Silent Hill: Townfall Review

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Fast Facts

Silent Hill Takes a Trip to Scotland

Welcome to St Amelia, Silent Hill: Townfalls location is a quaint little fishing village on a Scottish island. It’s unfortunately happens to be shrouded in fog and its inhabitants aren’t that pleased to see you.

This is yet another entry in the near thirty year franchise in which the game isn’t set in its titular name sake. Konami have allowed new developers, this time Scottish developers screen burn to set the game in somewhere outside the small American town and its breathed life into the series once again. Townfall is also the first full-length game in the series that is presented in first-person, fully immersing the player in the games world.

Whether you’ve been to Scotland or not, St Amelia is very familiar to anyone who has visited a UK town or seaside. Screen Burn have painstakingly captured the essence of the culture from the housing to the charity box in which your donated coin spirals around. It was hard not to slowly explore every nook and cranny in the quiter moments of the game, exploring the details felt like a mechanic in itself. Anyone that grew up in the ‘90s will immediatly recogsnise certain decor choices, little trinkets and the now retro techonolgy. There’s still a very unnerving atmosphere as you wander around but it did leave us with a smile more than a few times.

Guilt, Greed and Ghosts of the Past

It’s 1996, you are Simon Ordell. An American who finds himself emerging from water to the dock of St Amelia. There’s been some sort of incident that has affected the whole town and somehow you are involved with it. You’ve been called back to village in order to put things right. The narrative is slowly drip fed to the players, keeping us hooked throughout. It’s themes on guilt, accountability and corporate greed are all mixed in well with the familair tropes you’d expect in a Silent Hill game.

It’s not just Simon who appears to be trapped on the island. While at first the village seems deserted eventually you will come face to face with the monsters that lurk in the fog. Like with other Silent Hill titles each creature is some form of representation of how the characters are dealing with mental trauma.

You’ll also encounter Zoe, a nurse with whom you share some sort of connection, and Richard, the man who seemingly invited you back to St Amelia. These supporting characters do assist with unravelling the game’s story, different perspectives on their involvement make things a lot clearer.

Tuning In to Terror

Towards the beginning of the game you pick up a CRTV, this analog tech item is one of many of the nostalgic 90’s items you’ll discover in Silent Hill: Townfall. The CRTV acts as this games radio from previous entries. Hear a static buzz, hold it up, tune into highlighted signals and you’ll see the silhouette of a shambling monster. This works through solid objects so you can easily spy on oncoming danger whilst cowering behind a rubbish bin.

This device also delivers puzzle tips and narrative elements once you’ve tuned into those signals. Watching the CRTV does potentially put you in danger, so it’s best to use away from preying eyes. Playing on the PS5 will have you using the controllers Motion Sensor to assist it tuning the CRTV at certain areas of the game, it can be quite difficult, especially if theres a monster nearby. It can be turned off in the games settings.

Interacting with the games elements all feels very hands-on and very analogue. You save the game via a phonebox, you access chunky beige CRT computers to access dial up internet to read emails. You phyiscally hold up the map in the game, leaving yourself quite vunerable at times. We feel it helps keeping you engaged in the world, grounding it’s 1996 setting through gameplay.

Silent Hill: Townfall gets a lot right, combining the atmosphere of the original games with challenging puzzles and a greater emphasis on avoiding combat. It’s a formula that feels familiar without being afraid to introduce fresh ideas.

Piecing Together the Nightmare

When it comes to puzzles Townfall really ingrains them into the world itself. Solutions can be found by picking up documents or other visual clues around the enviroment. There’s a few tough puzzles, which when finally figuring out the solution does feel really satisfying. We played a version of the game that had a late game puzzle patched to be made easier but the challenge was still there. You can make puzzles easier or harder, depending on your perference.

Fight or Flight?

When it comes to defending yourself, you’ll find planks and other blunt weapons scattered throughout the village to help you survive the fog. However, combat should always be a last resort. Bricks and bottles offer a safer alternative, allowing you to distract monsters and sneak past them undetected. You’ll eventually get your hands on firearms, including a revolver and shotgun, but ammunition is scarce, and firing a weapon risks alerting every nearby monster to your location.

They’re some scenarios in which we felt combat wasn’t as smooth as an experinence as it should have been. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and be taken down by the monsters in a few unfair situations. At one point we faced a tougher monster who essentially trapped us with no way to defend or run away. This happened a couple of times and really dragged the pace down.

Thankfully these more frustrating moments were few and far between and the core stealth gameplay really set the tone of the game, creating a terrifying tension that holds up for the 12-15 hour playtime. Which is honestly perfect for this type of game.

The game feels like it’s built more around stealth, you’ll spend a lot of time peeking around corners, above cars and hiding in wardrobes waiting for that perfect moment to keep progressing onwards dodging aggressive enemies. The intentional slowness suits the horror genre and made us think of the excellant Alien Isolation, which this developer does have ties to.

As with other entries in Silent Hill, there’s more than one ending. These endings are determined by certain actions throughout the game, so replayability is fairly high. We imagine future playthroughs will shorten due to familiarity with the game.

Final Thoughts

Silent Hill: Townfall is up there with the best in this series, despite the games few hiccups with combat we were left terrified and in awe with it’s eerie atmosphere. We welcome its unique setting and telling a wider narrative. Screen Burn made one hell of a nostalgic horror experience. It’s also perfect for newcomers to the series, as it holds no connection to the town of Silent Hill itself. Now, if you don’t mind us, we will be booking a trip to the Scottish coast right away.

Rapid Reviews Rating

4.5 out of 5

4.5