s twists I was able to sniff out within the first few hours. Its predictability didn’t completely derail the experience for me–as I was still firmly locked in to uncover all the finer details that I’d have no way of actually knowing–but I can say the ending didn’t surprise me the least bit, and I don’t think you’ll be shocked all that much, either.

Image credit: Konami

Townfall is developed using Unreal Engine 5, which allows for some immensely impressive photo-realistic visuals. A major part of the game’s marketing has been to show in-game photos next to real pictures of sleepy Scottish towns, begging you to spot the difference, and I can genuinely say that even while playing, it makes you question reality. The Silent Hill series was once known as providing some of the very best graphics and art direction in all of gaming, and Townfall holds up that part of the franchise’s legacy to great effect.

These amazing graphics also lend themselves well to providing some of the best atmosphere the series has seen to date. St. Amelia may not be the titular town of Silent Hill, but it’s damn close. I rarely felt need to complain that I wasn’t exploring the streets of Maine when fully immersed in the suffocating fog or bathed in the foreboding dark red lights in this little Scottish village. Townfall’s environment does an excellent job of being both despairing and threatening, which is exactly what Silent Hill needs.

Image Credit: Konami

The graphics also make it so much more enjoyable to explore St. Amelia, as you really get engrossed when creeping into a vacant business looking for clues, or carefully navigating a narrow street, trying to avoid enemy stalkers. Silent Hill’s urban (or should we say suburban?) exploration has always been a highlight of the franchise for me, and it’s something that Townfall also nails, providing plenty of locales to uncover. Even the homes, which often provide a very similar layout because of their mass production quality, can feel distinct due to the amount of detail provided.

Exploration is only half the game play in Townfall however, and the combat is where the game really misses the mark. When encountering enemies, players will either have to stealth their way to safety, or dispatch foes with a limited array of melee or ranged weaponry, however both methods come up short.

For stealth, players primarily just need to avoid an enemy’s line of sight as they patrol a set pathway. On normal and easy difficulties, your flashlight cannot alert enemies to your location, and even your footsteps while running will only have minimal effect on them hearing you. You are able to distract foes by throwing glass bottles or bricks, or using noise makers like radios and car horns, but these work inconsistently, and you don’t even get access to this tactic until a few chapters in. If you are spotted, enemies will pursue you relentlessly until you break their line-of-sight; yes, they’ll even attempt to follow you into homes and bust open doorways in their chase. You can hide in designated closets throughout the town, but that’s it: no crawling under beds, or jumping into trash bins, or dashing into some bushes, or any of that.

To aid in stealth, you have a mobile CRTV that can display enemy locations. This is crucial to making it out of St. Amelia in one piece, and it really is a highlight of the game, as it compliments both the gameplay and narrative structure of the game. Another character replaces the CRTV with a pager, which doesn’t give you the exact location of enemies, making stealth a little more challenging, but it still works as intended, and the added difficulty makes those sections stand out a bit more.

If you are forced to fight, prepare for a contest of frustration. Unlike most action titles, Townfall only provides you with two commands when doing battle: blocking and attacking. There isn’t a strong attack that has a longer windup, or a parry move that can knock enemies off balance, or a dodge ability that lets you dart out of harm’s way. You are also only given two melee weapon types during your initial playthrough: a wooden board and a steel pipe, both of which will suffer damage if you connect with an enemy or use it to block attacks, thus they will break after only a couple of encounters.

As for ranged attacks, you have a pistol that is great for pinpoint shots, a flare gun that is extremely inaccurate but can also distract enemies with its red glare, and a mighty shotgun that is only obtained in the endgame. None of these are particularly noteworthy, and they all feel a bit off. The shotgun for example will routinely miss even at point-blank range because you aimed just a fraction over the enemy’s shoulder rather than directly at their head. As such, I kept far away from any sort of unnecessary fighting, and wrote it off as an option most of the time.

Image Credit: Konami

To add to the frustration, enemies also have an insane habit of countering your attacks IMMEDIATELY after you deal it, which will far too often hurt you even if you are quick to put up your weapon to block. What’s more is that some foes can also grab you, which ignores your block and deal significant damage. This can easily lead to a “Game Over” when you are pressed up against a wall because, again, there isn’t a button to shove your foes and give you space.

All of this cumulates to an aggressively annoying sequence towards the mid-game that really drags down the experience for those less patient than a saint. Players are tasked with navigating a claustrophobia-inducing labyrinth while being pursued by a gargantuan foe that cannot be harmed, and it will instantly kill you if it catches you. Stealth options are almost entirely out the window, as it seems to know exactly where you are hiding without fail at all times. It behaves very much like the Xenomorph in Alien: Isolation, only there are far fewer methods of dealing with this beast than the iconic alien. It’s doable, but it feels so tedious and unrewarding, which is the opposite of what a game should feel like.

Fortunately, I can say that Screen Burn listened to player feedback and quickly released a patch that fixed some of these issues, which I was able to appreciate on my subsequent playthroughs. For those booting up the game now, enemies will no longer be able to grab you while you’re blocking, and they are a little less aggressive in their pursuit of you. In addition, the really annoying section I mentioned above was specifically singled out by the developers, and the monster no longer follows you as closely, and it doesn’t kill you instantly on lower difficulties.

As much as this update makes the game less frustrating, it also makes it way too easy on everything but the hardest difficulty, which I think can do a lot of harm in a survival horror title. When it’s easier to survive encounters, the game is less scary, which in turn brings down the survival horror experience.

Image Credit: Konami

The monsters you fight are at least well designed by acclaimed surrealist Franck Besançon. Each creature is unnerving, inhabiting a torn, fleshy body which drips with misery. You can’t help but take pity on these husks, even when they are chasing you with the goal of tearing you to shreds. Unfortunately, there just isn’t enough enemy variety here, in both design and structure. All enemies for example have the same humanoid appearance, with minor alterations to each type, and you only have five types counting the single boss encounter in the game. The monsters are one of the greatest parts of a Silent Hill game, and while I don’t dislike what is here, there isn’t enough to make it stand-out from its brethren.

Puzzles are another major part of the Silent Hill experience, and I enjoyed what they did with them here. Most all puzzles reflect on the psychological journey the characters are taking, which is immensely important. The game has two puzzle difficulties: Hinted and Normal, where “Hinted” highlights the items and documents needed to solve the conundrum, while “Normal” has the same solution but without the handholding. I like the way the two styles are handled, and I think most puzzles are challenging yet fair enough to be solved without any guides. I can think of one in particular though that I just could not figure out what the game was asking of me, and I had to resort to changing to “Hinted” to figure out a solution.

The puzzles being the same in both categories though does limit the appeal of playing the game again, as anyone who knows the solutions can breeze through areas without any thought. In fact, the replay value is surprisingly low for a survival horror game. While the initial playthrough took me around 16 hours, my second was a shocking five hours, and that was without trying to speedrun. This is in part due to the puzzles not changing, but also that finishing the game once will likely grant you with either a melee weapon that doesn’t break and kills in one hit, and completing a second time may give you a pistol that has unlimited ammo and kills in one shot. The difficulty setting also doesn’t matter when trying achieve any of the game’s 5 endings or optional trophies, so feel completely free to switch to “Story Mode” for your subsequent playthroughs.

Credit: Pilotpriest

The music and sound fortunately excel in all areas. The mournful groaning of enemies, the slapping of their naked feet against pavement as they pursue you, the haunting wail of distorted speaker systems and sirens when sifting through St. Amelia’s wreckage all make the game even more terrifying than it would be otherwise, and I give it top marks. The music, performed by Anthony Scott Burns under the moniker Pilotpriest, is steeped in as much melancholy as the rest of the adventure, transporting players further into a world of dread. The emotional score will also tear at your heartstrings, perhaps even moreso than the monsters that aim to carve your whole heart from your chest. Pilotpriest expertly weaves industrial sounds with experimental atmospheric noises, and accompanied by either light strings or a mourning piano that seeks to coax tears from your eyes. While I’m always hesitant when longtime composer Akira Yamaoka isn’t involved with a Silent Hill score, Pilotpriest left me surprised at his adeptness. My only complaint is that the score isn’t long enough, with too many songs including the same melody, and not enough songs standing out well enough on their own.

In conclusion, Silent Hill: Townfall is another step in the right direction for the once troubled franchise of horror games, offering an excellent setting, plot, atmosphere, and music for a truly terrifying experience. The combat and stealth game play is horrifying for the wrong reasons though, and game suffers from poor replay value and minimal enemy variety. The new update does eliminate a lot of the game’s most frustrating elements, but I do think it makes the game far easier than it has any right to be. Still, Silent Hill: Townfall comes as something to recommend to anyone interested in something spooky this Halloween season, even if it doesn’t make quite as big of an impact on the genre as Silent Hill 2 Remake or Silent Hill f.

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Featured Image Credit: Konami