With the game now in players’ hands, it also feels like the right moment to take a trip down memory lane and reflect on how and why the Silent Hill franchise has long captivated players and how this latest entry both honors and redefines that legacy.

To that end, here are all of the mainline Silent Hill games ranked from worst to best. Know that we’re not counting the visual novels or mobile titles among them, although those are quite entertaining in their own right.

14. Silent Hill: Ascension

Konami’s combined effort with Genvid Entertainment to bring a creative new touch to the Silent Hill formula does deserve credit for adapting the franchise’s narrative for the Massive Interactive Live Event format. The story of two families on the cusp of discovering the very dark secrets that Silent Hill was hiding, with viewers deciding on the fate of its characters, was quite an innovative idea.

However, the execution of an ingenious idea failed the show/video game, leading to its failure to enthrall its audiences. While we do praise the effort, Ascension is certainly the weakest among its counterparts in the franchise and is thus at the bottom of our rankings.

13. Silent Hill: Book of Memories

Wayforward Technologies’ spin-off based on the franchise was quite good as a dungeon crawler, and the fact that there were multiple endings made it quite a good idea for the PlayStation Vita, considering its replay value. It also brought a very Death Note-like vibe to its story, mixing in psychological elements with the franchise’s more traditional horror trappings to create a compelling story and gameplay loop.

However, it did ultimately prove a little too basic for everyone’s tastes, and many found that it failed to capture the essence of a Silent Hill game sufficiently enough to be considered a title that merited a place of reverence among its ranks. For our part, we still say it’s quite fun to play, but it loses out on a better spot thanks to other games doing everything it does, and better.

12. Silent Hill: The Short Message

There were quite a few things going in favor of this one. For starters, it was free. It was also a departure of sorts from Silent Hill (the location that is). However, its narrative was certainly right up there with some of the franchise’s best instalments. Anita’s attempts to piece together the fate of her friend Maya were an insightful trek through the pitfalls of bullying among teenagers and the adverse effects it could have on their psyches. It was the kind of introspective horror that put the franchise on the map in the first place!

But without a combat system and a largely predictable ending, this one falls short of true greatness in our book. And that’s a pity considering how it sells its material. It is what it is, though.

11. Silent Hill: Homecoming

It’s kind of surprising that Silent Hill f is drawing flak for its combat mechanics when Homecoming’s protagonist was literally a well-trained special forces soldier who brought over a few moves from Origins in his effort to find out what happened to his brother and his hometown.

Shepherd’s Glen was a gloomy and terrifying place, which was standard fare for a Silent Hill instalment. However, the story that it offered was a bit of a letdown, with a fight that was such a clear callback to Smeagol from The Lord of the Rings, it was almost laughable. His story didn’t feel in line with the kind of unique horror that the Silent Hill franchise had a reputation for at the time. Nevertheless, it does have its merits and nails the horror part quite well.

10. Silent Hill: Origins

As a return to the franchise’s literal roots, Travis Grady’s adventure was quite compelling and does a great job of weaving in the original game’s beginning into one of its endings. It stayed true to all of the elements that made the Silent Hill franchise as popular as it was while also allowing its gameplay loop to look and feel quite immersive and terrifying in equal measures.

However, a clunky combat system and a lack of innovation held it back from ranking higher among its counterparts. And that’s not counting its PS2 port, which did not manage to recapture the game’s essence well enough for it to be worth the effort. It’s a title that you kind of have to play for its lore, but it isn’t one you’re likely to revisit once you roll the credits on Grady’s adventure, irrespective of whether you achieve the canon ending or see him set off looking for his lost truck in a UFO.

9. Silent Hill: Downpour

Downpour certainly had a lot of what Silent Hill was known and loved for, returning the franchise to its survival horror formula, while its story was an inspired take on the mind of a convict whose actions could make him an anti-hero of sorts. The examination of his thoughts, presented through the franchise’s framework of psychological horror, was quite entertaining and is certainly worth a try.

However, it failed to capitalize on its strengths, with its combat system leaving a lot to be desired and technical issues at launch, which proved to be quite divisive. Although it shines brightly in short bursts, those aren’t enough to earn it a higher spot on our rankings, considering the other titles that we’re yet to discuss.

8. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

As a sort of parallel universe version of the original game, Shattered Memories’ premise is definitely among the franchise’s more inspired ideas. Its visual, gameplay loop, enemy designs, and story were all solid, as was the voice acting on offer. So why doesn’t it rank higher on this list?

For starters, its short runtime meant that there simply wasn’t enough of it to go around. Secondly, it was let down by a few odd design choices that held it back from achieving the dizzying heights that the titles we’re yet to discuss managed to achieve. Once again, it was a very bold idea that could have been more, but sadly couldn’t live up to what it wanted to be.

7. Silent Hill 4: The Room

A protagonist trapped in his own apartment with an undead serial killer? Sign us up!

Pair that up with a companion who is susceptible to being possessed by the game’s threats, and you’ve got a very potent recipe for a strong Silent Hill game, albeit one that doesn’t take place in the titular town. It was a plot that drew a lot of praise from critics and gamers alike, although its gameplay did not receive the unanimous praise that Team Silent had hoped for.

Nevertheless, it deserves a place of honor among the franchise’s best titles, albeit one that’s not as high as the best of the best.

6. Silent Hill

The game that started it all is obviously going to be among the franchise’s best titles. Its story, setting, gameplay, and protagonist were all show-stoppers at the time of its release, as was its basis in psychological horror. It has certainly earned its place among modern gaming’s greatest hits, and with good reason.

While its voice acting could have been better, and a few annoyances with regard to controlling your character did mar its gameplay a little bit, it still deserves recognition as a game that we’d revisit the minute The Bloober Team’s remake of it hits the shelves.

5. Silent Hill 2 Remake

We’re not going to lie, we absolutely had a blast playing The Bloober Team’s remake of Silent Hill 2. It was a perfect recreation of the original title, with a healthy dose of current-gen goodness thrown in to make it a very appealing repackaging of a title that was already excellent to begin with.

As you may have guessed, we’re going to be talking about everything that was good about Silent Hill 2 in just a moment, but we’d be remiss not to give the Polish studio its due and comment on just how well it managed to modernize a title that remains among gaming’s greats.

4. P.T.

We’re still not over the cancellation of this one. Bringing Hideo Kojima into the Silent Hill fold should have been a shot in the arm for the franchise, a catapult to true greatness considering the legendary storyteller’s work with the Metal Gear franchise. Kojima’s penchant for introspective examinations of his thematic inspirations was the perfect vehicle for the franchise’s unique brand of horror.

However, it wasn’t meant to be, and the project was cancelled, and Norman Reedus’ take on a Silent Hill protagonist never saw the light of day. More’s the pity considering his work with Death Stranding.

3. Silent Hill 3

Atmospheric, suffocating, deliciously introspective, and absolutely terrifying, this was the Silent Hill franchise at its finest. Heather’s tryst with Silent Hill’s resident cult is a tale for the ages, bringing examinations of complex themes to a story that was riveting from start to finish.

It was sadly limited by a clunky control system but considering how well it presented everything that we know and love about Silent Hill games, this one deserves its place on our rankings.

2. SILENT HILL f

Silent Hill f marks the series’ first major entry in thirteen long years, and what an amazing return it is. Set in the remote Japanese town of Ebisugaoka during the 1960s, players step into the shoes of Hinako Shimizu, a high school student trapped amidst vicious monsters. With exceptional audio design, striking visuals powered by Unreal Engine 5, and engaging level design, Silent Hill f comes remarkably close to topping our list for this feature.

1. Silent Hill 2 (2001)

Silent Hill 2 is the undisputed champion of the franchise. There’s a reason that Konami and The Bloober Team selected it as the vehicle to bring the franchise into the current generation of gaming hardware and gamers, after all.

Its story and characters were unforgettable, and some of them haunt us even today. Its gameplay fired on all cylinders while exploring Silent Hill as James and searching for his lost wife was seriously unsettling. This was one of our favorite games on the PS2 and we would love to forget it just so we could experience it all over again for the first time, even without the modernized touches of the recent remake.

And there you have it! That’s all of the mainline Silent Hill games ranked. Do you agree with us on their places among the franchise’s many installments? Was there one you think deserves more?

Bloober Team’s Silent Hill 2 remake is incredible. It’s the sort of remake that strikes the perfect balance between being smartly faithful to its source material and adding in its own ideas and flourishes, and in doing so, delivers a game that feels like a sufficiently enhanced and expanded form of what was an already stellar gaming experience. Not only does it keep the strengths of the original intact, the new Silent Hill 2 even enhances those strengths, with the end result being a survival horror remake that is good enough to stand in company of other modern classics in that very specific subset of games, including the likes of Resident Evil 2, and Dead Space.

The question, of course, is this- what’s next for Bloober Team and Konami? And cutting right to the chase, we can probably safely assume that Silent Hill 2 isn’t the last time the two will be collaborating on the psychological horror franchise. There is, in fact, a very good chance that Bloober Team is going to develop another Silent Hill remake, which is something that the studio has strongly hinted at on a couple of occasions. Recently, for instance, Bloober Team CEO Piotr Babieno said in an interview with Polish outlet Bankier that the Silent Hill 2 remake was “not the end of the adventure with Konami”. Going back a little further, in an interview with GamingBolt, when asked about the possibility of developing more Silent Hill remakes in the future, Silent Hill 2 producer Maciej Głomb said, “It still remains to be seen, but in my opinion, you should never say never.” Sure, that was far from a confirmation- but you wouldn’t expect such an answer from a studio that wasn’t looking to continue working on the IP going forward.

Now that Silent Hill 2 is out and is receiving the sort of widespread acclaim that it is, assuming that it sells well enough (which it hopefully will), we’d be surprised if Konami didn’t greenlight at least another remake with Bloober Team. But even if we were to work on the assumption that that does happen, we would still have another interesting question left to answer- which game should Konami and Bloober remake next?

That Silent Hill 2 was the right choice as the first game to be remade, in spite of being the series’ second entry, is something that we can all agree on, at least in hindsight. Obviously, there was immense pressure on the game to succeed as not only the remake of a beloved and legendary title, but also as the first major release for a fan-favourite franchise that had been dormant for too long (and hadn’t been genuinely good in even longer). But Silent Hill 2 was, narratively speaking, perhaps the best suited for a remake where the developer wouldn’t have to change too much, which meant that most of the attention could be diverted to enhancing the experience’s gameplay and technical aspects, while trying to preserve its narrative strengths.

Both Silent Hill 1 and 3 would likely allow Bloober Team to continue onward with that approach. Having released in 1999 and 2003 respectively, both titles have aged significantly at this point, which means that, just like with Silent Hill 2, the developers will have to spend a lot of their time on reimagining and enhancing the gameplay, design, audio, visuals, and what have you. On a narrative level, meanwhile, neither Silent Hill 1 or 3 have the same level of prestige that something like 2 does, even though they obviously have their fair share of fans, which would likely also allow Bloober Team to maybe be more ambitious with the creative liberties it takes in adapting the source material.

Would that attract skepticism (once again)? Probably, yes- but the studio has done an undeniably good job with Silent Hill 2, which means it’s earned at least a certain amount of trust. Especially if Bloober continues to work with Silent Hill veterans who worked on the originals – as it did for the Silent Hill 2 remake, which saw both creature designer Masahiro Ito and composer Akira Yamaoka taking an active part in development – we wouldn’t be opposed to the idea of the studio making at least some changes in future remakes. We’ve seen with plenty of remakes in recent years that not sticking closely to the script can often make for even better experiences than the original games, and we’d very much like for future Silent Hill remakes to benefit from such an approach, if they were to get made.

Either one of Silent Hill 1 or 3 would be a smart pick for the next remake, then, though of course, there’s an argument to be made that Silent Hill 4: The Room should also be in that conversation. That is, of course, the black sheep of the mainline numbered Silent Hill line of titles, but it is also the sort of game that is perhaps in more desperate need of improvements and enhancements than Silent Hill 1 and 3, both of which are great games already. Then again, for a franchise that has only just started its comeback journey, perhaps it wouldn’t be the smartest decision to remake what is decidedly one of the series’ least popular entries.

Beyond the mainline numbered titles, Silent Hill does also have a number of spinoffs that are, at least on paper, also candidates for remakes, with Silent Hill: Origins, Downpour, Shattered Memories, and Homecoming. You wouldn’t be wrong for thinking that each of those games have their sets of fans, but while that might be the case, it’s also undeniable that they’re all seriously flawed. For the same reasons as The Room, it’s unlikely that Konami will want to move on to remakes for these titles just yet- and at least The Room is a numbered entry.

Recent reports have claimed that Capcom is currently developing remakes of Resident Evil Zero and Code Veronica, but that’s only after the company spent the last few years pumping out one numbered remake after another. Once Konami has that sort of solid footing beneath Silent Hill’s legs, we’re sure the idea of spinoffs and the less popular entries being remade won’t seem so out of reach anymore, but at least for now, we’d be surprised if Konami decided to remake anything other than Silent Hill 1 or 3.

That is, of course, based on the assumption that Silent Hill 2 will sell well enough to warrant a follow-up. Hopefully that does happen, because what Bloober Team and Konami have accomplished with the newly-released remake is truly special, and we’d hate to not be able to see them try something like that with other instalments in the franchise in the not-too-distant future.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Mindblowing Knife – Dead Island

Developer Techland’s Dead Island is a game that was showered with praise by both fans and critics upon its launch back in 2011 and for good reason, with one of them being its great offerings of tools that players can use to smack zombies in the face. Slashing zombies with Mindblowing Knife will cause their heads to explode thanks to its 100% critical hit chance, making it one of the best weapons to crowd control zombies or better yet, kill them in one fell swoop.

The Protagonist

Following the introspective look at James Sunderland and his actions in Silent Hill 2, it’s interesting to shift to Heather Mason as the new “hero.” From the outset, Heather is aloof and sarcastic, almost distant from the horrors unfolding around her. She’s conflicted about her existence. But following a tragedy that befalls her before venturing to Silent Hill, there is a resolve that builds, a determination to fight against The Cult. Perhaps most appealing is that in the midst of all this, Heather doesn’t come across as a typical “hero” but as an empathetic figure who seeks to stop The Order’s plans, like her father before her had done.

Abstract Daddy – Silent Hill 2

Located within the Labyrinth, the Abstract Daddy is arguably one of the most disturbing creatures in Silent Hill lore. Essentially two bodies stuck on a portrait of skin, moving on four legs, it’s a representation of the abuse that Angela Orosco faced. It’s also implied to have some connection to James Sunderland’s own frustration.

Amnesia Collection

Frictional Games was no stranger to the horror gaming scene thanks to the Penumbra series. However, Amnesia: The Dark Descent completely blew away expectations. Its tale of confusion and mystery, highlighted by the protagonist’s amnesia, clashed with the oppressive shadow that constantly sought out players. Amnesia: The Dark Descent delivered a compelling psychological horror experience that was simple but still wholly terrifying. The Amnesia Collection features the first game, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs (developed by The Chinese Room) and Amnesia: Justine. While the latter two range from above average to good, the entire collection is a steal for the amount of scares it provides.

Resident Evil 2 Remake – Mr. X Crushes Ben Bertolucci

The first encounter with Mr. X aka the Tyrant is freaky enough and despite how dapper he looks, you can never really relax. Then again, you don’t really get to see how brutal the Tyrant can be…until he murders an imprisoned Ben Bertolucci by crushing his skull. It’s quick and not altogether messy which just makes it all the more terrifying.

Dhekelia SBA Memorial Hospital – Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

Aside from a female assassin trying to kill him, Big Boss quote-unquote has to deal with a deranged psychic and a man on fire capable of summoning a burning steed. We’re sure the hospital itself is a nice enough place but given the number of forces attempting to eliminate our hero at any given time, you may want to avoid it based on who’s waking up on which day.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

Though somewhat divisive over protagonist and range of metaphysical themes, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was universally praised for its visuals. As a jump from the PS One to the PS2 era, the animations, texture work and cinematic direction saw monumental improvements. Despite the highly industrial setting, environments were realistic, right down to the grime, dirt and atmospheric lighting.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Silent Hill 1 – The Final Boss Will Die Automatically Provided You Have No Ammo At All

When facing the final boss of Silent Hill 1, if you have no ammo you can win instantly. Cycling through each of your weapons and showing the boss you don’t have a single round on you will cause it to die automatically. Sometimes the best weapon is no weapon at all.