It’s fair to say that Silent Hill is back, baby. As Konami pushes the series to become an annual franchise, new creatives are stepping into the world of gaming’s scariest horror franchise. Silent Hill is selling better than ever, and new titles are constantly just around the corner.
Silent Hill Townfall is the next game on the horizon. Releasing on September 24th, the upcoming first-person horror adventure is set in 1996 and has a vibe of Alien Isolation behind it. In a new interview, game director Jon McKellan explains that the horror game is more than just pure horror, offering an air of investigation to its narrative.
McKenllan told Game Developer that the game’s story is a “slow burn”, and it’s primary protagonist Simon “doesn’t speak out loud that often”. As you explore the Scottish town of St. Amelia, you’ll learn more about the town, Simon, and his significant other Zoe, albeit with less dialogue than most AAA games these days.
“From my point of view, with many Silent Hill games, it feels like every character is like ‘ships passing in the night,’ they pass by and influence each other in some way and then move on,” McKellan said. “Whereas with Townfall, Zoe’s story is with Simon, and Simon’s story is with our other character we see at the beginning—they’re all deeply connected, but they don’t really know how or why.”
McKellan likened Silent Hill Townfall to prestige television shows in its presentation. It’s grounded and cinematic, but still unmistakably Silent Hill. “For our Silent Hill game, we’re trying to feel a lot more like an intelligent thriller, like something you’d see on HBO. We’re really leaning into those inspirations of primetime TV shows or a movie,” McKellan said.
As for the game’s Alien Isolation inspiration, that’s because most of new developer Screen Burn worked on creative Assembly’s horror classic. In fact, McKellan served as the lead UI artist and title designer for the game where he designed the game’s analogue tech interfaces which are clearly brought forward here, although they are now 1990s-inspired instead of 1970s retro-futurism.
McKellan adds that this level of analogue-based horror can’t be “a gimmick”, instead it has to serve everything. Similarly to Silent Hill’s radio that serves to tell players that enemies are nearby, the aesthetic is used for gameplay purposes as well as artistic flair.
We still don’t know too much about Silent Hill Townfall, and that’s on purpose. The upcoming game is drenched in mystery, much like every game in the series, and revealing too much would spoil the surprise. After all, we’re only a couple of months away from being able to play through the game in its entirety, discover all of its endings, and argue about fan theories.
