In my restless dreams, I see that town. St. Amelia
By Collin Junkin
Silent Hill: Townfall doesn’t scare you like a typical jump scare. It scares you after the fact and stays in your head, refusing to let go. That is Screen Burn’s biggest achievement and it’s also one of the biggest swings the series has taken. It reinforces the idea that Silent Hill is more than just a small town in Maine, but a state of being. It’s a phenomenon that our protagonist is dissecting and we are along for the ride.
The damp and isolated late 90s Scotland is the most dreary yet beautiful location in the series. The first person perspective was the correct design choice. You see Simon’s IV strapped to his hand every time he slowly opens a door. You watch him load every bullet into his rusty revolver. You watch him pull out his CRTV and manually turn the knobs and dials to tune in on the creatures that lurk behind a wall. The first person view doesn’t just put you in his shoes, it forces you to understand his vulnerability. It’s an intimate experience so much so that I want every silent hill going forward to feature a first person perspective as an option.
The Town is a State of Being
The presentation of the experience is not just a support tool for the horror, it is the horror. The fog in St. Amelia is dense and harrowing. The fog is so dense that St. Amelia is hardly fully visible. Streetlights flicker and pierce the haze while paint cracks and peels on abandoned buildings. There is an emphasis on environmental storytelling which I adore. The story isn’t just a cutscene with dialogue explaining things, it's the notes left behind; the signs and billboards around every corner. The town's story already occurred, we arrived too late and are just now trying to understand it. But the blood tinted otherworld flips that tone on its head. St. Amelia’s muted greys get swapped for a harsh red that soaks every piece of the environment. Places you thought you knew are no longer familiar. Industrial pipes stretch across the town and St. Amelia feels like hell. It's not a dramatic cutscene or a filter, It’s an entirely new vibe that turns in on itself. And sometimes those hellish skies aren’t empty. This ominous flying creature slowly drifts through it suffocated by the haze. It reminded me of Stephen King’s The Mist and is a spectacle to behold. All of this is reinforced by Pilotpriests immense soundscape that floods your ears. The ambience of St. Amelia is mesmerizing and dreamlike. When Simon first arrives from the water there’s this white noise that fills the air while the waves crash against rocks. It’s one of the most evocative and moody scapes I’ve seen in years. Headphones aren’t just recommended, They feel like another instrument that fuels the horror.
Hands on the Static
This is why the immediate immersion in Silent Hill: Townfall is undoubtedly its biggest strength. Most studios would’ve used the 90s setting to create nostalgia, while Screen Burn uses it for both nostalgia and the ongoing tension. I was addicted to it. The handheld CRTV doesn’t just show you where the creatures lurk, it trains you to view the reality as a frequency that can lose its signal at any given moment. There were times of genuine terror where I could feel my heart beating and my hands drenching the controller in sweat. This game has this tactile way of doing things I wasn’t expecting. Turning on old computers, sifting through emails and documents, dialing numbers on a phone. Lifting a document with instructions while trying to solve this puzzle. None of it feels flashy or forced, which is why it’s so effective and only elevates the experience. You aren’t just reading a note left on a wall, you are doing the actions of those who came before you. Those small actions make St. Amelia feel like a lived in Coastal Town that had me discovering its purpose piece by piece.
Hunted, not Hunting
The moment to moment gameplay is going to split people and that’s okay. I treasured Creative Assembly’s Alien Isolation and that game's DNA is glaring and worked for me instantly. This is the strongest Silent Hill has felt to play and it has nothing to do with the combat itself. You walk down a dark hallway, the atmosphere is overwhelming and all the sudden you hear something. You hear something wrong, your boots are no longer slamming against the wood and you lift your CRTV and tune to the nearest frequency. You see something uncanny that’s roaming too close. You then lean around a corner and find yourself examining the beast learning its routes and planning your next best move. And then it emits a sound so ugly that it pauses the ambient track that has been playing the whole time. This loop is not about killing the creatures, it’s about watching them. It’s learning them and adapting, not just taking them out as fast as possible. That loop is claustrophobic and tense. It makes the player feel hunted, not the hunter. Screen Burn adapted this style with intention. They wanted you constantly vulnerable and in a constant state of anxiety. They wanted you busy with ordinary things while the town unraveled itself to you and they pulled it off with ease.
Rewarding story, Not Silent Hill 2
The story is rewarding but doesn’t over explain itself. It does the classic Silent Hill trope where guilt is constantly hung above you. Without giving too much, Simon finds himself washed up on St. Amelia, with his name on a medical wrist band and an IV in his hand. Other characters get reeled in and have their own story beats which I found myself engaged with till the very end. The town doesn’t feel like a haunted house with jump scares around each corner. It feels like a fully lived in ghost town where we have to uncover its secret through a total slow burn that lands. Do not go in expecting a revelation similar to Silent Hill 2. That game is a totally different animal and Townfall doesn’t attempt to hold that weight, and honestly, it doesn’t need to.
My biggest gripe in the final chapter. After all the tension and plot reveals, it comes to a total halt. A complete drag with repetitive and mundane puzzles that don’t feel rewarding. I didn’t find myself eagerly searching for clues and writing in my notebook things to remember, I just wanted it to be done. You are forced to backtrack and solve these puzzles that feel laborious and exhausting. It is by far, the weakest chapter in the game.
FINAL VERDICT
What I’m going to remember most about Silent Hill: Townfall isn’t a boss fight or a cheap jump scare, it's the crushing atmosphere. It doesn’t want to scare you with constant immediate danger, but make the world feel wrong and inverted through environmental storytelling, sound, and perspective. Screen Burn managed to create the most Silent Hill feeling game in the series without even being set in the original town. It’s the horror that follows you even though nothing is attacking you. It’s the horror that follows you after you turn off the game and refuses to let go.
SILENT HILL TOWNFALL - 8.5/10 - GREAT