Silent Hill: Townfall Devs Say They’re Fixing Game’s Most Annoying Feature

With the release of Silent Hill: Townfall, players are eagerly jumping into the next game from the psychological horror series, and finding plenty of terrifying enjoyment within it. Yet, the game isn’t quite perfect at this point, with many fans finding some notable flaws in certain sections of the title’s story. Thankfully, these criticisms seemed to have reached the eyes of the game’s developers, leading to promises of certain issues being fixed in the near future.

The atmospheric horror of Silent Hill: Townfall is partly defined by the nightmarish monsters players face during the game, which can hunt you down in stealth sections of the game. Although weapons will allow you to eliminate certain monsters as you play, one is far more brutal than the others, existing as an unkillable entity called The Weight. The presentation of this creature is very impactful to Townfall‘s story, but how it’s integrated into the gameplay of the title has left many fans begging developers for some changes.

Late Game Stealth Encounters Are Set To Be Reworked In Silent Hill: Townfall Following Fan Backlash

For the most part, a majority of Silent Hill: Townfall is a meticulous and tense survival horror experience, with a new first-person perspective leading the franchise in a new direction. Many players are happy with the game’s story, but the gameplay toward the middle and end of the title have caused some controversy. Players haven’t liked how the stealth sections that take place toward the endgame drastically slow down the pace of the experience, grinding things to a halt and making enemy encounters frustrating.

Although many early game enemies can be fought or avoided to make the stealth sections feel natural, the increasing difficulty of the foes you face disrupts that balance. The biggest example of this is the aforementioned Weight enemy, who can’t be killed using any type of weapons players find. At the same time, enemies have strange AI systems that clue them into the player’s actions inconsistently, making it hard to determine how or why certain enemies notice you. Players may not know if the sounds they made or other actions drew enemy attention, or why they linger around spots where you’re trying to hide.

The Weight represents the height of this frustration, as the creature can kill you in one hit through a specific animation. This enemy appears twice in Silent Hill: Townfall, so it’s impossible to avoid the flaws with the creature’s design at different points in the game. This turns the game less into classic Silent Hill survival horror, and more of a stealth title that slows to a crawl whenever The Weight is on your screen. The stealth of Silent Hill: Townfall isn’t bad when the enemy AI works, or when enemies are vulnerable enough to give players multiple options for dealing with them.

Thankfully, a recent X post from developer Screen Burn has stated that a patch for Silent Hill: Townfall is coming soon, and plans to address many player concerns. Alongside significant improvements to stuttering issues, other enhancements for the game are planned. According to the post itself, Screen Burn says that “we’ve heard you on struggles with The Weight — gameplay balance on it’s way asap.” This means that The Weight, and likely other enemies in Townfall, are going to receive proper AI refinements and other balancing to make them less oppressive in the game’s story.

Comparisons To Other Survival Horror Games Have Caused Players To Ask For Different Design Decisions

Some of the reviews for Silent Hill: Townfall accuse the game of having a very limited design when it comes to stealth segments and enemy types players run into. There are only really four different kinds of enemies, with players not having a ton of options to deal with them, especially once you encounter The Weight later on. Some players have compared The Weight in Townfall to the Xenomorph pursuer enemy in Alien: Isolation, another first-person survival horror game with a similar atmospheric focus. The Xenomorph was extremely intelligent with its multi-layered AI, forcing players to adapt their strategies and be incredibly careful during stealth sections.

By comparison, The Weight feels like a watered down version of the Xenomorph, with far less intuitive actions that players can plan around. This could be the thing that changes with Townfall‘s future updates, with the enemy becoming much more compelling through some gameplay tweaks. In a series that is notable for pursuer type enemies like Pyramid Head, having The Weight reach that same level of impact could drastically improve the overall journey players go through.

It’s doubtful that the core gameplay of this title will change too much more, but expansions to the story or DLC content could introduce players to new content expansions. In the modern era, this Silent Hill title might evolve over time as different updates and tweaks come to it. With that in mind, Silent Hill: Townfall has room to improve, especially as the most annoying part of the game may go away just as it has become unbearable for players going through the title for the first time.

Silent Hill: Townfall’s Mix Of Two Genres Could Create One Of The Best Horror Games This Year