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The silent war between Konami and Capcom, two major Japanese gaming behemoths, on who's going to make a scarier game is something we never knew we needed, but at the end of the day, the real winners in this race are us, the gamers. This very year, 2026, gave us Resident Evil Requiem, and I was sure no other game would come even close in terms of quality, at least when it comes to horror titles, but Konami stepped up to prove me wrong.
Silent Hill was always a different fish in a pond of horror games. All fans of the franchise know that this game creates a different kind of dread: a sort that slowly creeps into your mind and crawls under your skin. Silent Hill: Townfall follows the trend closely, setting us on a harrowing journey on a remote island to, as the game suggests very vaguely, set things right.
Story
I, personally, was never a particular fan of horror games, but believe it or not, Silent Hill changed that. And not just any Silent Hill, but the remake of, according to many, the best one in the franchise: Silent Hill 2 Remake. Yes, I never played earlier titles because, to put it simply, I was just too scared, or heavily misled, as I know better now. Even though I felt a constant cramp in my stomach while playing this masterpiece, no other game made me sit down and think about its story like Silent Hill 2 did. No Code, the developers behind Silent Hill: Townfall, managed to capture the exact same atmosphere with this game. From its very start to the last moment, I felt like I was about to give up on the game, not because I was scared or anything, but because I felt unease and discomfort, but the win of curiosity in this inner battle of mine was never in question.
When writing reviews, I usually like to say a thing or two about the game's plot to help readers understand what it is all about in the game; however, this one gave me headaches, because whatever I try to say about it, even small things like revealing the characters' last names, for example, would spoil the plot. Hence, I will try to stay as vague as possible here.
The game puts you in the shoes of Simon, a calm and collected guy who wakes up on the shores of St. Amelia, a fictional, remote island near the coast of Scotland, without the knowledge of how he ended up here. The only thing he knows is that he has a hospital bracelet on his right hand and an IV drip hooked to his left arm, which obviously indicates that he underwent some medical treatment. Apart from that, he hears the message constantly playing in his head that he needs to correct some wrongdoing on that island, so the story begins.
I cannot remember the last time I was so intrigued by a story in a video game because it was so brilliantly written. From the first moment you're thrown into the game, you can see that this story won't be an ordinary one. Everything is covered with a thick veil of mystery: the plot, the characters, the very location. From the moment you set foot on St. Amelia, you'll get sucked in by the place, and the game won't let go of that grip until the credits roll.
Everything in the story is dosed to you in just the right amount, and the way the story unravels is fantastic. The story isn't told in any unconventional way; it simply unwraps as the game progresses, and it is designed to pull you in constantly. You'll keep discovering everything on the fly, and as simplistic as it might seem, this storytelling design will keep you invested more than you could ever imagine.
The story is told through the eyes of three protagonists, which is something new in the series; however, to avoid spoilers, I'll stop here. The only thing I'll say is that this approach totally hit the mark because seeing something from different perspectives, where even evil can be justified, is a fantastic way to mess with your perception, and in this regard, Silent Hill: Townfall nails it.
If Silent Hill: Townfall were only an interactive novel kind of game, without any significant gameplay to back it, the story itself would be more than enough to justify its price. That it isn't is arguably no surprise, though, given it's a Silent Hill title after all.
Gameplay
The gameplay in Silent Hill: Townfall is a kind of mixed bag and something where the game stumbles a little. No matter how deeply you reach inside this 'mixed bag', you'll find only three things worthy of any deeper analysis: stealth, combat, and puzzles, and the entire game revolves around those three segments.
First of all, Silent Hill: Townfall is the first game in the series that decided to embrace the first-person perspective, and this approach is both very good and not so good at the same time. It is good because it is more personal, and if you want to check what's behind you, for example, you'll have to turn the camera physically, which, of course, brings the action closer to the player, and the feeling of fear is intensified by default.
This is additionally reinforced by a very good peeking mechanic. Once behind cover, you can hold the R1 button and then use the directional keys to peek out and observe enemy movements. Speaking of peeking and taking cover, do not expect badass gameplay in the James Sunderland style, where you take down every enemy that crosses your path. Simon is a more grounded character, and he will sneak and hide rather than face enemies head-on.
Stealth
That brings us to the stealth section of the gameplay, which has its ups and downs. First of all, it reinforces the horror feeling very well, and I can say that Silent Hill: Townfall is a way scarier game than, say, Silent Hill 2 Remake. You'll feel helpless and very vulnerable, and whether you like it or not, you'll play like a coward, especially during the opening sections of the game. As the game progresses and you gain confidence and, of course, means to defend yourself, the odds will start to shift.
What I didn't like about stealth is enemy movement. Some enemies have predictable patterns, while others, especially one very dangerous enemy you'll encounter during two long sections, will make you lose your mind. Speaking of this enemy in particular, to avoid spoilers, I won't mention him by name; I've never seen such advanced AI as this guy possesses. It might be something the devs didn't test properly, but during those encounters, getting away from him was a nightmare.
You cannot kill this enemy, so the only option is to avoid the confrontation. In those sections where you must avoid him, you'll be prompted to do tasks in the area where he stalks you, but his AI is so advanced and broken, I'd say, that as soon as you step inside the area, he will immediately track you down and always hang out at the exact spot where you are. You can distract him with bottles and bricks, and that seems like the only viable strategy, but those encounters usually boil down to trial and error.
If you, for example, need to find something in one of the rooms where this enemy stalks you, the strategy will usually be to distract him and run to one of those rooms. If that room has a hiding spot, you might just survive. If not, death is the most probable outcome because as soon as he catches up to you, it is game over. Then, you'll reload the checkpoint, check out the other rooms, and repeat the strategy until it works. A bit annoying, to be honest, and I definitely wasn't a fan of those encounters, not one bit.
Enemies like this are nothing new for Silent Hill or for horror games in general. Pyramid Head, from Silent Hill 2 Remake, filled a similar role, and that game even let you fight him a couple of times, on top of one proper chase sequence. The genre has bigger reference points too: Mr. X in the Resident Evil 2 Remake and the Nemesis in Resident Evil 3 both built entire reputations on being unkillable pursuers, and both worked because their AI felt threatening without feeling unfair.
Silent Hill: Townfall's version of this enemy serves the same function but lands very differently. Instead of dread, what it mostly produces is annoyance, because avoiding him comes down to trial and error far more than skill. In the sections where I had to steer clear of him at all costs, my only thought was that I couldn't wait for the game to let me kill this son of a b***.
Combat
Luckily, apart from this enemy, the others give you options: you can either sneak about and try to avoid direct confrontation, or you can try to meet them in combat. The combat options are quite limited, and the game does well to warn you that this isn't a usual shooter game. If you want, you can kill the enemies with firearms, but be aware that gunshots attract other monsters.
You'll have melee weapon options, including planks and pipes, which have durability like in Silent Hill f and a very limited firearm arsenal that becomes progressively stronger. You'll mostly use a revolver, and in the final sections, you'll be given a double-barrel shotgun. There are some other optional weapons you'll be able to find, but ammo is a very scarce resource in Silent Hill: Townfall, which is one way the devs are telling us that this strategy should really be the last resort.
There are some sections where you'll be forced to use weapons, and in those sections, ammo will be all over the place, but some sections will completely rob you of your arsenal, forcing you to rely on stealth alone. The game is always trying to be diverse enough in its gameplay so you never feel overwhelmed or bored, and I must say it does a great job of doing so.
Puzzles
The third part of the gameplay, the one that became a trademark of every Silent Hill game, is puzzles. If you've ever played any Silent Hill game, you know that some puzzles can give you a real headache, and Silent Hill: Townfall isn't an exception. The game is jam-packed with puzzles; however, apart from being a proper brain workout, the puzzles serve to make you forget the horrors of the world you're in, which can be a breath of fresh air in the game.
In true Silent Hill fashion, you'll run into some puzzles that will seriously test your wit. One puzzle in the underground section of the game, including the blood transfusion, was a real test for me. I almost gave up on it, but nothing could prepare me for the final puzzle just before the endgame section. I spent 24 hours on this puzzle, with only brief breaks for sleep and rest. I played and platinumed Silent Hill 2 Remake and Silent Hill: f, and both games have some serious puzzles, but nothing could compare to this. Ultimately, I solved both puzzles, and I won't flag that as a minus for the game, of course, but it is up to you to decide whether you like this level of challenge or not. The other puzzles are hard and can give you a little trouble, but nothing spectacular. These two, however, are not from this world. Consider yourself warned.
Level Design
St. Amelia is quite a dead place where people used to live, but now there are only remnants of their presence. The game begins with you emerging from the ocean and stepping into the streets of St. Amelia, and this part of the game is quite reminiscent of the opening areas of Silent Hill f. At the beginning of each level, you'll get a map you can follow, in true Silent Hill fashion, which Simon marks as he explores: which areas he's found, which are locked, and which can be opened from the other side to create shortcuts. On a couple of occasions, you'll explore more open areas, similar to Silent Hill 2 Remake, while on other occasions, you'll explore buildings, underground facilities, and more. In this regard, No Code took obvious inspiration from Silent Hill 2 Remake, and this design suits the game perfectly.
There's no backtracking or revisiting levels once you're done with them, so if you want to find everything in a level, you'll have to be thorough while you're there. The game will warn you, on a couple of occasions, when you try to interact with something that pushes the story forward, asking whether you really want to proceed. If you click yes, you'll be locked out of that level.
Speaking of exploration, you'll be able to search levels for various items hidden all over the place. Some of them are items required for solving puzzles, like various codes, and some are documents that widen the lore and explain what's happening here. There are also strange postcards of sorts (similar to the Polaroids from Silent Hill 2 Remake), although you'll have to play the game more than once to collect them all.
Silent Hill: Townfall also features multiple endings, one more trademark of the series, though I only managed to get one myself. To avoid spoilers, and in line with the guidance I was given by the developers, I won't say any more on the topic. Multiple endings are something Silent Hill games are known for, so it was never really in question whether Townfall would feature them.
Visuals, Sounds, and Performance
Silent Hill: Townfall isn't any sort of visual revolution, and truth be told, no other Silent Hill game before it was, so we probably didn't expect this one to break the tradition. The game is trying to capture the atmosphere of an abandoned island town, the buildings and streets during the time when the disaster happened, and, of course, the things that are probably just in the heads of the protagonists. The foggy streets, different planes of existence, the monsters, and all the usual staples from the Silent Hill repertoire await you here.
I was a bit surprised by the devs' decision to force the ultrawide resolution. You'll see those infamous two black bars on the top and the bottom of the screen, and those are by design because the game uses that black space to house the health and ammo gauges. I really don't see the point of such a design; perhaps it's meant to shorten the field of view and emphasise the feeling of fear, but I'm honestly not sure. I played the game on PlayStation 5 (regular, not Pro), and here you have the usual choice between Quality and Performance modes, where the first targets 30 FPS and the latter 60 FPS. There is no Balanced mode.
The sound design is as good as you might have expected. The game won't scare you with those cheap tricks where it uses music to create jump scares or anything of the sort; instead, the silence and emptiness are what build the atmosphere, and here, the music, or the lack of it, plays a vital role. Also, the voice acting is, as always, of premium quality. There are just a handful of characters involved in Silent Hill: Townfall, but each of them is depicted perfectly, visually and sonically alike.
Conclusion
Silent Hill: Townfall doesn't need to be a flawless game to make a statement, and it isn't. Its story is the real draw: three overlapping perspectives, an island drowning in mystery, and a slow-building dread that No Code clearly knows how to feed us with – one small bite at a time. The first-person shift is a gamble that mostly pays off, trading the series' more theatrical combat for something rawer and more vulnerable.
Stealth and combat won't win any awards on their own, and one relentless, half-broken enemy will test your patience more than your skill, but the puzzles earn their place well, though one can argue that a couple of them might push you a little too hard. Visually and technically, Townfall is more the atmosphere than a spectacle, and I'm still not sold on that ultrawide letterboxing. None of that changes the fact that this is one of the most gripping horror stories I've sat through this year, Resident Evil: Requiem included. If you can stomach the dread, St. Amelia is worth the trip.
The Good
Gripping three-perspective story- Oppressive, patient atmosphere
- Bold first-person perspective
- Properly demanding puzzles
- Scarce resources that heighten tension
The Bad
One badly broken enemy encounter- Thin combat options
- Forced ultrawide letterboxing
