Silent Hill Is At Its Best When It Takes Risks

Over the course of its 26-year history, the Silent Hill series has built up a reputation for offering deep dives into the more psychological side of the survival horror genre and giving players complex stories and experiences that often resonate more deeply than those found in the genre’s action-focused contemporaries. This complexity, however, doesn’t mean the series is without formula. By and large, this formula generally consists of taking a tortured or doubting protagonist, placing them in the titular town covered with fog, and allowing the monsters of their mind (or cults) to envelop them to help them discover or face their transgressions. It’s a setup that’s worked time and time again for Konami, and it’s what gamers have come to expect from the beloved series.

And yet, I find that Silent Hill works best when it takes more risks with that established formula.

Take, for example, the premise of the fourth entry, Silent Hill 4: The Room. The game saw players take on the role of Henry Townshend, another “tortured or doubting protagonist” forced to confront their own internal distress. But while this part of the equation remained the same, gone was the titular town. Gone was the cult that played a large presence in the first and third entries. Gone was the series’ trademark fog.

Instead, Townshend spends the game trapped in a nightmarish version of his apartment–one that players are forced to thoroughly explore before being sent to a hellish landscape and undergoing a perspective shift. What The Room offered was a different take on the psychological horror story that, while similar to Silent Hill 2, brought with it new gameplay ideas that involved shifting perspectives and escort missions. It was taking expectations for a Silent Hill game and throwing them out the window in pursuit of new ideas that could move the series forward and redefine what a Silent Hill experience is.

Then all went quiet for a few years, and we got more traditional (and far less interesting) entries such as Silent Hill: Origins, Silent Hill: Homecoming, and Silent Hill Downpour. The series hadn’t fully stagnated just yet, but none of these entries felt like they were moving the series forward in any meaningful way. Instead, they felt like they were trying to mimic the aesthetics and story delivery of the original three games. They had the town of Silent Hill, tortured male protagonists and perspectives, and copious amounts of fog.

Then in 2014, P.T. came along, and was seemingly the creative shot in the arm that Silent Hill needed. Directed by Hideo Kojima, P.T. had players traverse and down the same hallway over and over uncovering a story about family murder, discovering a bloody fetus in the bathroom sink, and encountering a ghastly creature named Lisa. Not long after its release, however, P.T. was revealed to be a small look at a cancelled game titled Silent Hills. Yet despite the teaser being both cryptic and cancelled, it arguably pushed Silent Hill into new, uncomfortable territory for the franchise, and provided players with a small taste of something that could never be.

Then, the series was dormant, without a mainline entry for over a decade.

In 2024, however, Konami resurrected Silent Hill, delivering a full remake of Silent Hill 2 that expanded on some elements from the original. But while this remake was well-made and critically-acclaimed, it ultimately was treading territory that the series had seen before. It became clear that if we wanted something truly new from Silent Hill, we’d be waiting a bit longer. Fortunately, it didn’t take long for Konami to deliver.

Silent Hill f spoilers to follow–read at your own discretion.

Enter Silent Hill f, which launched just this past month. The newest entry in the series, SHF takes Silent Hill out of the titular town and sets it instead in 1960s Japan. Its setting alone is a far cry from the Twin Peaks-esque view of middle America that the series is usually known for, trading hotels, diners, and record stores for schools, shrines, and awe-inspiring temples. The newest entry also adopts a “Silent Hill is a state of mind” approach, engulfing its small Japanese town setting in the trademark fog giving it the tension-filled sense of directionlessness. It feels familiar but strange all at once.

That feeling carries over to the narrative as well. Being set in 1960s Japan the game tackles topics of misogyny and the expectations for women at the time to be obedient housewives who must give up large parts of their identity in the pursuit of serving their husbands. Hinako is expected to marry a partner that’s preselected for her, taking away her free will and bodily autonomy. Whereas previous Silent Hill protagonists are psychologically tortured because of actions and choices they’ve made, Hinako is thrust into a situation she had no say in that drives her to near madness.

Although the Silent Hill series has featured a female protagonist before, its feminist themes have never been quite this prominent. SHF and its various endings show the outcomes of not merely Hinako’s “bad” choices, but all of the bad choices made for her. From being driven to murderous madness, drug addiction and acceptance, and even an ending in which she reclaims her free will to pursue a relationship naturally, Silent Hill f demonstrates how the series doesn’t need to hone in on guilt, shame, and sin to pack a punch.

In addition to new themes, the game also dives into the more ethereal elements of the series by having segments set in the spirit world. While this is not a first for the series, Silent Hill f gives it a unique spin by spotlighting Japanese folklore, shrines, and temples, giving the entire experience a more eastern religious feeling. This is a far cry from the way religion has been depicted in past entries, which have traditionally leaned into cults and other satanic-inspired entities.

Silent Hill is a horror game series where the possibilities are endless. And while Konami has a tried-and-true formula established that has carried the series throughout most of its life, Silent Hill truly shines when it takes risks with the established formula. Silent Hill has always been about overcoming psychological terrors in the face of real world anxieties and life expectations. There’s no reason it should always be beholden to a singular setting or formula.