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When Silent Hill f was first shown off a couple of months back, I had no idea what to make of it. The idea that a Silent Hill game would be set in Japan?! Well, that certainly offended the sensibilities! I mean, Silent Hill is a damn town. It’s an iconic location you visit! That’s why I disliked Silent Hill 4: The Room too!
I was willing to give Silent Hill f a shot though.
The Japanese setting looked cool and since I love the Fatal Frame series, I wanted to see if this was anything like that. Except without taking pictures of ghosts…probably.
That’s why despite the game launching on the first day of Tokyo Game Show 2025 (come on Konami, that’s just low!), I still had to play the game to see if it was worth it!
Was it?
What is Silent Hill f?
Silent Hill f is a third person survival horror game developed by NeoBards Entertainment Limited and published by Konami Digital Entertainment. It is available right now on the PC, PlayStation and Xbox consoles.
Our review copy was awesomely provided by Konami! Thanks so much!
I’ll be reviewing the game on our trio of review rigs, as per the norm.
Here are the specs in case you’re wondering:
Desktop 1 –
– MSI B550M Mortar WIFI
– AMD Ryzen 9 5900X with NZXT Kraken X73 RGB Liquid Cooler
– MSI GeForce RTX 4090 Suprim X 24G
– Teamgroup T-Force Dark Z 64GB DDR4 RAM
– Samsung 980 PRO 2TB SSD
– NZXT C1200 Gold ATX 3.1
– Lian Li LANCOOL III RGB case
Desktop 2 –
– MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi
– AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D with Cooler Master MasterLiquid 360L Core ARGB cooler
– Sapphire Pulse AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX 24GB
– G.SKILL Trident Z5 NEO 32GB DDR5-6400 RAM
– Samsung 990 PRO 2TB SSD
– Corsair RM850x PSU
– Lian Li LANCOOL 207 Digital
Notebook –
MSI Raider GE78 HX 14V
– Intel Core i9 14900HX
– NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
– 32GB DDR5 RAM
– 1TB SSD
The majority of the hardware above has been kindly sponsored by MSI (Desktop 1 and the MSI Raider GE78 HX 14V) and AMD (Desktop 2), and we’d like to take this opportunity to thank them for their support!
Silent Hill f is weird in that it doesn’t take place in Silent Hill at all. In fact, it doesn’t even take place in the US. It takes place in 1960s Japan, in the fictional town of Ebisugaoka. The game doesn’t have any ties to the other titles, though there are thematic similarities. Cults, otherworldly gods, an alternate dimension…both Silent Hill f and the main series deal with these.
This makes Silent Hill f a good place to jump in for new fans, though they might face a bit of a system shock when they play the mainline games due to the completely different settings.
In this game, players take on the role of Hinako Shimizu, a school girl who suddenly finds her town enshrouded in a mysterious mist and weird red flowers/weeds popping up all over the place. Pretty much everybody’s vanished, save for a handful.
Weird monsters are everywhere and Hinako’s basically running all over the place trying to survive and figure out what the hell is happening.
For all intents and purposes, Silent Hill f can be called anything and still won’t make a difference. This is a Silent Hill game in name only, for other than the thematic similarities, Silent Hill f doesn’t feel like a Silent Hill title at all.
I should know, I’ve played them all! Even the arcade game and the visual novel on the Game Boy Advance!
Whether this means Konami is rebooting the series to be more Japanese-centric is anybody’s guess, but for now, it’s best to treat Silent Hill f as an aberration.
It’s debatable whether this is even canon to the other games in the series, as it takes place decades before and makes no references or mentions to the other games.
At the very least, it could’ve name dropped Samael or Metatron or any of the otherworldly beings…but nooooooope. No ties to Harry Mason, James Sunderland or anybody (I was really hoping for a sneaky reference to Mira the Dog) for that matter.
I have no idea why Silent Hill f is a Silent Hill game at all.
With no ties to the mainline series, I didn’t really feel invested or intrigued to find out what’s happened. Yeah, I was curious initially but as the game dragged on, that curiosity slowly eroded away.
Compared to the Silent Hill 2 remake, the game is a step backwards. The cutscenes are rather basic and boring, and didn’t feel interesting in the least.
Most of them regurgitate the same old spiel.
Hinako meets somebody and they suggest going to another place to try to escape/ find survivors. Either that, or Hinako wakes up in the Dark Shrine and needs to do something to progress. Or it’s to introduce a new boss/ creature to fight.
It’s the same all the way through the game and it gets old real fast.
The characters didn’t get any interest from me (Shu in particular, I wanted to die as soon as possible), and the Rinko/ Hinako subplot is so cringey and forgettable. The older Silent Hill titles were by no means storytelling masterpieces…but they at least had more interesting plots and characters than this!
I understand needing new characters but the new cast feels like rejects from the Fatal Frame, Battle Royale, Ringu and Ju-on series. Stereotypical Japanese students with secrets. I completely stopped caring about them (even Hinako) within a few hours.
Silent Hill f also takes its cues from old school survival horror games. That means, a lack of ranged weaponry, lots of enemies (that hit hard), limited supplies and a very limited inventory.
Unlike games like Resident Evil (which also had a limited inventory), there’s no storage box to store excess stuff. Here, you either have room to carry, or you discard items.
I really hate the idea of being forced to discard items sooooooooo much. It’s made worse in Silent Hill f because there are so many different types of items that you will undoubtedly fill up your inventory. Only a few items will stack, and even then in small numbers.
There’s no fun in giving players so many different items with barely anything to differentiate between them. There are literally multiple items that do the same thing, just in different strengths. It just makes for frustrating inventory management!
It also doesn’t make sense why you need to pick an item up to use them! Why can’t I just use the item I don’t have space for in my inventory? Or why can’t I just drop whatever I don’t need on the floor and then return to pick them up later?
Why the need to punish players who have excess items because they know how to hoard and are good enough not to use supplies?!
Items aren’t even highlighted on the map too.
If you don’t pick them up straight away, unless you remember where they were when you encountered them, returning to pick them up can be an exercise in frustration.
It’s lucky then that the game allows you to ‘Enshrine’ some items at saving points. This is the sole saving grace in the hell that is item management. Even then, it’s a flawed mechanic.
Basically you offer up the items in order to get points that you can use to upgrade your health, stamina or sanity meter or increase your charm slots.
Alternatively, you can also buy charms that you can equip. These charms come in different flavors and give you different advantages like a slower sanity meter drain or a faster charge for special attacks.
I really recommend equipping the charm that refills your health a bit after every kill. That’s going to save you from using a LOT of healing items.
The issue here is that only some items can be enshrined, while others can’t. It just makes inventory management all the more cumbersome. Juggling this, juggling that. It’s no fun when you’re thinking of inventory space more than enjoying the game or its monster fights!
In fact, speaking of fights, the game’s melee is pretty cool for a survival horror title. It is clunky but fighting is fun. You can do light or heavy attacks, dodge, counter and even do special moves later on. Later on, Hinako even gains the ability to suck out enemies’ souls, to prevent them from respawning and to power up her special attack meter.
Combat is slow, cumbersome and you need to pick the right times to attack, which makes each fight important. Enemies have telegraphed attacks, so if you’re smart and watch your foes, you can easily do counters that can KO even the stronger foes in a couple of hits of whatever weapon you got.
Countering is especially nicely done. All enemies (even bosses) have attacks which leave them open for a counter hit. You know you can counter these moves by the slight afterimage effect that’s triggered just before the attack goes off. Hit RT during these moments and you’re guaranteed a counter hit.
Most of these can be done by memorizing the attack patterns. There are some attacks (mostly from the bosses) that are nearly impossible to respond to in time because the counter window is just a few milliseconds long. For these attacks, you have to trigger Focus mode.
By holding LT, you trigger the mode (which also drains your Sanity meter). If the Focus mode is in effect when those attacks are triggered, you’ll have a longer than normal window to hit RT to counter.
The flipside is if you get hit while in Focus mode, you lose a portion of your Sanity meter. Since you need it to do the super powerful Focus Attacks, juggling between using it to counter or using it to go on the offensive is part of the fun!
While the melee combat is exciting, the weapon degradation mechanic sucks bad (how can a steel pipe break?) and is the only reason why I don’t love the combat fully.
I get baseball bats or knives breaking…but sledgehammers, crowbars and steel pipes?! Yes, I know some games in the series have a similar mechanic and I hated the implementation in them too!
It’s a ludicrous mechanic that forces you to try to avoid engagements to preserve your weapons.
Sure, you can do so…but if you do, you’ll definitely have a surplus of healing items. That of course, brings me back to my point of how the limited inventory is punishing you for being frugal and looking out for yourself smartly.
On the subject of looks, Silent Hill f’s visuals are a definite departure from what fans have come to expect from the series.
Ebisugaoka looks like your stereotypical post-war Japanese village. It’s a really cool setting to explore, and gives off a melancholic vibe that’s definitely in line with Silent Hill (the town). It’s a shame that you only get a glimpse of the village before everything turns topsy turvy. I’d have loved to explore it for a while in the day, without all the fog and monsters.
The Otherworld (the dark, rusty place that’s the trademark of the series) is completely gone. It’s replaced by the Dark Shrine as the alternative world behind Ebisugaoka.
Thematically, the Dark Shrine fits in perfectly with the Japanese setting.
It’s basically what it says – a huge alternate dimension that seems to be set in a Japanese temple and its surroundings. It’s a cool and creepy location and I really like it. However, fans coming from the main games (especially those from the recently released Silent Hill 2 remake), will find the change in established canon jarring.
Another jarring change (at least if you just came from Silent Hill 2 remake), is the super linear nature of the game. Bloober Team’s remake of Silent Hill 2 was brilliant in that they expanded the exploration element and made it so that you can go to lots of optional places.
Not here.
You’re always on a linear path. Whether it’s running through the town proper, its outskirts or even in the Dark Shrine. There’s barely anything optional to encounter or do. It’s being like being pushed down a narrow hallway with the only other exit being a door on the opposite side.
It’s boring! Even the original Silent Hill, plagued by the original PlayStation’s limitations, allowed you to explore Silent Hill in between set pieces. It’s shameful when you think about it.
Performance is also rather troubling in the game.
While the frame rate stays stable, there is a tremendous amount of shuttering in the outdoor areas. It’s real bad whenever you pass points where the game is streaming in the next section. Sometimes it feels like you’re watching a slideshow… OK, maybe that’s a bit of a hyperbole.
Not by much though!
The stuttering is extreme, though it lasts only a second or two. That’s still too much in my opinion.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re running an NVIDIA or AMD GPU, or even a mobile NVIDIA GPU. There’s still stuttering. On 4K, on 1080p. Stuttering as the data loads. It is inevitable and inescapable. All you can do, is grit your teeth and bear it.
Apart from that, the game runs rather decently, especially in enclosed areas. No reason it shouldn’t though. Most of the surroundings are almost always in fog, so it’s not like the game puts a huge strain on your hardware.
The game looks pretty good too, though the fleshy textures on the bulbous things could be grosser and more disgusting. In fact, Silent Hill f is rather tame on the body horror or the gore. Oh it’s there, but most of the time, the game chooses to block it out instead of depicting it onscreen. The developers want to imply the violence.
I say that’s a cop out. I want to see the gore. This is a horror game! What if Alien didn’t show the chestburster coming out of Kane and only hinted at it? Would it have the same impact?!
Another thing the game could’ve used is more enemy variety. You only get a handful of them and they’re just rotated throughout the game, with some different textures. There’s really nothing in the game that stands out. Nothing that screams out at you and says ‘This is Silent Hill f!’. Resident Evil had Nemesis, the mainline Silent Hill games had the Red Pyramid Thing (aka Pyramid Head). Silent Hill f has… ummm… fat blobby things with multiple embedded faces that puke blood and wannabe nurse-like doll things that slash and chase you.
Umm… yeah.
The Bottom Line.
Silent Hill f feels like the developers want to deliver on the goods, but are too afraid to do so. Instead, they go down the safe route when forced to choose. In fact, that’s an apt way to describe the game as a whole.
It’s safe. It’s tried and tested fare that won’t surprise you in the least. It’s a survival horror game that pays so much homage to the old school games of the genre it plays like one.
That doesn’t make Silent Hill f a bad game per se.
The game is fun. I had a great time making my way around Ebisugaoka and fending off the monsters. The atmosphere is there and the combat system is fun.
Yeah, the plot and characters are lame and the inventory management could use a rework, but in the grand scheme of things, everything could be much, much worse.
Silent Hill f might not be as great as it could be, but I’m really interested in how Konami parlays its existence into the main series. Will this be the new norm, or will there be a return to Silent Hill proper in future installments? Will there be a merging of the two somehow?
I can’t wait to see what Konami does.
TLDR:
Silent Hill f is a decent but flawed game. Enjoyable? Yes, but nowhere near GoTY material. It also has pretty much nothing that ties it in to the other games in the series, it could’ve been called Red Flowers and Monsters Everywhere and it still would’ve worked.
The Good:
- Fun melee combat.
- Nice visuals.
- Great atmospheric locations.
- Dark Shrine a decent replacement for Otherworld.
The Bad:
- Inventory management issues.
- Stuttering everywhere.
- Super linear.
- Boring characters and plot.
Salehuddin Husin, EIC
Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.
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