I’ve played plenty of Silent Hill, so I know these games are full of unspeakable horrors lurching out of the impenetrable fog, desperate to drain whatever sanity I have left. So imagine my relief when I visited the real-life inspiration for the latest Silent Hill game and found it to be, well, utterly charming. Without a Pyramid Head in sight.
Silent Hill: Townfall is the latest installment in the iconic survival horror franchise, and its creators, Scotland-based game developers Screen Burn, confirmed that the game’s fictional setting of St. Amelia is based largely on the quaint coastal village of St. Monans. St. Monans, as it happens, is about an hour’s drive from my home in Edinburgh, so I popped up there with my Leica camera in hand.
To be honest I’ve been to St. Monans many times. Why wouldn’t I? It’s a charming village with a couple of lovely cafes, an ice cream shop right on the waterfront and a plethora of old boats scattered around its ancient harbor walls that make for great photo fodder. I’ve taken hundreds of photos there over the years and made multiple videos about it for my YouTube channel.
In many ways, it feels an odd choice as inspiration for the setting of a horror game. But having watched the trailer for the game, it’s clear that Screen Burn hasn’t exactly leaned into the picture-postcard vibes of the place. Instead of bucolic views and pretty flowers, St. Amelia is dark, cold-toned and draped in the dense fog that’s a hallmark of the series.
The streets appear empty as the camera moves around, with shuttered shops and hand-drawn posters expressing the need to stay safe. CNET’s David Lumb had a preview of the game earlier this summer, saying “St. Amelia is small, but hauntingly empty. As you creep around, only the occasional ambient noise breaks the silence — creaks of signs, the sighs of buildings settling.”
The real St. Monans is nothing of the sort during the daytime. It’s a real, living community that’s often bustling with visitors on pleasant days. On my most recent visit, I sat and watched some fishermen tending to their nets while nearby a man on a ladder repainted a shop sign. It was all very twee, if I’m honest, made even more so by the daffodils in full bloom and the delightful blue sky overhead.
But Screen Burn got a lot of things right, and as I walked around I immediately noticed a few angles that looked like they’d been lifted wholesale and digitized for the game world. The representation of the architecture, the various fishing paraphernalia scattered about, the shop facades — they’re all perfectly observed and recreated.
The only thing missing for me was the fog. Scotland’s coast is often known for its fog (or the “haar,” as locals call it), but I visited on a glorious day that made it difficult to imagine the place as anything other than a tranquil haven. That is, until night fell.
In the dark, things were different. The tourists were gone, leaving behind an eerie stillness, with silent streets that seemed to amplify my footsteps as I carefully trod around. The street lamps seemed to only cast small pools of light that quickly faded to blackness, making me want to hunt down these bright spots as though they offered some kind of safety against whatever Silent Hill terrors were out there.
But my favorite element — and maybe it’s something that’ll make it to the game — is the telephone box on the harbor front. No, not your classic British red telephone box, but a more utilitarian glass-and-metal BT box that popped up all over Britain’s streets in the 80s. Casting its faint light from within against the gloom, it stood out to me as an incredibly Silent Hill-looking scene. It was then that I fully understood why this place was chosen as the inspiration for the game’s setting.
Sure, St. Monans can be delightful, beautiful and twee. But even beautiful places, in the right circumstances, can transform into something more sinister, pulling the rug from under your feet as that imagined safety net is whisked away.
It took only nightfall for that to happen in the real-world St. Monans, and I can’t wait to see how much further the game takes it.
Silent Hill: Townfall is out this week on PlayStation 5 and Steam.
