As the first original mainline Silent Hill game since 2012’s underwhelming Downfall, Silent Hill F has a lot to prove. While Bloober Team’s gorgeous Unreal Engine 5 remake of the second game was extremely well received last year, NeoBards Entertainment’s new adventure is something wholly original.
Without a prior game to fall back upon, there was always some worry that Silent Hill F would slip from grace. Despite the series’ long life without them, Silent Hill games have suffered without the guiding hand – or blueprints in SH2 Remake’s case – of original developer Team Silent. With F, this new developer has created a worthy newcomer, but it does so by breaking away from series norms.
Set in 1960s rural Japan, Silent Hill F migrates from its traditional American small town namesake to tell the story of 15-year-old high school student Shimizu Hinako as the oppressive fog blankets the fictional town of Ebisugaoka, bringing evil in its wake. America is out, Japan is in, and it’s more than just a setting change. Narratively, the structure is similar, pulling you between two worlds as you piece together a story built around the broken psyche of your main protagonist.
It takes just a few minutes before you’re thrust into the action, quickly pulled into the mystical, mind-bending world of Hinako’s journey alongside friends Rinko and Shu. Just like all great games in Konami’s horror series, you spend the majority of the adventure alone as you battle horrific monsters based on the internal fears and doubts of the game’s lead.
There is a lot different about Silent Hill F, and a lot of it is tied to the change in setting. Whereas the prior series typically focused on American folklore, witches and western cults, this new entry very much dives deep into its Japanese-themed roots. Instead of the rust-covered otherworld of prior games, Hinako’s subconscious drags her into a spiritual realm filled with eastern rituals with puzzles and enemies that fit the bill.
The Japanese culture also seeks into the gameplay structure. Similar to Silent Hill 4: The Room, this is a much more action-oriented affair, albeit with the benefit that twenty years of game design progress brings. As you fight with lead pipes, sickles and traditional naginatas, you’ll also find items that you can offer to shrines to receive Faith, which can then be used alongside a wooden ema to increase your health, stamina, sanity, or equip a bonus ,a way of adding powerful buffs to Hinako.
This does give the added bonus that most items you discover as you explore the game’s map does give you something. Sure, you might not need the extra resources, but you can offer a bunch of them to the gods to fund your next upgrade. Annoyingly, especially in the late game, your excess of bandages and first-aid kids can’t be offered so you’ll still be fighting your limited inventory to keep some of your best tools.
The game is also somewhat more straightforward than other entries in the series as well. You’ll probably never get lost as you explore what you can of Ebisugaoka and the other world. While there’s time for some additional exploration focused on the old shrines dotted around the map, it’s mostly a very linear affair that quickly shuffles you from point-to-point, but there is additional lore to find along the way.
Interestingly, Silent Hill F isn’t done on your first playthrough. In fact, the game offers more of a NieR: Automata situation on your New Game Plus run, offering a variety of new scenes that tell you what’s really going on. It’s an intriguing push to play even more of the game, but it does push you to replay the game directly after, especially as the first third has such extremely minor changes that you might not even notice something has been altered.
Unfortunately, this comes with the caveat that your first run of Silent Hill F does unfortunately end with some glaring holes, even if you’ve spent hours picking up every last document in the map. Just as the game is reaching a conclusion, it ends, and that first ending doesn’t feel all that satisfying, and leaves you with the hook that there’s more to see. After your second ending, you’re also able to unlock additional endings by fulfilling a list of special criteria in true classic SH fashion.
What’s most surprising is that, for all its changes, the spirit of Silent Hill is definitely alive and well here with some fantastic puzzles, great characters and a satisfying story. It’s still not on the same pedestal as Silent Hill 2, which is not only one of the best horror games but one of the best games ever made, but it is, by far, the best game since the original trilogy.
There are some annoying issues along the way, mostly involving wide combat in narrow corridors, but Silent Hill F is the first new game to truly feel like Silent Hill in, well, over a decade. While Homecoming, Origins and Downpour were decent enough, this has enough budget, care and character to sit alongside the greats… just slightly further down the bench. It’s easily the fourth-best Silent Hill, and it earns its place.
