Does The Upcoming Silent Hill: Townfall Fit in The Series

In February there was another edition of the Silent Hill transmission showcase series hosted by KONAMI and we purposefully waited a bit before covering that one, since it was mainly concerned with the upcoming Silent Hill: Townfall release, in which the leading producer for the series Mr. Matoi Okamoto shed more light on the development and updates around the upcoming next game in the Silent Hill series. He presented some of the main people involved from all the teams working on the title and they discussed what would set this game apart from the previous installments, as well as the concepts that inspired them to go in that direction. Even though for now the details are misty and scarce, there are quite a few discussions that are still important and deserve attention.

In this article we are going to discuss most of the information that has been circulating around, overview many of the details we got about the Silent Hill: Townfall gameplay, its development and also raise some valid questions that fans have debated up to now, and would most likely be a hot topic among the community in the following months that would lead us to the Silent Hill: Townfall release, as there is still not specific date announced, but it should become available at some time during this year. Currently the Silent Hill: Townfall Steam page shows that not all consoles are getting a version since just the PS5 is listed as an option, but maybe there would be other options at a later stage as well!

Before we do all of that however, we are going to take a quick history lesson first, so let’s explore the fog together, shall we?

The Path that Led us to These Shores of the Silent Hill Franchise

There should definitely be some backstory given to these recent developments, so we are going to do a brief overview of the mainline titles and what followed them in the next few paragraphs! If you are a die-hard fan of the series, you probably know a lot of it already, but in case you are not, then it is absolutely crucial to get yourself familiar with the history behind the series!

The initial Silent Hill games (parts 1-4, crafted internally at KONAMI by Team Silent) were positioned as a direct competitor, on the PS1 horror games of the 90s arena, to Capcom’s Resident Evil series. They were quite praised for their psychological terrors, originality and conceptual themes by merging a fine blend of Japanese horror in an American-styled setting, and perhaps most importantly of all, the iconic location that the games were trying to explore or connect with in some sort of way – the titular town of Silent Hill, which almost acted as an entity of its own and played a major role to the plots and ongoing events. The games in that era built solid occult foundations and are still widely considered as beloved classics by the majority of fans, more than 20+ years later!

Sadly, Team Silent got disbanded, and the original era games were followed by a series of outsourced titles that had their mixed reception (the Origins to Downpour era), some of which tried adding or reimagining lore, while others messed things up a bit in the established logic of the franchise. Then KONAMI introduced P.T. (standing for Playable Trailer and it was later revealed to be the introductory part of a project dubbed Silent Hills given in the capable hands of Mr. Hideo Kojima) and fans of the SH series really liked the concepts it delivered - a revolutionary Walking Sim Horror with 1st person view that had a looping setting, which constantly deteriorates and gets more and more convoluted story-wise as you progress through the corridors, while at the same time being stalked by a creepy creature that wishes to crush you on the spot. There were quite a few other big names in the entertainment industry connected to this very promising project and it all seemed so great, but ultimately the project fell off the cliffs hard, very hard…. So far, so good? Terrific, going further!

After the total and utter cancellation of Silent Hills in 2015, the Silent Hill franchise went quiet and presumably on a hiatus for quite some time. KONAMI did want to produce new games but faced various internal disagreements about the direction and format for the future games. In 2018, Mr. Motoi Okamoto joined the company as the series producer, aiming to redefine the series mainly around the psychological horror premises instead of just focusing on the setting. There were a few projects that tried to take the series in this reinvented direction, such as Silent Hill: Ascension (a more interactive form of video series than game title, based in two separate locations - one in Norway and another in Pennsylvania) and Silent Hill: The Short Message (a stealthy survival-horror game that is avoidant of action, this time happening in Germany for some reason), and this is the crucial point at which things got pivoted badly, as these titles were not taking place in the town of Silent Hill anymore, but rather imitating the circumstances and transferring things in the “Silent Hill Phenomena” direction, but ultimately distancing farther and farther from the originals or even the “expansionist” post Team Silent titles that were still occurring primarily in the town.

Much more recently and most likely following the success of Capcom's Resident Evil reboot, KONAMI decided to create a few Silent Hill remakes, with Silent Hill 2 assigned to Bloober Team as the first, spearheading the concept, since it was thought to best showcase the psychological horror flavor among the originals and is a standalone story, especially with a “film adaptation” in development (the SH movies are a mess of their own and not the focus of today’s post thankfully). Mr. Okamoto did explain that they wanted to show their serious commitment to reviving the series by announcing multiple projects, including remakes (you probably know that there is currently a Silent Hill 1 remake in the works by Bloober Team as well) and new titles such as Silent Hill f (a soulslike hybrid SH game set in 1960s Japan) and the game we are going to get to in a bit – Silent Hill: Townfall.

Still here? Good, let’s now focus on the development of our main point for today’s discussion then!

Reaching the Silent Hill: Townfall Shores Closer and Closer

In January 2020, it was reported that KONAMI was actively asking studios for pitches on Silent Hill projects, including potential reboots and episodic games. On August 31, 2021, the Scottish developer, then named No Code hinted at their largest project, a horror game, which surprised their creative director Jon McKellan, who mentioned it may not have been something they expected to work on. By December 31, 2021, No Code expressed they were eager to announce their game but needed a bit more time. By May 2022, it was reported that multiple new Silent Hill game titles, including an anthology series of short story games by Annapurna Interactive, were in development.

On August 31, 2022, No Code teased their project, stating they were focused on creating a pure nightmare world and would take their time before revealing more details. On October 19, 2022, a spin-off titled Silent Hill: Townfall, developed by No Code and co-published by Annapurna, was announced alongside the other titles in the Silent Hill transmission showcase. McKellan recognized Silent Hill's influence on their earlier games and promised more updates in the following year. Reports indicated that Silent Hill: Townfall would kick off an anthology series in some way, thus allowing indie developers from various cultures to further explore the franchise.

On December 21, 2023, No Code overviewed the passing year and mentioned they were growing and crafting something truly significant. On September 12, 2024, it was reported by Bloomberg that all 25 staff members at Annapurna had resigned due to a dispute with their owner, causing concern about the current and upcoming partnerships. However, both Annapurna and No Code confirmed on September 30 that development on the Silent Hill: Townfall game would proceed. It was also mentioned on January 7, 2025, that the project had become more ambitious than initially planned, so on July 25, 2025, it was announced that No Code has rebranded as Screen Burn, reflecting the evolution of their team and their focus on storytelling in their games.

“After we shipped Observation, we were figuring out what we were going to do next and then we got this call from Annapurna to ask us what we would do with Silent Hill. That froze us in our tracks. It's not an opportunity we ever thought we'd get, but it's one we knew we all wanted right away. We pulled together a pitch of what felt would be a really cool, unique, Screen Burn take and brought it to KONAMI and we were delighted that they loved the idea.” — Jon McKellan

This quote brings us to nowadays and the subject of this article! All the participants in the Silent Hill transmission showcase described how passionate and honored they were to work on and co-produce/publish the title with KONAMI, since the IP meant so much to all of them, but let’s have a better look at it!

Overall Storyline and Main Differences in the Upcoming Silent Hill: Townfall Gameplay

Being developed by Screen Burn and published in a joint effort by KONAMI and Annapurna Interactive, it definitely looks like a project that has a lot of teams and hands-on approach involved, having said that, from what we have seen so far in teasers and official Silent Hill: Townfall trailers, the game does look incredibly detailed and well-crafted in the visuals department. So, what is the story this time around? Let’s dive deeper and find out what floats around!

From what we have gathered in the Silent Hill: Townfall trailer, the upcoming title is a psychological horror set somewhere in Scotland in 1996. The storyline revolves around a male protagonist named Simon Ordell who returns to the island town of St. Amelia to reunite with a mysterious lady that urges him to get to her and presumably "put things right", in order to overcome some of his past traumas or the guilt-themed ideas that he potentially feels towards her or other events that had occurred in the past.

All he has with him, apart from his clothes, consists of an IV tube around his left arm and a medical wristband with his names, DOB: 15/10/59, Blood type: A+, on his right wrist, heavily suggesting some sort of medical interventions performed on him recently. He has no clear memory of reaching the place or where he actually departed from because he “woke up in the water again”, but strongly feels like he needs to go roaming around the town in search of answers to his unsolved issues and unclear past experiences, as “this time” it felt differently. This could refer to some sort of repeat episodes of panic or Deja-vu moments, but it is all quite blurry to figure out at this point.

The town is covered in fog and initially seems deserted, but is not completely at rest. There are numerous shots of posters, banners and flyers all possibly connected to some sort of a protest around a monument in memory of “those we lost”. Other sings spell: “We need the Truth”, “Whatever heart this town has stopped” and “Save our town”, hinting at some tragic event (or series of) that took place there.

As Simon delves further and further, he seeks information to better understand his ties to the location and its residents, in order to somehow uncover fragments of the past. He (and we as the player) would experience the story from a first-person perspective, while exploring, evading and managing to survive with the limited weapons, this time we are getting both melee and firearm options included, because we got glimpses of a revolver and plank used as weapons. As for the tools he discovers, we would use a CRTV that he picked up along the way, which flashes some unstable images and replaces the radio most entries in the Silent Hill series used.

Tension quickly rises as soon as he touches his IV transfusion tube and the terror begins to unfold, there are more depictions of dark corridors, monsterish figures, red light soaked environemnts and other horrible scenes. Simon is forced to either evade or fight with some gruesome creatures that begin to appear all over the place, while at the same time he must solve the narrative-driven puzzles, which would ultimately reveal the submerged truth about his life, a truth that is hidden behind the static noise and perhaps something that he deeply fears to unravel himself.

The Inspired Art Direction and Design Philosophy of the Silent Hill: Townfall Gameplay

The team at Screen Burn initially considered placing Silent Hill: Townfall vaguely in northern Europe, but decided on a Scottish setting that would allow them to draw on their own personal experiences and better familiarity with the region, while creating the in-game environments.

To achieve this, they travelled to various towns along the east coast of Scotland to capture the reference materials and intended vibe. According to Jon McKellan, the opening scene was conceived after they traveled down a pier shrouded in dense fog until they lost direction of the coast and even felt in danger for a bit. The first environment built for the game was based on the harbor village St. Monans.

It was also expressed that Jon McKellan has played most of the games as a teenager and explained how fond he is of the shared memories that he and his brother (another team member working on the designs of the upcoming title) got, so this inspired him to explore the themes of guilt previously implemented in Silent Hill 2 and elements from the later entries in the popular series. He wrote Silent Hill: Townfall in a manner to "dive deeper into the various different ways that guilt can manifest, where it comes from, what it can do to people, and how, if you can, come to accept or resolve it".

Even though this is not the first attempt to present the series in a first-person perspective (SH4 experimented with such approach in Room 302, which acted as a sort of a hub world, P.T./Silent Hills was also possibly going to be depicted from the perspective of the main character and the much more recent Silent Hill: The Short Message was fully played through the viewpoint of the protagonist) in order to narrow the player's field of view and thus create a greater sense of dread and discomfort. Lead designer Graeme McKellan (Jon’s older brother) expressed his opinion that very often what happens off-screen could be much scarier than what is explicitly previewed directly in the gameplay.

These viewpoints and ideas are what inspired the CRTV and it also builds upon the radio mechanic, which was used in the majority of the previous Silent Hill games, that actively signaled the player about nearby threats with audible white noise. Screen Burn really wanted to expand on this function since, the in-game handheld television can be used to locate nearby threats that are not plainly visible and also detect broadcasted video signals that reveal more of the plot information and guide the player through the challenges.

As far as we noticed, monsters could sometimes be evaded through the use of stealth and as the player you are have the opportunity to run, distract or hide from the axe-headed creatures that we saw in the Silent Hill: Townfall trailer. But keep in mind that many of them have the ability to dynamically stalk the player character if too much attention is drawn around you. All of these components summed together correspond to a big extent to a game directly inspired by Silent Hill, and this brings us to the conclusion!

A Few More Critical Thoughts About What Truly Makes a Silent Hill Game

This is something we do not typically do, but since Silent Hill is such a special and beloved game we think there is room for a bit of critique. We overviewed the ongoing discussions around socials regarding the cases of the more recent titles and general direction of the franchise and this is exactly the reason we strategically waited a bit with the publishing of this article.

Does the formula of an abandoned foggy small city + a person with some sort of past trauma/guilt + a bunch of spooky-looking monsters + a great noise-ambient OST by Akira Yamaoka actually equates up to a worthy game of the Silent Hill title?

Should and can the events take place in any given location around the world and count as the “Silent Hill Phenomena”? Is such a thing even possible? All these studios and devs explaining how inspired and passionate about the IP they are, but do they actually make a Silent Hill game, or more like a Silent Hill-inspired game that has nothing to do with the originals and their already canon lore apart from the marketed title. Fans have had numerous heated debates about these questions online, as just throwing in all the “elements” that constitute a great Silent Hill title, but nothing of it is related to the town itself does not fully connect them to the authentic entries of the past.

Sure, there have been many types of conceptual Silent Hill experiments throughout the years, including some titles in the cinema. Some people might argue that for example SH3 and SH4 in the original series deviated from the location, but still they used scenarios related to the town and characters that were narratively driven in the direction of the town, the plots gravitated in the region and were taken either from the original SH game or the beloved SH2 sequel (that recently got a very decent remake as a means of testing the waters, before the rest of the OGs jumped in the pool).

There are reasonably established lore and theories as to why the events of the original game happen the way that they do, including desecrated sacred grounds of Native American tribes that were turned into coal mines with POW incarceration facilities (Toluca Prison) and a town built on top of the place that caused the location to transition from sacred to sort of cursed because of the horrors that took place there. Even though there were attempts by authorities to push the image of the town towards a tourist location, the numerous plagues, executions, sunken ships, occult rituals and sacrificed orphans all speak of centered plots around that energetic sacred place, causing it to transform in the way it does.

In the original Silent hill, Alessa Gillespie a girl prone to paranormal powers was sacrificed by her mother Dahlia so that she could become the vessel for the God of The Order, which was a sect that already suffered the effects of the curse, in some sort of desperate attempt to somehow manage and control the darkness, not to actually get rid of it. Because of that horrific act Alessa was able to manifest her nightmares and layer the “worlds” of the once touristy town. When she split her soul into two pieces (to prevent the completion of the process), one of which Harry Mason later found in the form of a baby (Cheryl/Heather) with his wife, it acted as the good half of Alessa that was ultimately needed to finish the ritual.

In SH2, James Sunderland was experiencing his own subconscious torment caused by the story with his deceased wife Mary and the town’s powers just lured him back to face up to his deeds, while other lost souls like Anna and Eddie had their own versions of terrors for the same spaces, respectively fires and icy cold versions that James did somehow get glimpses of, but ultimately not see in his dilapidated version of ruin, even when they were together at various points during his storyline. It is said that only Laura did not have any problem with the town due to her innocence and purity. The recent SH2 remake did a fine job at respecting the source material and even added a few interesting twists and “loops” to it, so hopefully Bloober Team gives the same attention to detail to any upcoming SH remakes as well!

In Silent Hill 3, Heather (Cheryl reincarnated after SH1’s good(+) ending took place) was on the run (with Harry) her whole life, before returning to the town once again to fight against her own darker half and put an end to the second attempt of The Order to deliver God once again. Walter Sullivan’s murder spree was first mentioned in SH2 and it turned out that the superintendent Frank Sunderland was the father of James (and Mary’s father-in-law). So even though Henry Townshend was not directly related to previous protagonists, he ended up in “The Room” and got in trouble because of it. Not only that, but The Order was very much to blame for Walter’s upbringing and taken path in life and his 21 Sacraments ritual.

Even the main characters in later Silent Hill games such as Origins, Shattered Memories, Homecoming and Downpour were linked in some way to the area (some more loosely than others but still) and previous entries. While at the same time the protagonists in Ascension, The Short Message and Hinako from Silent Hill f do not have any real meaningful connection to the town or its powers. Seems like Simon from Silent Hill: Townfall is destined to be added to that list, unless we get some sort of surprising twist, which does not seem to be the case…. at least for now, but as information rolls out we would definitely keep an eye on it and remain optimistic, after all the game does look very interesting on its own merit.

Is there a Fix for the Silent Hill Situation or is it Already Far too Late

If there was an official canon in-game scenario that somehow The Order managed to succeed in their goals and miraculously extended their influence throughout the world by using the powers of their occult God figure to cause disruptions to other locations on the planet, perhaps the “Silent Hill Phenomena” would make better sense than it currently does and still be related to the events in the mainline Silent Hill games.

Such established canon events would have been ideal grounds towards the expansion of the franchise in various locations around Europe or Asia and would simply be explained as reality shifts happening for towns/traumatized people all over the place, because The Order actually influenced or directly caused them.

Such events could have also nicely fitted with a narrative that would ultimately bring the surviving characters of various SH games back to the source of it all – the iconic town of Silent Hill and defeat The Order in one final battle thus ending to their cruel plan. Perhaps it is too late for such an idea to be introduced as it should have been done years ago and backtracking it now would be even more difficult, but it could have worked greatly in favor of the franchise, the vast community of fans and production studios working on the projects.