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Konami’s readiness to shop Silent Hill to anybody and everybody willing to tell stories within its iconic horror universe has been something of a saving grace for the series. Nothing is treated as sacrosanct, and developers, it appears, have been given carte blanche to tailor the experience how they see fit. It’s exactly why the last two Silent Hill games, including Townfall, haven’t even taken place within a stone’s throw of the eponymous town—an idea that, once upon a time, would have seemed off the wall.
But just as a dated, rural Japan worked wonders for Silent Hill f, I think Screen Burn’s decision to keep things quite close to home and set Townfall within the fictionalised coastal town of St. Amelia, Scotland is inspired and gives the game a clear identity that’ll allow it to stand out from the pack while maintaining a few of the Silent Hill hallmarks, including a low, dense fog that creates a truly haunting sense of place.
A major point of difference for Townfall is that it’s presented in the first person. Not only has this aided the team’s ability to create a detail-rich, photorealistic town to explore, it places the player right in the action through both the CRTV, the game’s answer to the standardised Silent Hill radio, and through control over the game’s rather tactile puzzles—which, if you’ve played either of Screen Burn’s previous game from when they were No Code, you’ll know what to expect.
The presentation we got to see wasted no time introducing us to Simon, the game’s quiet protagonist, who has been called to St. Amelia to “set things right,” although it’s not certain what that means or how he’s expected to do that. After tuning into a frequency on the CRTV, a message from a strange woman beckons Simon to find her.
Although not specifically a silent protagonist, Simon doesn’t exposit to himself in the same way other survival horror protagonists might. In an attempt at realism, the character’s inner monologue appears as written text in contemplative moments. In addition to providing insight into the character’s psychology, it’s also useful for giving the player a nudge towards what might be the next objective.
Similarly, the CRTV is, for all intents and purposes, the player’s guiding light, a North Star of sorts that keeps them on track throughout Simon’s descent. The aforementioned garbled message from the woman shows eerie panning shots of the town’s landmarks and lodgings, giving the player a breadcrumb trail to follow to reach the objective. This folds neatly into the larger mystery, and it’s incredibly unnerving to feel as though your path is predetermined by forces beyond your understanding.
This same analogue appliance also effectively fills the void of the original Silent Hill radio, doubling as something of an echolocator for the creatures plaguing the town. By tuning into their unique frequencies, Simon is able to track their movement through the thick fog and even walls. In terms of evasion tactics, this is paired with a neat peek mechanic that lets players lean out from the relative safety of cover to check the roads ahead.
As has often been the case in other Screen Burn titles, there’s a real hands-on and grounded approach to the game’s puzzles. Whether or not it leans into supernatural elements in the late game, I couldn’t say, but I quite like the realistic tone Townfall struck in this presentation. One such puzzle sees the player combing through a seemingly abandoned house, only to find an unpowered switchboard in a closet beneath the stairs.
In a concept that’s alien to me but apparently rather common in Scotland, the player seeks out a pre-paid power card from the nearby newsagent to repower the residence. It’s a simple little objective that not only pushes the player back into the town, but it also really does sell the sense of place.
There’s also a combine mechanic, which works just as you’d imagine. If you find items that are contextually compatible with one another, like a flashlight and a set of batteries, for example, you can combine them within the game’s menu. I’m not expecting out-of-pocket solves of Monkey Island proportions, but I’m hopeful the game might offer up some challenge as Simon gets right into the weeds.
Silent Hill: Townfall is a remarkable-looking game in its own right. Not only is the town of St. Amelia, which is modelled to resemble St. Monans in Fife, authentically Scottish with its white-washed gables, but the photorealistic interiors of the houses and stores are full of incredible set dressing and environmental storytelling. It’s an unsettling world full of discord; even a disorganised cutlery drawer felt like a jump scare to me.
A modified version of the game’s peek mechanic is used when interacting with searchable containers in the game. It pans around in a rather cinematic way, and is designed to slow the player down and provide ample opportunity to consider what they’re looking at rather than mashing a button to fill their inventory with junk.
We closed on a glimpse of what the game’s melee combat looks like. Fighting against a creature I expect will be dubbed Axehead, for reasons I don’t think need explaining, Simon swings a found piece of lumber with reckless abandon as he’s eventually barged and felled by the enemy’s angular, pointed bonce, which it’s forced to use due to its arms being bound by ratchet straps—it’s a cool character design.
Townfall follows the in-vogue trend of second chances in combat as a cannula fed into Simon’s arm rouses him awake, ready to go again. I’d feared the combat might be a little clunky, but seeing it in action has reassured me that if the game does have a weak point, it’s not going to be dispatching these hellish demons back to the hell they came from.
