Silent Hill Townfall Review – Learning to Move On

It’s hard to admit that it’s been 12 years since P.T. came out. What was meant to serve as an interactive trailer for an upcoming Silent Hill revival took on a life of its own. Looping hallways, environmental storytelling, and a first-person perspective promised something new and exciting for the then-stagnant series. However, it wasn’t meant to be. 

Following Silent Hill: The Short Message, Silent Hill Townfall is the first fully-fledged title to adopt the first-person point of view. Developed by Screen Burn and published by Konami Digital Entertainment and Annapurna Interactive, it tries to do something different with the series. Just like Silent Hill f, Townfall takes place in a brand-new setting, far away from the titular town. Does it retain enough of its signature DNA to stand on its own feet?

TL;DR

Silent Hill Townfall takes the series in a bold new direction with Scotland as its destination. Adopting a first-person perspective and a heavy emphasis on stealth, it’s a unique and welcome addition to the series. It pays homage to the Team Silent era while carving a new path for the series through the lens of a sleepy town.

Story – Guilt from Multiple Perspectives

Silent Hill Townfall takes place in the town of St. Amelia, in 1996. It’s a fishing town that’s seen better days and is located on the coast of Scotland. You play as Simon, a man who washes up on the shores of the town without any memory of why he’s there. He has a mysterious IV going into his hand and, with no other choice, he goes into the town to learn what’s going on. 

What follows is a 15-hour journey that explores guilt, grief, and what it means to move on from the things you can’t change. In many ways, this is the most straightforward Silent Hill narrative, but that doesn’t mean the game is simple. Simon will come across others who are stuck in St. Amelia just like he is, and who are also related to the events he is trying to unravel in his mind. 

Equally Cozy & Unnerving World

Setting the game in a Scottish fishing town was the right move on Screen Burn’s part. For one, it allowed them to draw heavy inspiration from the history surrounding the Glasgow-based studio. That’s only possible when the studio is close to the environment they set out to replicate, and they’ve succeeded on all fronts with Townfall. 

If you ever visited a small, quiet town surrounded by fog, you’ll get flashbacks as you explore St. Amelia. However, this town has its dark secrets and history, which is the instigator of why Simon ended up there in the first place. Townfall is both cozy and inviting, and it asks you to take a nap while also making you feel uncomfortable and confused as to what is actually going on. In this sense, it’s the closest to what visiting Silent Hill should feel like.

Gameplay – Silent Hill from First-Person POV

Silent Hill Townfall is a first-person horror game, which is a bold new direction for the series, which famously features a third-person perspective. This works to its advantage because it allows the game to build its own identity without being compared to what came before. Although it will inevitably be compared to Team Silent’s work by long-time fans, Townfall is its own game. 

Taking place in the island town of St. Amelia, it is a bold departure from the titular town. This allowed Screen Burn to mold the game into something new and exciting instead of chasing the standards set by a legendary team almost thirty years ago. But that also means that there’s an adjustment period to prepare for when starting Silent Hill Townfall. 

Stealth Over Action

Coming into it with a fresh and open mind is the best way to go, because this is not a numbered Silent Hill entry. Just like Silent Hill f, it adopts the “Silent Hill” in its name as a phenomenon, not as a literal location. The foggy streets of St. Amelia and the “Different”, this game’s version of the Otherworld, feel fresh in ways a derivative copy of Team Silent’s work wouldn’t. 

The same applies to gameplay, which heavily relies on stealth and resource management, arguably much more than most Silent Hill games. While you can fight enemies and win a few encounters, you’ll inevitably run out of resources and need to sneak around to traverse the town, solve puzzles, and uncover the mystery of St. Amelia.

CRTV – Your New Best Friend

One of the main gameplay elements of Townfall is the CRTV, a small portable radio with a built-in screen. This gadget lets Simon explore St. Amelia more easily by detecting various signals around the environment, including secret messages, puzzle clues, and enemies. The game makes it clear that you won’t get far without using the CRTV, so you’d best get comfortable with the tool early on. 

The tool is a great stand-in for the traditional radio most Silent Hill characters use, and it fits with the game’s 90s setting. It’s also primitive enough that you’ll never clearly see or hear what’s coming through, so you’ll need to pay extra attention to the signals at all times. The CRTV is very easy to use, and you’ll often find yourself cycling through channels to see if you can pick something new up. Paired with phone booths and landlines you’ll use to save your progress, Silent Hill Townfall has a very retro feel despite being a 2026 game.

Visuals – Foggy Scotland Comes to Life

Silent Hill Townfall runs on Unreal Engine 5, and considering it’s made by a small studio, it’s a visual and technical marvel. We reviewed the game on the base PlayStation 5, where it features a Performance and a Quality mode. They target 60 and 30 FPS, respectively, and the game allows you to modify additional visual elements such as motion blur and head bobbing to fine-tune your experience. Silent Hill Townfall is a slow and atmospheric game with tight, linear environments which occasionally let you roam free. 

These moments truly bring the game to life as they allow you to explore St. Amelia and immerse yourself in 90s Scotland. This is not an exaggeration, as Screen Burn meticulously brought the era to life with its environmental design. Everything from seaside walkways and road signage to how houses feel cluttered and lived-in feels like the team truly cared about their work. 

Getting the Small Things Right

Every house, apartment, or building has a certain logic to it in real life, and Townfall understands that. For example, each house has bedrooms, bathrooms, a kitchen, a phone next to the front door, etc. You’ll find these items exactly where you subconsciously think they should be. It’s a minor detail, but it’s often overlooked in video game design, and Silent Hill Townfall truly understood the assignment. 

Another point worth making is about the game’s motion capture. Despite a smaller budget, every character in the game feels lifelike, especially in their facial features. You can clearly tell what’s going through their heads at the moment, how they feel about their current situation, and the immaculate voice work only drives the immersion further. Silent Hill Townfall is nothing if not atmospheric and unsettling, but also eerily cozy in how St. Amelia feels like a town that could actually exist somewhere on the foggy coast of Scotland.

Audio – Unsettlingly Immersive Sound Design

Although Akira Yamaoka gave the series its signature sound during the Team Silent era, Silent Hill Townfall charts its own path. Pilotpriest, a Canadian musician and artist, is responsible for the game’s soundtrack, and it’s mesmerizing in its own way. It pays homage to the classics in the series while giving Silent Hill Townfall its own identity with European influences and an emphasis on atmospheric music. 

You’ll often recognize tones and subtle references to Akira Yamaoka’s work, but this soundtrack is its own beast entirely. In terms of characters, Silent Hill Townfall opts for a cast of professional actors. Jovan Adepo (IT: Welcome to Derry), Terry O’Quinn (LOST), and Kezia Burrows (Alien: Isolation) all do an amazing job at conveying their characters’ struggles with existing in this strange, unnerving world. 

Knowing What to Say, and When to Say It

As the third pillar of its sound design, Silent Hill Townfall understands that less is more when it comes to environmental storytelling. The game is eerily quiet and lets the player sink into it on their own terms. There are very few, if any, jump scares in the entire game, which is commendable considering its genre. Instead, you’ll be greeted by environmental sounds you’d expect from exploring abandoned houses and shops. 

Likewise, Simon rarely, if ever, speaks to himself, letting you as the player put two and two together as you explore St. Amelia. It’s a refreshing design choice that really resonates with the gameplay design and earns Silent Hill Townfall extra points simply for respecting its players’ resourcefulness.

Conclusion – Should You Play Silent Hill Townfall?

Silent Hill Townfall is what the series needed, but not necessarily what its fans wanted. It takes heavy inspiration from Team Silent’s work but also tries to do things differently. The first-person perspective is something die-hard fans will struggle to accept, but it helps Townfall differentiate itself from the rest of the series. 

Just like Simon, fans have to learn to move on and embrace what comes next. With projects like the Silent Hill 2 remake leaning on what came before, and projects like these looking ahead, the series has never been healthier. 

There has never been a better time to become a fan of Silent Hill with the diverse games Konami Digital Entertainment has been producing. And with the remake of the first Silent Hill already announced, that streak is only bound to continue.

Silent Hill Townfall is now available on PC and PlayStation 5.

Big thanks to CD Media for providing us with the review copy!