Silent Hill’s Original Storyline Remains Untouched After Nearly 25 Years, And the Franchise Should Return to It

Silent Hill has consistently been one of modern gaming’s most inventive horror franchises. Thanks to a willingness to experiment with narrative focus, the series has developed a reputation for taking wild directions for each new stand-alone entry in the series. That’s despite the fact that the series originally was laying the groundwork for a larger, consistent plotline involving a demonic entity being born into the physical world.

This beat was central to the storylines of Silent Hill and Silent Hill 3, the latter of which debuted 23 years ago. In the two decades that have passed since, the series has largely focused on new characters and otherwise disconnected stories — with even the return of the cult in prequel games focused more on new characters insteads of carrying on the original plot about Cheryl Mason. Now, with the series rapidly expanding, it’s high time for the franchise to revisit those earlier stories and bring back Cheryl.

Silent Hill Originally Had A Single Overarching Storyline

Silent Hill has spent most of the 21st century as a series of largely stand-alone games. While there were clear tonal throughlines and subtle worldbuilding connections, most of the games in the mainline series have focused on different characters trying to survive the chaos caused by the mysterious town. However, two of the first three games did actually have a throughline. Silent Hill established the existence of the Order, a cult who are (at least in that game) seemingly responsible for the supernatural aura that hangs over the titular town. The Order were dedicated to forcing the birth of their god on the physical plane, which resulted in the birth of a single girl split into two forms — Harry Mason’s adopted daughter Cheryl and a mysterious child seen throughout the town. Harry’s mission in the game becomes to stop the ascension of the deity. The game’s multiple endings initally left the full circumstances of the encounter to the imagination of the player, especially when Silent Hill 2 proved to be an entirely different story and focus.

The story of the Order came back in Silent Hill 3, however. Taking place seventeen years later and focusing on Heather (a reborn Cheryl from the good endings of the first game) and her encounters with Alessa, who was used as the original conduit to give birth to the demonic god at the heart of the Order’s efforts. This gives the two games a direct narrative throughline, despite the time skip and perspective shift. The two games even share an underlying danger in the forces at work to raise “God” regardless of the cost, all while both stories very firmly explore questions about grief and faith. While Alessa and Heather’s stories would be revisited in future games like Silent Hill Origins and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, the mainline series largely abandonded this plot going forward and instead introduced new supernatrual threats.

I Want To Find Out More About Cheryl’s Fate In Silent Hill

One of the coolest things about Silent Hill has always been the way it can tell self-contained stories while still feeling consistent with the underlying tone of the franchise. I would never want to force connections between great titles like Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 4: The Room, or Silent Hill f. Trying to manufacture connections to the original games and the remote Scottish town of Silent Hill Townfall seems like a waste, especially when that game is looking so cool already. However, I do think the franchise is big enough that it could also make room for some connected stories — and revisiting Cheryl’s corner of the franchise might be the ideal proof.

The expansions on those stories have been largely additive to the backstory of Alessa or reimaginings of Harry’s story, but we have yet to see what happens to Cheryl following her journey of self-discovery. It’s been almost 25 years and there’s little to go on about the fate of the Order in the aftermath of Alessa’s attempted resurgence, as well as the fate of Cheryl. A follow-up on her storyline could revisit her shortly after the events of that game or take place years later, giving her the chance to be an older woman and potentially even a parent herself by the time the story revisits her. This could grant the series a chance to revisit its original throughline, which has been largely untouched since the prequel events of Origins and Silent Hill: Homecoming. Seeing how she has grown from the trauma of her youth — or even been consumed by it — would be a fascinating chance to reexamine the legacy of the series.

With Konami teasing that they want to increase the number of Silent Hill releases, this might be the ideal time to revisit Cheryl. Due to the otherwise largely stand-alone nature of the series, fans could go into her adventure confident that other games would still continue to experiment with the formula and take it into different directions. It could give fans of those early two games a sense of closure and even tease new directions for the series to take going forward. It could even be used to explain some more lore about the franchise without necessarily overcomplicating the universe, leaving the stand-alones to work on their own even as it finds subtle tethers between each entry of the series. I’m excited for Silent Hill‘s future, but I hope we also get the chance to finally revisit one of the only larger throughlines of the franchise.

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