Taking inspiration from real-world locations as much as Silent Hill’s earlier entries, Silent Hill: Townfall is the latest stab at the storied survival horror series, and it’s another experience set outside the USA following last year’s Silent Hill f. With mysteries to unravel, monsters to evade, and a game-defining handheld TV to guide you, Townfall is poised to be more than simply ‘Silent Hill in Scotland’. From real-world fog, to combat strategies and difficulty settings, here’s fifteen things you need to know before you buy Silent Hill: Townfall.
Inspired by Real-World Eastern Scotland and It’s Unsettling Fog
Silent Hill: Townfall plunges you into the isolated fishing community of St. Amelia, a village which developer Screen Burn confirms is inspired by real-world St. Monans on Scotland’s east coast. Chosen for its authenticity, St Monans’ winding, compact layouts fit uncannily into a Silent Hill experience, and its consuming, real-life sea fog – the Haar – wraps every nook and dead-end in gloomy, creeping dread. Anyone from this part of the world will know that the weather here can be wild, unpredictable, and unsettling – perfect proving for Silent Hill.
You Arrive as Simon, Who’s Mysteriously Linked With The Town
Your character, Simon, is an enigma himself. Drawn to the town by a strange audio log, a gruff voice passing vague instructions to “put things right”, he lurches straight out of the harbour with an unexplained cannula plugged into his hand. The voice note continues: “they’ll listen to you,” suggesting the town is known to Simon even if you and he are both unaware for now. The recent eighteen-minute-long gameplay trailer sees Simon searching for Zoe Ellis’ house, an absconded nurse who drives this portion of narrative exploration. How all these pieces fit together is a mystery for now, but between Zoe’s profession, Simon’s clinical attachments, the organ transit box, and the medically restrained monsters he encounters – more on these later – then there’s plenty of thematic ideas to chew on before release.
Puzzles and Exploration Guided by a Handheld TV Device
A nod to Silent Hill’s classic crackling white noise, in Townfall you’ll explore St. Amelia with a handheld TV device – the CRTV. Simon can tune its frequencies into story clues, hidden messages, fragments of past events, and even enemy locations. The latter works as a more elegant way to see enemies through walls, while grainy footage shows the faces and locations that Simon needs to track down. The CRTV, on the whole, is poised to be one of Townfall’s most defining, yet oddly disturbing gimmicks.
The Otherworld’s Impossible Architecture Glows in Red
It wouldn’t be Silent Hill without the Otherworld, the nightmarish dimension drenched in the protagonist’s trauma and fear, and St. Amelia’s Otherworld is true to this form. It’s a twisted replication of the town, bathed in an unnerving red glow, with early previewers suggesting a maze of impossible architecture – underground structures leading to apartment blocks, internal elevators opening onto the street. From official gameplay, the streets are shadowed by colossal pipe-like structures. With chants of “heat!”, and a power company seemingly holding the town to ransom, maybe Townfall’s Underworld is a mirror for St. Amelia itself?
Monsters Stalk the Narrow Streets
Of course, Otherworld or not, in Silent Hill: Townfall you’ll encounter numerous monsters. From what’s been shown: a bandaged, handless humanoid with an axe for a head, and a pale, surgically scarred figure with a deep incision straight down its chest. You’ll either face these creatures head-on, attempt to sneak past, or high tail it for cover. All are viable strategies, depending on the resources and objectives at hand.
Melee Combat is Improvisational
If you were to tackle Townfall’s monsters, melee weapons are your first port of call. Picking up anything remotely weapon-like appears to be Simon’s MO, with blocks of wood seen in gameplay smacking unruly creatures across their eyeless faces. Greatly improvisational, melee weapons in St. Amelia degrade over time, meaning Simon shouldn’t whack everything he comes across. It’s brutal too, with a lack of dodge and parry – although he can guard – leading to tense, last-ditch encounters.
The Revolver Could Be Your Last Resort
Simon also gets his hands on a revolver at some point, but it seems blasting your enemies with bullets could be a last resort. See, this being survival horror, ammo will be in short supply. But, a bigger worry is the racket the revolver makes. Every shot fired, despite well-placed headshots knocking enemies to the ground, will alert any stalkers lurking round the corner. That, and the fact Simon must patiently load each bullet into its own chamber, makes the revolver something of a get out of jail card.
Stealth Appears To Be The Safest Option
Taking all this into consideration, sneaking past your enemies appears to be the safest option, and thankfully Townfall gives you plenty of options for stealth. The aforementioned CRTV highlights enemy movements on its low-res screen, while crouching, throwing distractions or activating machinery to divert attention are all in Simon’s skill-set. A handy peek mechanic – doubly useful in first-person – allows Simon to peer round corners or over walls. Reportedly, should Simon need to flee, there are plenty of tight, out of sight spaces to crawl into.
Dynamic Audio Gives You Spatial Clues
Sound is such an integral component to the survival horror experience, and Silent Hill’s recent entries and Townfall’s developers alike understand this completely. To help you position where threats are coming from, Townfall presents dynamic audio and sound design, giving your spatial awareness which evolves in real-time based on your movements and enemy proximity. What’s been shown sounds true to form, with alumni from the team who crafted Alien: Isolation’s soundscapes handling the same for Townfall.
A Soundtrack Not Composed by Akira Yamaoka
Akira Yamaoka’s music, mixing mechanical ambience, eerie beats, radio-friendly guitarwork, and more, is as much a character to Silent Hill as the fog itself. Yet, he’s not composing Townfall’s soundtrack – Pilotpriest is handling the music instead. Real name Anthony Scott Burns, Pilotpriest has a distinctively retro-analog sound, which actually suits Screen Burn’s chosen aesthetic really well – Simon’s handheld CRTV notwithstanding. Townfall seems as much about feel as it does gameplay, with Pilotpriest’s score designed to respond to player actions much like the game’s sound design.
PS5 Pro Enhanced
Silent Hill: Townfall features a handful of enhancements specific to the PS5 Pro, such as enabling PSSR so the game can run with advanced ray tracing and high frame rates. Whether PS5 Pro or base PS5, Townfall utilises the entire suite of DualSense controller-specific features: haptic feedback, adaptive triggers, and built-in speaker, bringing a sense of immersion through your hands alongside the visuals and sound.
The DualSense’s Gyro Can Reposition the CRTV
A DualSense feature worthy of its own entry. In Silent Hill: Townfall you can configure the PS5’s DualSense to control the motion of Simon’s CRTV, meaning you’ll need to physically reposition the controller to tune-in to its clue-giving frequencies. It’s an extra level of immersion which most games don’t take advantage of, and could lead to some frantic moments trying to lock-in to the correct source as enemy monsters close in.
The Game’s Britishness Has Been Highlighted As a Potential Problem
A notable concern amongst early previewers has been the game’s innate Britishness, and how effectively this translates to American and Japanese audiences. The example given centres on Simon’s need to find a pre-paid electricity card to get the power working in Zoe’s house. Now, the suggestion here is that British players will shrug their shoulders at such a puzzle, but players outside of the UK might find the puzzle’s solution unintuitive. Simon finds instructions on how to top-up the house’s electric meter, with a newsagent highlighted as the place to purchase a pre-paid card, so the concern might end up insignificant. Still, it suggests the game’s commitment to its setting could be a double-edge sword. In other words: alienation is good, but not being able to figure out puzzles is not as good.
There Are Three Difficulty Settings
Yes, Silent Hill: Townfall ships with three difficulty settings: story, normal, and nightmare, with different endings shaped by your actions throughout the campaign. It seems, then, that the game’s difficulty options aren’t simply to make enemies easier or harder to kill, but will play a significant part in how the experience culminates.
Release Date, Platforms, and PC Requirements
Silent Hill: Townfall is set to launch on September 24th, with PS5 and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store the only confirmed platforms. As noted on the game’s Steam page, your PC will need a minimum AMD Ryzen 5 3600 or Intel i7-8700K processor to play the game, alongside an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super or AMD Radeon RX 6600 GPU, and 16GB RAM. The recommended setup, however, details an AMD Ryzen 7 5700X or Intel i7-9700K CPU, GeForce RTX 3080 or Radeon RX 7800 XT GPU, and 32GB RAM. Whatever your system, you’ll need 75GB storage space and DirectX version 12.
