While not winning over purists, last year’s Silent Hill fwas generally welcomed as a step in the right direction for Konami’s franchise, and was interpreted as a sign that maybe, just maybe, the troubled IP hadn’t yet turned into the horror has-been it was in danger of becoming.
You see, ever since the original creative force at Team Silent disbanded — resulting in the property being passed around between hack developers who undoubtedly loved, but didn’t quite get, it — Silent Hill had been in a state of gradual decline. From the mid-2000s onwards, it seemed as though every new instalment in the series was destined to be a disappointment. Some were admirable (Shattered Memories), some were abominable (Homecoming), but they were failures all the same. As if to add insult to injury, the tantalizing Silent Hills collab between Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro was bafflingly killed in its crib, and the less said about that pachinko machine debacle, the better. For a while there, it truly felt like putrefaction had set in and that SHwas now well past its sell-by date.
Enter the awkwardly titled f, which — in a feat comparable to how Resident Evil 7saved its respective franchise from atrophy — showed that there was still some gas left in the tank after all. Breathing fresh life into Silent Hill, it took bold risks by daring to leave behind the familiar US setting; shaking up the gameplay in ballsy ways; and shedding much of the narrative baggage associated with its predecessors. Not everyone appreciated these changes but, for those of us who could get on board with the radical vision, it made for a galvanising experience. One that still adhered to the spirit, if not the minutiae, of the classic games.
All of which is to say that f was always going to be a tough act to follow. Not only was it brilliant in its own right, but it seemed to widen the scope for what an SH title could be and got us excited about the series’ future again. We’re pleased to report, then, that its immediate successor more than lives up to that promise and keeps the hot streak going.
Silent Hill: Townfall might be less iconoclastic when it comes to tearing up the series rulebook — indulging in more traditional “Silent Hill” tropes — but it still has ideas to spare and a unique vibe that’s entirely its own. From excellent storytelling to outstanding puzzles, an evocative sense of place, and supremely effective scares, it’s one of the franchise’s best outings to date. And proof positive that f wasn’t a fluke.
St. Amelia Provides A Welcome Change of Scenery
Of the many liberties that f took with the Silent Hill formula, the most striking was surely its decision to relocate the action from provincial Maine to rural Japan. It set a freeing precedent that Silent Hill games needn’t have anything to do with the titular municipality itself (SH4: The Room at least took place in the neighbouring Ashfield, which has plenty of lore connections).
Having now developed a taste for jet-setting, it seems that the franchise is overcome with wanderlust and wants to see the rest of the world. Because Townfall whisks us away to yet another time zone!
Fair warning, though, this latest excursion is a tad less exotic, as you’ll be trading in the picturesque backdrop of Asia for the chilly temperatures, bracing winds and choppy waters of the Scottish North Sea. Specifically, you’ll be exploring the fictional island of St. Amelia; a tight-knit fishing community that was once sustained by a bustling angling trade but that now appears to have been utterly deserted.
It’s not immediately clear what could have befallen such a quaint, isolated spot to make it a strict no-go zone. Yet there are a few clues scattered around the place. Notices from the district council reference disruptions caused by some recent incident; there’s evidence of both picket lines and vigils being held in the town square; and we gather that all of the public services were stretched to their absolute limits in the town’s final days (even the healthcare providers put up signs begging patients not to turn up).
So, other than the fact that you’ll be seeing pound signs instead of dollar signs, and that all the post boxes are coloured red, it’s got an awful lot in common with the bleakness of Silent Hill. If the civic leaders of the two towns were ever to reach out to one another, you could easily envision them establishing some kind of sister city arrangement. After all, they’re both enveloped by eerie fog, they both have the same normal world/otherworld dichotomy, and they both do that thing where they lure in doomed souls to torment them with their innermost fears and anxieties.
The target in this instance is one Simon Ordell, an American who has supposedly been to St. Amelia before yet appears to have no recollection of what went so horribly wrong there. He’s been summoned by an apparent acquaintance from the past, named Richard, who is under the impression that, together, they will be able to make things right. Whatever that means.
Washing up on the shore, with a mysterious intravenous drip hooked to his veins and a patient ID tag fastened around his wrist, Simon embarks on a mission to find Richard and reclaim his memories. Of course, that’ll be easier said than done, as navigating St. Amelia will also mean contending with its hellish weather, its illogical geography, the aggressive, vaguely humanoid creatures that prowl its streets, and the unshakeable feeling that the place itself wishes you ill will. Oh, and in addition to being a typical British town, it’s also got some freaky supernatural stuff going on!
Intelligent Writing and Mature Themes Make for One of Silent Hill’s Best Ever Stories
We’re reticent to give away any more than that, as the storytelling is often a bright spot in these Silent Hill games.
Townfall is no exception in that regard, with writer-director Jon McKellan crafting an enthralling and incredibly sad mystery that unfolds at a deliberate pace. Instead of saving everything for one big showstopping twist at the end, he and his team at Screen Burn Interactive sprinkle in clever misdirects and subversions throughout that keep you guessing as to the nature of Simon’s hidden shame, and how exactly it relates to Richard (as well as to an enigmatic third character: Zoe).
In many ways, the narrative does take its lead from SH2, with a protagonist once again being dragged on a metaphorical guilt trip through their own psyche. Yet there are some crucial differences too.
For a start, there’s a sense of political rage bubbling beneath the surface that we haven’t seen before in the franchise. McKellan brings a uniquely British perspective and righteous anger to proceedings that’s no doubt been inflected by recent events in the nation’s news cycle. Without going into spoilers, it’s not a coincidence that the first game in the series to be set in the UK focuses on a strained health service being brought to its knees, the impact of privatisation on communities, public inquiries into corporate negligence, a place that’s cut itself off from the rest of the world, and people generally feeling like they’ve been let down by the system. It’s probably not intentional, given the actual context in the story, but there’s even some stuff that cuts quite close to the bone revolving around protests happening near a local hotel.
There’s no question, then, that contemporary British issues were swirling around in the developers’ minds when they made this (either consciously or unconsciously). Yet even if you don’t quite understand the cultural relevance of certain images or references, it’s still a narrative that should resonate with just about anyone. Because the themes and emotions are universal. Not to mention, it’s fundamentally well told, with a keen understanding of the principle of “show, don’t tell”, a neat nonlinear structure that’s refreshing for Silent Hill, and layered characterisation.
It also puts an interesting spin on what the point of Silent Hill is. We won’t divulge any spoilers, except to say that it’s less about punishment and guilt here, and more about taking accountability and coming to terms with the immutable fact that what’s done can never be undone. Granted, it’s a subtle distinction, but one that makes quite a big impact when you get to the revelatory third act.
Stealth Encounters Get the Heart Racing
The experimentation doesn’t stop with the story either. Screen Burn also reimagines the franchise’s established gameplay by shifting the action into a first-person perspective and prioritising stealth over combat mechanics.
Indeed, while Silent Hill fwas effectively a brawler — complete with parrying, perfect dodges, and upgrade trees — Townfall goes in the polar opposite direction. Fighting is treated as an absolute last resort, and the best strategy is invariably to run, hide and do your best to stay out of trouble.
This emphasis on evasion is so strong that, within the first two hours of our playthrough, we only killed a single enemy. That tally increased to about ten once we crossed the halfway mark, and then admittedly shot up to 87 by the time we rolled credits (the later acquisition of a shotgun emboldened us somewhat). Yet it might be feasible to get through most, if not all, of the 13-hour campaign pacifistically. Every area has one or two hiding spots for you to cower in, the levels are designed in a way that allows you to lure enemies away from the critical path, and it rarely feels like you’re being compelled to bloody your hands (which may have greater thematic significance when you eventually realise what the tragic, surgical-themed monsters are supposed to represent).
Another thing that helps you avoid conflict here is the portable CRT monitor that Simon carries. Utterly indispensable when planning your route through hostile territory, this device can be tuned into specific frequencies, enabling you to perceive the world in different wavelengths and look right through solid objects.
Sometimes, this is necessary for solving puzzles and accessing collectables, but it has great utility in stealth too. You see, the CRT can also lock onto the signals emitted by St. Amelia’s resident beasties, thereby allowing you to keep tabs on them even when there’s something blocking your line of sight.
It’s a very handy ability that functions similarly to Batman’s detective vision. However, there is a trade-off in that you can only monitor one channel at a time here. So, while you might be able to pinpoint the exact whereabouts of a foe when actively tracking them, you’ll also be putting on blinders to everything else around you and could be oblivious to threats approaching from the sides.
In a few scripted sequences, you do get access to an alternative tool that has the inverse problem. Using the medical pager, you can tell what direction assailants are coming from by consulting radial markers along the edge of the screen (a la Alien: Isolation’s motion tracker) and successfully track multiple blips at once. Alas, the readouts here are quite imprecise and give you no indication whatsoever of distance. This leads to agonising situations in which you’re hiding in a closet, painfully aware that there’s a fleshy abomination at your 12 o’clock, but not sure if it’s hundreds of meters away or standing right outside the door.
Other than the inclusion of those gizmos, the stealth is pretty basic. You’ve got a crouch button, throwable distractions, hiding places, and a few weapons for if things get hairy. Still, just because the mechanics are familiar doesn’t mean they’re bad. On the contrary, encounters can be downright electrifying in Townfall.
For example, there’s one bit where you are introduced to a new antagonist (resembling a figure covered in a suffocating hospital cast) that’s amongst the tensest set-pieces we’ve experienced in years. Trapping you in a small, four-room cottage, it gives you barely any space to manoeuvre and tasks you with somehow tiptoeing around your pursuer so that you can acquire a key and leave the building undetected.
However, when you finally escape those intimate confines (and recover from the associated panic attack), the reprieve is short-lived. For you soon realise that the whole neighbourhood has been overtaken with duplicates of the same mummified ghoul. What follows is an extended gauntlet that instils more palpable dread and anxiety than most horror games manage to conjure over the course of their runtimes.
Puzzles That Meaningfully Test the Old Grey Matter
In general, Townfall is a deeply frightening game. Enemy encounters can be pulse-pounding, the atmosphere is consistently oppressive, the environments are foreboding, the story goes to uncomfortable places, and there are a lot of those classic Silent Hillmind games to immerse you in the tortured headspace of your avatar.
Even the puzzles afford vanishingly little opportunity to decompress or calm your nerves. On the contrary, they often twist the knife in further by forcing you to commit grotesque atrocities and by imposing extremely stressful conditions when you’re trying to solve them.
Said headscratchers deserve special mention across the board, as they are all very well-themed, inventive and challenging. We got stumped for a while on this one that made us simultaneously account for dozens of initials, the workings of a dial mechanism and the compatibility of multiple different blood types. There was so much information to process that we resorted to busting out a notebook and drawing a quick chart to sense-check our conclusions. Meatier riddles like these, that actually make you pause and think for a bit, are the most rewarding to crack, and Townfall has a pleasing abundance of them.
Crucially, though, Screen Burn never pushes it too far or makes any of their brainteasers plain obtuse. More often than not, if you’re getting stuck it’ll be because you’ve overcomplicated things or misconstrued an obvious hint that’s staring you right in the face. That happened to us on a couple of occasions and, when we eventually cottoned on to what we were meant to be doing, our reaction was one of embarrassment, rather than frustration (case in point, there’s a moment where the code to a door is literally spelt out for you on a whiteboard, but we interpreted it to be something way more convoluted and ended up doing some Beautiful Mind shit for 20 minutes).
St. Amelia Feels Like A Real British Town
Other puzzle highlights include an escape-room scenario that has you jumping around to different points in history (with a fiendishly clever interaction), as well as a multi-layered problem that’ll demand you don a pair of scrubs and take on a gruelling night shift at St. Amelia’s hospital. A hospital that, unlike Silent Hill’s Brookhaven, is unmistakably British.
Which brings us to the exceptionally realised setting. Townfall does a phenomenal job of making you feel like you’re on a Scottish island. If you’re a UK resident or have ever visited one of the nation’s coastal resorts, you’re likely to spend hours marvelling at all the inconsequential details here. Everything from the road signs to the mini roundabout markings, the guide dog donation statues, the 20p tattoo machines, the signs advertising Sunday carveries, and the seagull-shit-stained benches feels truly authentic.
Without wanting to turn the rest of this review into a prosaic list of things I recognised as a British native, it got to the point where I was happily scrutinising the furnishings of council houses and examining the items displayed in the windows of unenterable mini markets. And when I discovered that, in order to restore power to a home, I didn’t have to replace fuses (as in every other horror title ever) but rather fetch a pre-paid utility card from the local newsagents and transfer the credit to a meter under the stairs, I was practically euphoric. I couldn’t believe that it was something I was doing in a Silent Hill game.
Between the nail-biting stealth, exemplary riddles, engrossing narrative and characterful setting, Townfall comes very close to brilliance. Alas, it’s not quite perfect.
Most notably, it starts to run out of steam in the final stretch. As Simon gets closer and closer to uncovering the truth he has long been repressing, the writing gets a little on the nose and starts making explicit what — up until then — had been artfully suggested. The ensuing exposition dump robs the narrative of some of its mystique and makes the prospect of repeat playthroughs feel less enticing (given that everything has been verbalised and wrapped up in a neat little bow). I particularly didn’t like how they bluntly explain what one of the monsters is supposed to symbolize, when everyone knows that part of the fun of a new Silent Hill release is coming up with your own interpretations for what the creatures mean.
On the subject of your adversaries, it’s also towards the end of the game that the lack of enemy variety really starts to hit you. You’re essentially dealing with the same three or four monsters over and over again and, after a while, you grow numb to them. That fleshy nightmare I described earlier is frightening when you first bump into him in a small cottage (unarmed and unprepared), but he’s nowhere near as intimidating when you’ve got a double-barrel and have vanquished him 50+ times.
The developers do at least try to mix things up by introducing an invulnerable stalker in the second half but, honestly, we just found them to be kind of irritating. They’re constantly harassing you during riddle sections and often stand around idly blocking passageways that you need to get down (only moving when you bait them into a chase). It doesn’t help either that this relentless pursuer drags out what is, by some measure, the game’s weakest level: an underground network of corridors that has no discernible personality, a confusing layout and the only dud puzzle in the whole game.
Nerveless, those iffy closing hours aren’t enough to negate all of Townfall’s considerable strengths. Even with the flaws, this remains a gripping experience that delivers everything you could want from a good Silent Hill title, while also pushing the envelope and innovating in some cool ways.
More than that, it’s the singular vision of creative people who had a personal story they really wanted to tell and who knew exactly how they were gonna tell it. Between this andf, it really does feel like we’re in a new golden era for this iconic franchise.
Review code provided by publisher. Silent Hill: Townfallreleases on September 24 for the PlayStation 5, and PC
