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For me, the worst part of SILENT HILL 4: THE ROOM were the first-person segments in which you dithered around Henry’s apartment. Yes, it was creepy seeing it slowly get invaded by spirits, but it was slow as molasses and boring as all hell. To see that made into a whole game was perhaps the biggest nightmare I could’ve had for a Silent Hill game. The folks over at KONAMI must really hate me for some reason (and also be incredibly mind readers), because why else would they greenlight SILENT HILL: Townfall?
To be fair, I kept an open mind about it. After all, Hideo Kojima’s aborted SILENT HILL game, P.T., was magnificent and first-person. So yeah, a first-person SILENT HILL game could work. That is, if the developers understood the property, what made it tick, and had a sense of good gameplay.
The question here, then, is whether SILENT HILL: Townfall is a game that fits those requirements.
What is SILENT HILL: Townfall?
SILENT HILL: Townfall is a single player first person survival horror title developed by Screen Burn and published by KONAMI. It is available right now for the PC and PlayStation 5.
Our review code was kindly provided by the awesome folks over at KONAMI! Thanks so much!
For our review of the game, we’ll be using our usual cadre of gaming rigs:
Here are their specs:
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
Since we’re on the tech specs, let’s go right into the game’s technical details first. The game runs decently, except for one major hiccup: the stuttering. No matter what system or resolution I was running the game on, it stuttered.
It stuttered with FSR. It stuttered with DLSS. It stuttered, period. During cutscenes, during traversal. It stuttered at 1080p, it stuttered at 2560 × 1600, and it even stuttered at 4K. Stu-stu-stu-tte-red.
To be fair, the stuttering was minimal (less than a second, mostly), but it was very noticeable and immersion-breaking, especially since I’m running the game on machines that far exceed its recommended specs.
KONAMI and Screen Burn have acknowledged the stuttering and claim a patch is on the way, but none has come out to fix the issue as of publication of this review. I don’t have any doubts that KONAMI will make it right (or do its best to fix the issue), but it might take a while, depending on how deeply ingrained the problem is in the game’s engine.
Why yes, it is using Unreal Engine 5. How did you ever guess? /sarcasm
Apart from that, the game isn’t really that impressive visually, even on max settings. The standout here is the fog. On maximum settings, it permeates the town completely. It is stifling and oppressive, yet strangely mesmerizing and melancholic. It roils, drifts and envelops. It is what I envision walking through Silent Hill would be like.
That aside, the overall art style is drab and dull, to be honest. If SILENT HILL f’s bright (for the series) color palette and distinctive style is the belle of the ball, SILENT HILL: Townfall’s art design is the ugly, unwanted poseur goth in the corner that everybody avoids.
The town of St. Amelia has none of the charm of Silent Hill (the town) or even the rural Japanese charm of SILENT HILL f’s Ebisugaoka. The streets are narrow, linear, and ultimately boring. The buildings blend together, making the entire place feel like one long, indistinguishable stretch of urban decay rather than a town with any real character. For the first few hours of the game, you literally scamper up and down bland streets, entering similarly bland buildings.
It’s a bad sign when I still got lost despite the map being linear as hell. Linearity shouldn’t equate to boredom. Resident Evil’s Spencer Mansion was linear, but you could still get around it without getting lost. So was Dead Space’s USG Ishimura. Both managed to give their environments a sense of place, whether through memorable landmarks, interconnected layouts, or a strong visual identity. St. Amelia, on the other hand, struggles to give you anything to latch onto. It’s somehow one of the blandest locations in a horror game.
The visuals do get more stylized (and distinctive) when the Otherworld makes an appearance. This game’s version of it is heavily inspired by brutalist architecture, with monolithic corridors that stretch up (or down) into the inky blackness. It’s all very industrial and bleak, and is a far cry from the rust and exposed steel prevalent in past SILENT HILL games or the organic imagery found in SILENT HILL f.
And you know what? I actually like that.
Do I hate it?
Surprisingly, I don’t.
I’d be the first to say I’m a SILENT HILL purist, but I do find the various styles of the Otherworld refreshing. It gives the games identity. If I had my way, I’d want KONAMI to restrict the old-school rust-and-metal vibe to only mainline games, while spin-offs like SILENT HILL: Townfall get their own version of it. After all, SILENT HILL: Townfall isn’t set in Silent Hill (the town), so why does it have to conform to that game’s Otherworld style?
The creatures that inhabit SILENT HILL: Townfall’s Otherworld do fit into the SILENT HILL archetype, though. They’re fleshy and weird, move strangely, and all of them are out for your blood. The problem is that, beyond their general appearance and behavior, very few of them leave much of an impression.
They’re not memorable, certainly not in the style of SILENT HILL 2’s Red Pyramid or its nurses, or even SILENT HILL 3’s lumbering Closers. Those creatures had a visual language of their own. You could look at them and get a sense that there was something deeply wrong about the world they inhabited. In SILENT HILL: Townfall, the designs feel more like a checklist of familiar series traits. Fleshy? Check. Weird? Check. Horrible to look at? Check.
The creatures in SILENT HILL: Townfall seem like creations of somebody who’s seen the other games but doesn’t seem to understand the design behind them. They ape the look, but not the substance.
And unfortunately, that problem extends beyond the monsters.
In fact, that’s pretty much a good way to describe the game as a whole: lacking substance.
Take the plot.
SILENT HILL: Townfall puts you in the shoes of Simon Ordell (for most parts of the game anyways).
He wakes up on the shores of St. Amelia (it’s a port town), with an IV line embedded in his arm and, par for the course, amnesia. That is, without a doubt, one of the most clichéd setups for a game that I’ve ever seen.
Why he’s in St. Amelia and what connection he has to the town? The game’s plot unfurls a bit differently from most games in the series. While it’s heavily advertised that you play as Simon, the truth is there are two other playable characters you play as. Think of them as interludes to the main show.
Each of the characters play a bit differently. Simon is a mix of combat and puzzles, Zoe is pure stealth and Richard is more action oriented. Simon is still the main star, so the Zoe and Richard parts aren’t that lengthy so don’t get too attached to them. You can’t switch whenever you like too, so there’s that as well.
While the Zoe and Richard sections do give a change of pace, the majority of the game playing as Simon isn’t a good thing.
To put it plainly, the game is shallow.
From the stealth mechanics to the fighting, there’s not much depth to it all.
You run around St. Amelia, using a portable TV screen (or a pager in Zoe’s case) to suss out enemies, hiding and stealthily creeping around to avoid combat (because your weapons break far too easily and you can only take a handful of hits before dying), while going from location to location, most times for barely discernible reasons.
The game seems to want you to feel vulnerable. Simon isn’t a trained soldier or a hardened survivor, and the limited durability of his weapons and his low tolerance for damage are clearly meant to reinforce that. There’s nothing wrong with that approach. In fact, a protagonist who isn’t particularly good at fighting can make for a refreshing change of pace.
The problem is that the game doesn’t do enough with that vulnerability.
Stealth has you hiding and peeking around corners, tossing items to distract enemies, and then crouch-walking past whatever enemy you encountered. Apart from some random jump scares, sneaking around did little to creep me out or add tension. There were few moments where I felt like I was outsmarting an enemy, taking a calculated risk, or genuinely worried about what might be waiting around the next corner.
The game simply isn’t scary.
Well… it’s not scary by intent, anyway.
Combat is truly terrifying, though… terrifyingly basic, that is.
Combat is block, counter-hit (with a heavy or light attack), and block immediately afterward because the enemy will counter your hit. It’s repetitive, it’s basic, and it’s boring. You get a revolver later on, but since ammo is scarce, melee is still the way to go.
The game advises you to avoid combat as much as possible. Now you know why.
First-person combat can be brutal and fun when done right. Look at SEGA’s Condemned games or Rockstar’s Manhunt titles. Hell, look no further than Dying Light or Dead Island if you’re into recent examples. There’s no reason why SILENT HILL: Townfall’s combat has to be as basic and unwieldy as it is.
Sure, they want to show that Simon’s not a brawler and is awkward at fighting.
That’s fine, and I completely understand.
But being bad at fighting doesn’t have to mean being limited to the same handful of actions over and over again.
Why not give Simon a leg sweep, a stealth kill, or a charging tackle? Not to turn him into some martial arts master, but to give the player options when things go wrong. Maybe you could knock an enemy off balance, create some distance, or take advantage of an opening to get away. These aren’t complicated moves that would suddenly turn Simon into a combat powerhouse. They’re basic, everyday actions that even hapless heroines in movies (and games) can pull off.
The point isn’t to make Simon stronger. It’s to make the player feel like they have some agency when things get ugly.
Simon can be helpless while still having choices. That’s what I’m saying.
The irony here is that playing as Richard, the game is much more tense, and Richard is nowhere near as defenseless as Simon. He doesn’t have any enemy-detecting method, though, so you’re stumbling around relying purely on your own eyes and ears. He has a shotgun (and that even things out), but even with that, Richard’s section is a much more harrowing (and more interesting) experience than Simon’s or Zoe’s.
Taking corners slowly, clearing rooms to make sure nothing is hiding to bite you in the ass, making use of limited resources to the best of your ability…it’s Richard who deserves to be the spotlight. Unfortunately, because you only play as him for a very short time (about an hour or so), you just get a teeny taste of what could have been before it’s all ripped away and replaced with…Simon again.
Urgh.
I do like the use of detection tools like the portable TV and pager, though. Using them to highlight enemies hiding in the fog is cool. It reminds me of the motion-tracking mechanic in Alien: Isolation. The AI isn’t as advanced as that game’s, sadly, so don’t expect smart monsters. The portable TV screen also serves as a compass of sorts, directing you in the general direction the game wants you to go (in the form of weird video clips).
Sometimes it works. Most times, it doesn’t.
The idea itself is pretty neat. Having a device that reveals things hidden in the fog and offers cryptic hints about where to go fits the series’ penchant for making the familiar feel strange. The problem is in the execution. The method’s kind of confusing, and some of the video clips have you questioning their point.
Instead of feeling like you’re piecing together something deliberately mysterious, you’re sometimes left wondering what the game actually wants you to do. The clues they give can be obtuse (such as the one for the pharmacy locker code), and I can’t help but wonder if they could’ve been executed better while still maintaining their cryptic nature.
Zoe’s pager is mostly relegated to receiving messages and the perimeter rectangles turning darker to indicate enemy direction. I feel that more could’ve been done here to spice things up (I mean, some explanation on how the pager can detect the Otherworld creatures would’ve been nice), but it’s a better gameplay mechanic than Simon’s CRTV.
Since you can’t see enemies on the pager itself, the only way to truly surveil an enemy is by locking eyes on them. It’s a much tenser affair, especially when you’re hiding, because you never know if the enemy is looking your way when you pop out for a peek.
The problem with SILENT HILL: Townfall is that, for all its attempts to recreate the series’ familiar imagery and atmosphere, it rarely feels like it has anything meaningful of its own to say. There are moments where the presentation comes close to capturing that uncomfortable sense of isolation and dread, but they’re often undermined by environments that lack personality, combat that never develops beyond the basics, and gameplay systems that feel more restrictive than thoughtfully designed.
It understands the surface-level language of Silent Hill, but struggles to translate that into an experience that feels genuinely compelling. This is something Team Silent had down pat, something even Bloober Team got…but it’s something that Screen Burn completely whiffs.
And that’s a shame, because there are some worthwhile ideas here.
The enemy detection mechanic, the Otherworld transitions, and the more cryptic approach to exploration could have formed the foundation for something much more memorable. Instead, too many of these ideas feel underdeveloped, as though the game introduces them because they’re expected of a Silent Hill title rather than because it knows what to do with them.
Townfall isn’t completely devoid of atmosphere or ambition, but the further I got into it, the more I found myself thinking about what it could have been rather than enjoying what it actually is.
The Bottom Line.
SILENT HILL: Townfall isn’t a bad idea.
It’s just a painfully shallow one.
The atmosphere occasionally hits the mark, but forgettable environments, basic combat, and a lack of meaningful gameplay choices make this a spin-off that looks the part without understanding the assignment. The technical issues stemming from Unreal Engine 5 also serve to detract from what is an otherwise optimized experience.
It might get fixed in the future and be a non-issue, but it’s a glaring one and serves as the perfect underscore for the other issues the game has, both technical and stylistically.
TDLR:
A weird mishmash of ideas that don’t really pull it off. It’s an official SILENT HILL spin-off but that connection feels superficial and at times, forced.
The Technoverdict: Wait for a sale.
The Good:
- Richard’s section is fun.
- Enemy detection mechanic has promise.
- Distinctive Otherworld design.
- Cryptic exploration.
- Strong atmospheric moments (the fog!).
The Bad:
- Painfully shallow gameplay and combat.
- Bland environments.
- Forgettable monsters.
- Technical stuttering.
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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