Most of the games in the Silent Hill franchise, with some exceptions, have made use of the eponymous resort town as their main setting. Silent Hill f, however, will be bucking this trend again since it makes use of the village of Ebisugaoka as its primary setting, with the village itself being based on Kanayama from Gero in Gifu Prefecture, Japan. In an interview with Famitsu (as caught by VGC), writer Ryukishi07 has revealed the reason for leaving the town of Silent Hill behind for the upcoming game.
The writer explained that, originally, he wanted to set the game in Shizuoka Prefecture, since the name could be translated to mean either Quiet Hill or Silent Hill. However, the presence of Mount Fuji in Shizuoka Prefecture put a stop to that, since its presence in the skyline wouldn’t match the atmosphere that Silent Hill f is going for.
“When creating the story, we first wanted all the staff to have a common understanding of where the game was set,” Ryukishi said. “To achieve this, we used real locations as the basis for our imagery.”
“In fact, since this is Silent Hill, we actually visited Shizuoka Prefecture as a potential location,” he continued. “However, when we actually went there, we felt that the presence of Mount Fuji as seen from Shizuoka was too overbearing and it didn’t seem suitable for a Silent Hill setting.”
“Mount Fuji looms over the entire area, so its presence would overwhelm the foggy atmosphere of the work. After visiting several other locations, I felt that the grid-like townscape of Kanayama was an interesting shape, so I suggested that.”
In the same interview, Ryukishi07 had also spoken about how Silent Hill f will meld two distinct styles of horror: psychological and supernatural. He described this blend of the horror styles in a strange way, referring to it as being like “salad dressing” where players will have difficulty in figuring out what is supernatural, and what is just the result of psychological problems.
Expanding on his “salad dressing” metaphor, he explained that supernatural and psychological elements would act like distinct ingredients of a salad dressing – like oil and vinegar. While he didn’t go into too many details about what this might mean, his explanation indicated that players might end up having a hard time distinguishing between the supernatural elements of the game from the various kinds of psychological terror that is likely also lurking behind dark corners.
Recently, more details about Silent Hill f have been revealed, ranging from information about its combat system and exploration, to even how some of its puzzles work. The details were revealed courtesy of a preview event where publications were allowed to spend some time playing what has been described as roughly a third of the whole game. Check out details in our coverage.
Silent Hill f is under development for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, and will be hitting store shelves on September 25. The title is being developed by NeoBards, and is being made with Unreal Engine 5.
