Silent Hill is a tentpole franchise in the horror video game genre. It’s helped define the genre, taken large swings, and adapted to live-action film for better and for worse. That said, Silent Hill Townfall, the latest title in the franchise, is looking to show a different side of the franchise compared to what we saw last year with Silent Hill f.
Developed by Screen Burn and published by KONAMI and Annapurna Interactive, Silent Hill Townfall feels like a Danny Boyle film. With the iconic fog heavy over the Scottish island of St. Amelia, atmosphere is the winner for this game. Now, in the UK, this title looks very different from the franchise fans have grown used to, and that is its strength.
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During Summer Game Fest Play Days, we watched a live demo of a game in a theater that looked to build as much immersion as possible. With a fog machine billowing, the theater experience was dark, with personal headsets set to pull the press and content creators in the room into St. Amelia as much as possible.
Silent Hill Townfall is all about memory and isolation, at least so far.
If you missed the game’s announcement, Townfall is a full-length, self-contained psychological horror set against the cold, isolated backdrop of Scotland, 1996. In the game, you’ll play as Simon Ordell, a man called back to St. Amelia to “put things right.” When we meet him, he’s woken up on the island, and he’s encountered a town lying quiet beneath a heavy fog.
Seemingly abandoned but not at rest, Simon wanders the town, with a woman calling out to him on a CRTV, a pocket television used to tune into unstable signals. Players will use the CRTV screen to solve puzzles, complete the story, and dodge enemies.
The CRTV uses in-game footage run through analog machines like VHS players to give it a nostalgic late-90s aesthetic. You’ll rely on your radio to progress through the game. In Silent Hall Townfall, Simon ventures deeper into St. Amelia to learn how he is deeply connected to the place and its townspeople. With no memory of the past, Simon begins to discover fragments rising to the surface.
The CRTV creates mystery and puts more agency in players’ hands.
Simon must explore, evade, and survive with a limited set of weapons and tools, placing greater emphasis on stealth than on action. When it comes to evasion, it’s tense, using your CRTV to spot enemies through walls and other objects. However, as we watched the demoist play, being able to plot your path using the CRTV didn’t seem much easier than observing the environment, which helps keep the game challenging for those looking for the intensity of dying at any moment.
As for the limited combat we saw, there is an almost frantic energy, driven by the score and the fear it instills in the player. Without strong weapons, Simon has to be resourceful, using things like pieces of wood to bat back the monsters.
Additionally, we got a look at one of the puzzles players will have to solve, which involves turning the power back on in a home that they are exploring. Finding a card that Scottish homes in the 90s used to load electricity credits is key to moving on to the next element of the story. Doing so requires the player to read the environment and understand the clues about what they find, which is to be expected in a game in this genre.
Silent Hill Townfall’s gameplay is unique and atmospherically scary.
As a first-person horror game, Simon’s exploration and interactions with the environment aren’t narrated verbally. With a focus on upping the immersion, Simon’s inner thoughts are all shown on screen as text, with verbal cues only appearing when he is trying to interact with someone or to see if someone is there.
This small note helps create a heightened sense of isolation, and in the demo, that loneliness feeds the atmosphere of Silent Hill Townfall. Stillness and quiet are just as important as the creatures in the area. Experienced entirely in the first person, the limited visibility of the map and the spaces helps the player anticipate a scare around any corner.
To take advantage of the anticipation that good horror raises in a player, Silent Hill Townfall also includes a peak mechanic. With this, players can peek around corners and observe their surroundings. This is also implemented in small spaces, like cabinets, that players rummage through, allowing you to view the labels on medicine and see the small odds and ends that show that, at some point, St. Amelia had life.
Screen Burn’s take on Silent Hill is cinematic in scale.
Visually, I can’t help but see the influences of the 28 Days Later franchise on the game. A hazy town with stark horrors, Silent Hill Townfall’s cinematic quality is carried through by the wide-screen aspect ratio that sets up the player for the cinematics.
Eerie and gorgeous, the horrific nature of the creatures Simon encounters is quintessential Silent Hill, even as other elements are unique to this game, separating Screen Burn’s artistic vision from what we have traditionally seen in the franchise.
While this was a hands-off experience, it was a fantastic immersion into the world of Silent Hill Townfall, showcasing the attention to detail Screen Burn has put into their take on the series. It’s easy to get excited for this horror title based on the gameplay we’ve seen, but it’s the artistic vision that Screen Burn has highlighted that makes the game one to watch for 2026.
