Silent Hill 2 was an absolutely terrifying game- a bit of an understatement, to say the very least. That is, of course, still very true for the original 2001 classic to this day, but in particular, the incredible Bloober Team developed remake that brought the beloved survival horror franchise back from the dead last year proved just how potent those scares truly are. From the atmosphere and the creature design to the story and the way it unfolds, Silent Hill 2 finds countless ways to keep players supremely uncomfortable in their skin from beginning to end.
It’s safe to say that we consider it to be quite a frightening game, so when we say we think Silent Hill f at least has the potential to be a scarier game than Silent Hill 2, we’re definitely not saying it lightly. The next mainline game in Konami’s resurgent horror series was first announced back in 2022 alongside other projects under the Silent Hill revival umbrella, but it wasn’t until earlier this year that Silent Hill f was fully showcased with an in-engine trailer showing the setting, bits and pieces of gameplay footage, and more. Though there wasn’t too much that was revealed, it was instantly apparent based on that early look that the game was taking interesting shape, and that its brand of horror in a period Japanese setting could certainly land with great impact with the right execution.
Another new trailer for the horror title was showcased at Summer Game Fest on June 6, and our tentative thoughts and notions on Silent Hill f have only been reinforced with this newest look. It obviously has to be acknowledged that the game is in many ways not looking like the sort of thing you’d ordinarily expect from a Silent Hill experience, but not only does that look like it could potentially work out for the game in many ways, it is also exhibiting the sort of classic psychological horror strengths that you’d expect, just in a different veneer.
First, let’s talk about the differences, and why they seem to be working so far. For starters, there’s the obvious one- that Silent Hill f is the first game in the series to not be set in the titular American town, instead taking players to the Japanese town of Ebisugaoka in the 1960s. Inspired by real locations in Japan, Ebisugaoka is promising to be a very different kind of setting for a Silent Hill game- but also, at the same time, still focused on similar approaches to create dread through atmosphere and constant background tension. You can, for instance, expect plenty of densely misty streets, a hallmark of the series.
As the recent gameplay trailer for Silent Hill f showed us, meanwhile, the game is also looking to set itself apart from others in the franchise with a different approach to gameplay- specifically, to combat. While you can still look forward to plenty of exploration and puzzle solving in classic survival horror fashion, where combat is concerned, Silent Hill f will be significantly more melee focused. Playing as high school student Hinako Shimizu, players will take on horrifying enemies who will come at you with a variety of melee, up close attacks, which you’ll be required to dodge while finding ways to deal with enemies of your own.
Of course, as many genre fans would tell you, games based purely on melee combat often struggle in the survival horror space, with The Callisto Protocol being a fairly recent example of how melee based horror titles can fail to generate meaningful tension and scares because of the low stakes nature of their combat. But melee combat doesn’t automatically have to mean a game with no scares. Just look at the Dying Light titles, for instance, which do create actual horror moments even with their melee focused combat. Or, hell, Silent Hill itself has often placed much more focus on melee as a series than the likes of, say, Resident Evil or Dead Space– so it’s not like there’s no precedent of melee combat working out in horror or horror adjacent titles.
Something else about Silent Hill f that creates reason for hope is Konami and developer NeoBards Entertainment’s seeming focus on challenge where combat is concerned. Apparently, the game’s combat will be “as challenging as the obstacles that [protagonist] Hinako must overcome in life,” which does suggest, at the very least, that we won’t have to worry about a low stakes gameplay experience- if things go according to plan, that is. If Silent Hill f can indeed deliver combat design that creates meaningful tension through legitimate challenge, that is something that could be of huge benefit to a horror game in particular. Our hope, then, is to see the game tread along those lines, if melee combat is indeed the direction that it is taking- which it seems like it is.
It also helps that Silent Hill f also seems to be boasting impressive enemy design. This should come as no huge surprise on paper, given that monster design has been one of the franchise’s biggest strengths for as long as it has existed, but coming back with its first new mainline instalment after such a long hiatus, it’s pleasantly surprising to see such promising enemy design in what we have seen of the game so far. Their grotesque designs, disturbing animation styles, varied looks, and their unique blend of organic beauty and body horror has certainly made a strong impression in all the glimpses that we have caught of the game’s roster of foes so far, and the more we see of it, the more impressed we get.
Konami has said that Silent Hill f is going to be a more action focused game than past titles – certainly more than Silent Hill 2 – which can also be a risky move for a horror game. Action and horror don’t always go well together by their very nature, so there’s obviously every chance that in its bid for a action focused experience, though it could successfully create tension, it might fail to create actual horror. And that’s perfectly fine! Some of the best games in the survival horror genre aren’t necessarily “scary” in the traditional sense to a great many people in their audience, with something like, say, Resident Evil 4 – which is more about creating tension than scares – being a prime example. Silent Hill f could certainly do something like that and be a great game in its own right.
But if it does come together the way its couple of trailers this year so far have suggested, we think it could just be a legitimately frightening game, which is obviously exactly what you want from a Silent Hill game. Due out this September, the horror title is actually not that far away from launch, which means we’ll have our hands on the first new mainline Silent Hill instalment in well over a decade not too long from now, and that we’ll also know exactly what kind of a horror experience the game is trying to be. Early looks suggest that though it is deviating from the traditional Silent Hill formula in some key ways, it is still putting horror at the forefront of its list of priorities- which is certainly encouraging for fans of the franchise and the genre. Here’s hoping future showings continue to suggest the same.
