Silent harbinger: How Silent Hill: Townfall might be a rise for the franchise
- Jack Walters
- 21 hours ago
- 5 min read
The resurrection and resurgence of horror franchises remain a constant across horror mediums, and while this often gives hope to horror fans ravenous to see their favorite franchises return from the grave for one more scare, sometimes the reanimated revenant has us going “Damn it, it wasn’t quite fresh enough.” And sometimes, a fresh take on a series can revitalize it, bringing it back from the shadows. Such was the case with Resident Evil 7, which brought in a first-person perspective on the horrors facing us while bringing back the classic Survival Horror feel the series had pioneered. Now, RE’s little sister series seems to be trying the same trick and perhaps needs it even more badly. A recently released gameplay trailer of the upcoming Silent Hill: Townfall shows us a brand-new view on the fog-shrouded city, and it seems as if the psychological horror heavy is trying to pull off the same revival Resident Evil did.
Known for its unsettling aesthetics built on industrial-punk grotesqueries and moody, foggy small-town streets, its often open-to-interpretation story which requires multiple playthroughs to truly grok, and its deep dives into the sinister secrets around us, Silent Hill has often lurked as a more psychological shadow to the campier, action-packed Resident Evil series. Silent Hill’s more introspective, darker themes have made its various mainline games cult classics which, while never quite as mainstream as Resident Evil, have woven the series into the horror gaming gestalt. In fact, the two franchises parallel each other nearly exactly: the first game was strong, the first sequel took what worked and improved it, and then subsequent entries and spin-offs found varying levels of quality. Silent Hill even has controversial movie adaptations, the latest of which was something special.
And like RE, the Silent Hill franchise has hit something of a stumbling block, although one could argue that the latter’s rough period felt more like a bottomless pit. While the first four entries, published from 1999 through 2004, were well received, latter entries such as 2007’s Silent Hill: Origins, or 2012’s Silent Hill: Downpour generally felt like misses. Much of the latter entries in the franchise came as HD versions of the original four games or spinoffs which diverged so greatly from the baseline as to be different genres. Then, barring the stillborn Hideo Kojima project PT in 2014 (which had Guillermo del Toro and Norman Reedus attached to the project) Silent Hill went deathly silent. Ten years went by without any new Silent Hill games, and the franchise seemed poised to fade away in the fog.
However, Silent Hill managed to force itself from the mist once more with several experimental entries which, while not without flaws, kept fans hopes alive until a remake of Silent Hill 2 came out in 2024. While a touch bloated and arguably a sequel to the original Silent Hill 2, the remake helped reignite the passion for the series. Then in 2025, a new spin-off, Silent Hill f, released, taking us from the shrouded streets of Silent Hill to 1960s Ebisugaoka, a rural Japanese village. Silent Hill f had the basics of a Silent Hill game, and certainly the eerie beauty, but it diverged in its heavy focus on combat, which with several other key differences kept it from feeling quite like the return fans had hoped for.
With the feeling that the franchise has fallen away from its roots, Silent Hill finds itself in a similar position to Resident Evil when RE 7 came out. Which, given what is shown in Townfall's gameplay trailer, makes a compelling argument that perhaps developer Screen Burn Interactive might be taking a few notes from the original Survival Horror series’ revival.
Silent Hill: Townfall puts us the (first-person) perspective of Simon, a young man whose father asks him to travel to the Scottish island of St. Amelia to resolve unknown tasks. Upon arriving, Simon finds the fog-shrouded island’s inhabitants missing and mysterious, mannequin-like monsters roaming about, forcing him to delve deep into the town’s mysteries. This set-up will feel familiar for SH fans, but it’s not alone in providing a hopeful return to the series’ iconic vibes. Both the visual design and the audio design bring players right back to that lonely town they’ve explored for over twenty-five years. St. Amelia feels like a town where everything just stopped one day, barring the unnerving oddities left behind. This eeriness increases into full-blown fear in latter stages of the trailer, when the sinister red light suffuses the fog (potentially showing that Simon has crossed into the mysterious “Otherworld” which is a constant in Silent Hill) and the obstacles become more gruesome. Silent Hill has never shied away from body horror, and having to literally slice through a square of skin to open a new area certainly fits. And all the while, the industrial screeching of the soundtrack, a Silent Hill staple, keeps players’ teeth on edge.
However, another staple-sound of the series, the constant static which alerts players to the presence of monsters, shows one of the biggest changes to the formula Townfall is bringing: a tactical stealth element. Simon makes use of a CRTV, a handheld Combination Radio/TV not only to find clues in his quest; the CRTV seems able to track mysterious signals and show images to Simon as hints, with the footage being run through damaged analog devices for authenticity. But the CRTV also can be used to track monsters even behind cover, granting Simon an edge. With melee weapons likely being degradable and ammunition for firearms likely scarce, players will have the option to pick their battles, distracting and avoiding enemies to bypass them. While the choice of bypassing enemies is not new to Silent Hill or Survival Horror, having such a strong focus on stealth adds a new layer of tension to the gameplay loop, especially as player choices deeply affect the ending to Simon’s story.
Per series producer Motoi Okamoto, Townfall will have five endings, two of which are locked on the first playthrough. Silent Hill has always had multiple endings, with one typically being an aliens-based funny ending, but this proved controversial with Silent Hill f, which had a pre-determined ending for the first playthrough regardless of player choice. With Townfall, the developers are returning to the series’ roots by having player choices such as how aggressively they eradicate the enemies and how deeply they delve into the mysteries surrounding St. Amelia determine the ending, making the stealth elements all the more vital to the experience.
From the trailer, Townfall seems like it's a blend of classic SH vibes, while changes, such as the the first-person perspective and stealth elements, suggest that Silent Hill Townfall could be a new chapter in Silent Hill’s uncertain future. Resident Evil 7 brought back the core Survival Horror elements to the series while adding more modern elements, such as taking the first-person perspective which had been popularized by indie horror games such as Amnesia and Outlast. It seems as if Bloober Team aims to repeat this rebirth with Silent Hill: Townsfall and provide a fresh entry point for new arrivals in the foggy series, such as those drawn in by the recent film. Although, how much of this is intentional is debatable. Fans of Survival Horror will likely see many parallels between Townfall and RE: 7 , and long-time fans will be eager to see if Townfall can pull Silent Hill out of the mists of time, or if these changes will feel a bridge too far.
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