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When Silent Hill: The Short Message was released, I (rightly) questioned whether Konami even knew what Silent Hill was. It was an exciting time, with the Japanese publisher seemingly committing to bringing back one of gaming’s horror greats. However, since then, Silent Hill has been hit or miss. Silent Hill: Ascension was a novel but misguided effort. The Silent Hill 2 remake beat all odds and turned out to be great. The aforementioned Short Message felt simultaneously serious yet boring. It’s understandable if you thought Silent Hill f might not be the surefire hit that the series has been longing for. Thankfully, while Silent Hill f is an entirely different beast compared to other Silent Hill games, it serves up a horror experience with a strong understanding of the fundamentals that make Silent Hill great.
To get this out of the way: Silent Hill f is an entirely original experience, divorced from the original games. It’s neither a sequel nor a prequel, and though there are some vague narrative parallels (not connections) to The Short Message, Silent Hill does its own thing. Where the original games felt like Western horror conventions filtered through a Japanese lens, Silent Hill f goes all in on the Japanese style of horror. The result is something that’s thematically quite similar to games like Siren or Fatal Frame, but at the same time feels distinctly Silent Hill in its approach to scares and storytelling.
This all starts with the characters. The idea of a case of schoolkids in a Silent Hill game would’ve previously made me cringe. But playing as Hinako, a girl riddled with cultural anxiety about who she is and who she should be, you can’t help but find her as interesting as Heather or James. The supporting cast is similarly quite strong and complex – Rinko is a jealous friend with an interesting but twisted arc, while Shu finds himself strung between Rinko and Hanako. These characters do great work in carrying the story, though it’s the way Silent Hill f presents these characters that gives the game an uncomfortable feel. It’s hard to put into words, but the mood and atmosphere in Silent Hill always feels off, and you’re never quite sure what to expect. And that’s a good thing.
Which is just one of the ways that Silent Hill f perfectly captures the feel of classic Silent Hill. The game opens with Hinako fleeing from her house following an altercation with her alcoholic, abusive father. But upon leaving her home, she finds the town of Ebisugaoko seemingly abandoned. The nature of the town is left ambiguous, and it’s this uncomfortable feeling that things have only just been abandoned that helps keep things eerie. Files and notes you find strewn about the town are vague enough to be talking to Hinako, but also could be errant thoughts from those who have since vanished from the town. It’s, again, a moody and thick atmosphere that perfectly encapsulates the feelings and vibe of Silent Hill.
Written by ryukishi07, and signature to his style, Silent Hill f is a slow-burn, cerebral story riddled with sharp tonal rises and drops. But when it gets going and starts swerving and swinging for the nines, it does so in big and (often violent) ways. While it has moments of loud grotesquerie, Silent Hill f is still riddled with quieter, more psychological scares. There is still the odd ambush that’ll get your heart racing, but for the most part you’ll be playing Silent Hill f in a quiet and uneasy haze, ready to jump at any moment. But those jumps won’t ever come. And that’s a good thing.
Though this is all for naught if the game doesn’t play well. Thankfully, Resident Evil Resistance developer Neobards has done incredible work here. Silent Hill f will have you exploring two distinct areas – the town of Ebisugaoko and the strange otherworld called the Dark Shrine. Exploring the town feels like a classic Silent Hill experience. Plenty of buildings, only some unlocked, and a twisting concrete maze of streets to get lost in. But Ebisugaoko is different to Silent Hill. It’s dense, well-built up and claustrophobic. A far cry from the open streets of the original Silent Hill. It’s a same-same-but-different recreation of the Silent Hill experience with plenty to find, enemies to defeat (or avoid), and the odd little set-piece scare here and there.
When you’re not in Ebisugaoko, you’ll be in the Dark Shrine, which serves as a stand-in for the otherworld segments of previous games. In these areas, there is a lot more action and puzzles to solve. But while it’s not as visually grotesque or macabre as the otherworld of previous games, the Dark Shrine is still permeated with an eerie and uneasy air. It’s a gaudy but gloomy location that’s terrifying in an entirely different way, especially as you realise just what you’re doing there. It’s also the only area in the game where enemies regenerate, which is a design choice that might grate with some players, but if you’re good enough at the combat, that could be a non-issue and add to the tension of everything.
Combat in Silent Hill f is melee-based. Many comparisons have been made to Dark Souls, though this is a more considered evolution of the mechanics seen in Silent Hill 2 and 4. And while weapons are degradable, they can be repaired with toolkits found throughout the world. While I usually loathe these mechanics in games, they serve as a pretty clever substitute for the resource management you’d normally have to do with bullets and guns in other survival horror games. There are enough weapons scattered about that it never becomes frustrating, though it can be annoying to pick up a new one, drop an old one, and then be unable to pick the old one back up. That’s the one old-school aspect that should’ve been left in the past.
Combat flows much smoother than in previous games. Hinako has a light and heavy attack, as well as an evasion attack that slightly slows time if you do so perfectly. Each enemy has an attack that can be countered, too, with a successful counter stopping enemies in their tracks. A sanity meter allows Hinako to perform weapon-specific focus moves or counter moves more easily, though Sanity depletes with every hit Hinako takes. Everything costs stamina, too, so combat really revolves around managing Hinako’s stamina effectively, as perfect evasions refill your stamina meter entirely. Essentially, Silent Hill f’s combat rewards precision rather than frenetic dodging, so staying calm and collected in the face of the monstrosities you encounter is paramount.
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The enemies themselves are well-designed, and while I’ll always miss Masahiro Ito’s iconic design, newcomer artist “kera” puts in some great work bringing monsters to life that are somehow simultaneously beautiful yet revolting. While I’d have loved to see more of them – there are around six types, of which a few are variants – they are ideally suited to this rendition of Silent Hill. The bosses, on the other hand, are the real standouts here. While not as visually striking as the standard enemies, they have distinct movesets and serve up a real challenge. But they’re still fair to fight, and while I spent around an hour perfecting my encounter with each one, they’re enjoyable to battle.
In terms of progression, Silent Hill f features a perks system, tied to amulets you can obtain. Each amulet is found by simply discovering them in the world or exchanging them at save points for Faith points. Faith points can be earned by trading them in at each shrine. The catch here is that you need to decide whether to keep the items, which often heal wounds, stamina, or Sanity, or trade them in for faith. Faith can also be used, in addition to other collectibles, to improve Hinako’s stats permanently. It’s an interesting system that has you making real choices about what you do with your recovery items, but the randomisation of the perks you receive makes it hard to build your perfect Hinako suited to your playstyle.
It wouldn’t be a Silent Hill game without puzzles, and Silent Hill f delivers on that in droves. Like previous games, you can select one of three difficulty levels for the puzzles, with each feeling challenging but fair. Each of the puzzles has some relevance to the plot or Hinako’s internal struggles, too, so when you delve into them, you’re learning something about the game’s story, too. Some are even a little bit uncomfortable. While they’re a joy to complete, Silent Hill f does too much signposting for my liking as to what is and isn’t a puzzle, owing to the game’s comprehensive Journal system. It’s a boon for less experienced players, who might need help focusing, but for more seasoned players, it gives away too much.
Although that’s perhaps the only department where Silent Hill f gives too much away. When you finish your first run through the game, which will take most players twelve to fifteen hours (though it took me about nineteen), you’ll unlock New Game+. Your stats carry over here, but the big change is in the way the game changes to give you more story content. Buildings that were previously locked can be explored, new storylines are available to complete, and new files provide more context to the game’s events. There are even new bosses to fight.
It’s not quite at the same metanarrative heights as games like NiER, but it’s absolutely worth your time to jump into Silent Hill f to earn another of the game’s five endings. No matter which paths you take, they all provide greater context for the story, overall, and owing to the game’s excellent pacing, don’t feel like a slog to uncover. If you want to play the game just once, though, that’s fine. The story works well enough on its first play-through, leaving wiggle room for interpretation and theories. Just like any good Silent Hill game.
But of course, the game’s visual presentation cannot be ignored either. Silent Hill f has a strong art direction that does incredible work in building this weird and wonderful world for Hinako to explore. The fog is thick, the architecture is dense, and the strange red flowery growths that permeate the world are somehow equal parts beautiful and disgusting. The artists have managed to create these creatures and world accents that you want to stare at, but at the same time look away from, which again is a design philosophy carried over perfectly from the original games. The game also performs incredibly well, not only looking rich and visually dense but running at a solid 60fps on the PS5 Pro.
From an audio perspective, while Silent Hill f doesn’t reach the lofty heights established by Silent Hill 2 before it, the sound landscape here is authentically matched to the setting near perfectly. Series stalwart Akira Yamaoka returns to score the game, and while he’s dabbled elsewhere in the past, it’s clear he’s at home (and his best) here. The music adds incredible tension to the scenes and combat, utilising authentic Japanese instrumentation to lend the entire game an air of otherworldliness. Even the errant ambient noises that play during exploration, while simple and barely music, do a great job of making things tense, even when nothing is happening on screen.
In terms of voicework, Silent Hill f can be played in both Japanese and English. It makes sense to play in Japanese, especially given the game’s setting and tone. However, the English dub is interesting in that, while it’s not particularly great, the weird, stilted nature of the dialogue and its delivery helps to solidify the dream-like state that the game is aiming for. Again, perhaps I’m reaching too much, but overall, the quality of both dubs is strong for different reasons. That being said, the boss battles, with their constant quips at Hinako, simply play better in Japanese due to their repetition, so perhaps that’s something to consider when selecting which language to play.
Silent Hill f may alienate parts of the fandom that have built themselves and their personalities around the original games, but a closer look reveals an experience that’s unmistakably Silent Hill at its core. It relocates the series to an eerily unsettling locale, telling an engrossing story that isn’t just a shallow retread of Silent Hill 2. Paired with a dense and oppressive atmosphere and satisfying combat, it becomes pretty clear. Silent Hill is back. And deservedly so.
