How Silent Hill Townfall Is Different From Past Silent Hill Games

Everyone I spoke to at Summer Game Fest this year has been comparing Silent Hill Townfall to P.T. – the legendary Silent Hills demo by Kojima Productions that briefly lived on the PS4. It’s been called one of the scariest games ever made, despite it taking place entirely in a small house, and the thing is, even though Townfall is virtually nothing like P.T., it represents everything that that demo was meant to invoke. Perhaps this is the game P.T. would’ve become.

Survival horror video games have been having a moment these past few years, and two franchises are leading the charge: Resident Evil and Silent Hill. The former has released multiple remakes and now a new, extremely high-performing game in Resident Evil Requiem. Meanwhile, Silent Hill itself had a remake and some new releases in Silent Hill f, though the latter was a significant departure from the core tenets of the series. Now the latest installment, Silent Hill Townfall, aims to bring the franchise back a bit while also making bold new changes with first-person, instant revive, etc.

Silent Hill Townfall is a first-person survival horror game being developed by Screen Burn and published by Konami and Annapurna Interactive. It’s set back in the mid-1990s and takes place in Scotland – the developer’s home country – specifically in the town of St. Amelia. Right off the bat, you can see that it isn’t set in Silent Hill itself, but that doesn’t mean the goings-on at this St. Amelia is any less creepy.

In this story, people play as the newcomer Simon Ordell, who attempts to uncover his connection to this island and the mysterious woman who appears on his supernaturally-powered handheld CRTV. At SGF, we saw about 20-25 minutes of gameplay, much of it focused on Simon exploring the mysterious woman’s house, which he finds by following the clues laid out on the CRTV. Silent Hill Townfall, like previous Silent Hill games, is quite slow, but this spinoff appears to force players to be more methodical with their actions.

Throughout the demonstration, Simon uses the CRTV to search for clues and then later, when he leaves the house to go to another location, he uses it to see enemies through walls. It’s not a perfect system and you have to actively use the device to find monsters, like a scanner, but it’s necessary to use to avoid dying. Coupling the CRTV with the ability to peak around corners, stealth should be significantly easier in Silent Hill Townfall, if you can time your movements.

Of course, there’s still some action. Towards the end of the gameplay presentation, Simon picks up a wooden stick and uses it to fend off the monster… and dies. It was done deliberately to showcase the instant revive system; Simon immediately gets back up thanks to the IV that’s attached to his left arm. We’ll supposedly find out more about that later on, but what we know is that you’ll only be able to instantly revive once per actual death. Think of it like Sekiro, to an extent.

Overall, Silent Hill Townfall has the freakish atmosphere, the right monsters, the intriguing story, the weighty combat, and some new gimmicks like the CRTV. Fans of the original series may enjoy this title more than Silent Hill f, given it’s less of a departure from the core formula, but a lot remains to be seen.