Silent Hill f spoilers to follow–read at your own discretion.
Set in the fictional village of Ebisugaoka in 1960s Japan, Silent Hill f follows Hinako, a high school-aged girl who is navigating her transition from girlhood to womanhood, defying gender roles and resisting an arranged marriage. As she grapples subconsciously with these struggles, it is revealed in both subtle and overt ways how Hinako has endured psychological and physical abuse in a patriarchal society.
Hinako’s first journal entry discloses her father’s abuse, as she writes “he yells at Mom, throws things around, and even hits us.” On the first run of the game, it takes under five minutes to discover a magazine suggesting women are happiest when submitting to men. For Japanese-speaking people and players familiar with Japanese culture and folklore, there are considerably more clues that enrich the story. As an English-speaking woman living in 2025, I still found myself wholly resonating with Hinako’s experiences and Silent Hill f’s themes of exploring the various manifestations of sexism and abuse.
In the simplest of terms, Silent Hill f is a game about the horrors faced as a woman merely existing in a patriarchal society. Distressingly, these horrors are spilling over into the real life reactions to the game.
The new installment in the Silent Hill franchise has been met with a wave of criticism from (mostly male) content creators referring to it as “woke feminist slop” and “feminist propaganda.” This is disappointing, but not surprising. There seem to be gamers who still cannot cope with playing a protagonist who isn’t a white, heterosexual man. Of course, some who typically engage in this gender bias will make an exception for female protagonists that have oversexualization or unrealistic beauty standards baked into their character design.
In 2024, one Twitter user shared an “anti-woke” gaming list, which has categorized over 1,400 video games into categories, offering a brief explanation as to why you should skip or play. While Silent Hill f has yet to be added, it’s worth noting that Silent Hill 2 is listed as “Not Recommended” for its “overtly anti-family, overtly anti-male, overtly anti-patriarchy, overtly pro-DEI, and subtly pro-LGBTQ+ messaging.”
General misogyny to the side, players began to drop mods that sexualized a teenage Hinako as soon as Silent Hill f was released. Modding character and game design is not a new practice, and considered a cornerstone of PC gaming. For instance, in September, PC users released a “no fog” mod that transforms Ebisugaoka into a serene village unstricken by the Silent Hill sickness, and additional mods optimize the game’s performance.
However, popular mods for Silent Hill f–with thousands of unique downloads–include those that purposefully make Hinako look “more kawaii” with childlike facial features, and a “girl next door” mod that reenvisions Hinako with a younger-looking character design. While the game endings suggest Hinako is actually in her twenties, that does not negate the fact that she is canonically depicted as being high school age throughout the story.
On a Steam community thread where the original poster criticizes people complaining about “upskirt censorship,” another Steam user responded with “put me on a list because I got so pissed I installed a straight nude mod.” A self-described “gooner” mod for Hinako that shreds her clothing until she is nude has already been downloaded over 3,200 times.
To be clear, there are real threats of online censorship that are looming over gamers in the U.S., like the Kids Online Safety Act; the passage of this law would require strict “duty of care” requirements to “protect” children on gaming platforms, which could ultimately result in the removal of a good deal of content. Further, censorship and anti-porn organizations such as Collective Shout have pressured platforms like Steam to remove or ban any “not safe for work” content under the guise of protecting children and women. In response to the recent campaign by Collective Shout, major payment processors also temporarily halted handling purchases for some “adult” titles. Notably, many of the games targeted by ongoing anti-porn campaigns feature LGBTQ+ characters and have no sexual component at all. Game developers choosing not to include upskirt shots of a female protagonist who is a minor is not a form of censorship.
Hinako is not the only character in Silent Hill f who has been the center of viral streamer clips and mods. In one section of the game, players must figure out a puzzle that takes place in the rice fields of Fog Town that involves pulling pins out of scarecrows, of whom the majority are monstrous figures that resemble girls dressed in ripped school uniforms. As their bodies contort in inhuman positions, and their forced expressions make them look like they are in perpetual pain. While the sexualization of the scarecrows may be an intentional choice on the part of the developers as another representation of misogyny and the male gaze, the reaction from some players demonstrates a lack of understanding. Content creators have joked that they have wives as they position themselves behind the schoolgirl mannequins. They’ve also made jokes that Konami developers knew what they were doing by making the mannequins bend over to reveal the parts where their plastic legs connect to their doll-like torsos.
On another Steam community thread where a user asked for nude mods of Hinako, a commenter wrote, “I’m proud to see you being a warrior of justice for the fictional characters,” in response to a Steam user asking for the IP address of the original poster.
To write off the hypersexualization of Hinako as “not deep” because she is a fictional character shows a lack of media literacy at best. I meticulously went through each section of the map to discover key documents and journal entries that expand upon what life is like for women and girls living in Ebisugaoka. With minimal exploration of the map, you’ll inevitably stumble upon dozens of collectibles that reveal the patriarchal oppression of women introduced in Silent Hill f, including those who remain unnamed. For example, there are items like a detailed letter written by an unnamed woman who describes the physical abuse she experiences at the hands of an alcoholic husband. That said, even if you quickly complete the game and focus on combat, the dialogue and cutscenes alone are enough to reveal the throughline of the violence against women as the theme of Silent Hill f.
It’s important to note that this isn’t about morality or a general takedown of modding female characters. There are plenty of “not safe for work” mods that aren’t inherently toxic. Just this past summer, mod sites were flooded with clothing and non-clothing options for Eve, the (adult) protagonist of Stellar Blade. Rather, it’s about the context, and why these mods are troubling when it comes to Silent Hill f. Many of these mods are in direct contradiction with the games’ overarching theme, which reinforces the hypersexualization present in the story.
At a surface level, it’s easy to just call these widespread sexist reactions and Hinako mods creepy because, well, they are. Upon greater reflection, there is something disturbingly poignant about the objectification of Hinako and other characters in Silent Hill f. In a way, the hypersexualization is a betrayal to the Silent Hill franchise as a whole and its longstanding theme of exploring violence against women through horror.
Just as Hinako felt isolated playing Space Wars, I felt like I was on a different planet as I played through Silent Hill f while simultaneously watching streamers and viral clips of the game. There is an important cutscene in which Hinako confronts her father for his abuse, as well as her mother for enabling it, before he transforms into a grotesque monster. As Hinako explains in her journal, this version of her father “acts the same way he did when he let his anger get the best of him,” and this is “his true form.” As I entered this boss fight against the man who is supposed to be a source of unconditional love and support, a pit of sadness grew in my stomach imagining Hinako being exposed and sexualized during this devastating moment.
I felt similarly as I sat through the gory moments of the marriage-like ritual that takes place in the spirit realm with Fox Mask, especially when Hinako’s face is sliced off and replaced with a mask. Hinako is slowly stripped of her autonomy and identity throughout the story, and stripped down physically by some players.
There is a sense of vulnerability I experienced playing Hinako–and that I’m sure many women experienced–battling monsters that served as a generalized representation of how she is treated by men in her village. For example, there is the Fog Town monster that acts disgustingly “chummy” with her, yet ignores guys. Unlike the other monsters in Silent Hill f that beat, stab, or burn Hinako during grab animations, this “chummy” creature licks her face as a means to drain her sanity and health.
Every woman recognizes and has encountered different versions of these monsters: It may be the cat-caller on the street, the “nice guy” who turns violent if romantically rejected, or an anonymous gamer who hurls misogynistic insults and threats of sexual assault over the mic during a multiplayer game. Sadly, global statistics suggest one in three women experience gender-based violence, and specifically a quarter of 15- to 19-year-old girls report they’ve experienced intimate partner violence.
The fictional world of Silent Hill f is very real in many ways, and the response to the game also demonstrates just how relatable Hinako’s story is regardless of the fictional, horrifying monsters she must battle. It is that deep.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.