Silent Hill: Townfall Review – St. Amelia Captures the Series’ Horror

Enter the fog-shrouded town of St. Amelia, where monsters stalk the streets and secrets wait to be uncovered in the wake of a disaster. While not set in the town of Silent Hill itself, Silent Hill: Townfall nevertheless sets out to tell a new story in the Silent Hill series.

As a Silent Hill fan who had unhappily watched the series fall dormant, 2022’s batch of announcements was like Christmas. Of the announced titles, Silent Hill: Townfall caught my attention because its developer was No Code (since rebranded as Screen Burn), whose previous game, Stories Untold, I loved. I was excited to see what they would do with a Silent Hill game.

You play as Simon Ordell, who washes ashore at the island town of St. Amelia. Between the fog-shrouded streets of the abandoned town, the haunting music, and the persistent atmosphere of dread, the first thing that struck me was just how much it feels like Silent Hill. When I started the game, I wished it were set in the town itself, but St. Amelia’s setting is so important to the story that I can understand why they handled it the way they did. Regardless, it captures the Silent Hill atmosphere quite well. If it had been third-person instead of first-person, it would have felt perfect, although I can’t criticize its camera too much since I’m a diehard fan of Silent Hill 4, which had first-person sections. What surprised me the most was that Simon isn’t the only playable character. He has the majority of the game time, but there are occasional segments where you play as someone else. This was a nice touch that helped strengthen the story.

As you explore each area of Townfall, such as the haunting streets of town and an abandoned medical center, your area map updates with information like locked doors you’ve found and key locations to visit, much like the maps in the classic games. Exploring often requires you to solve puzzles to proceed. Many puzzles revolve around finding keys or locating keycodes, but a handful are more challenging, riddle-like puzzles as well. These are mostly straightforward, and when I got stuck, it was usually because I overthought the puzzle and ignored the obvious. Meanwhile, many little details help to immerse you in the game’s atmosphere, including its save system. You save your game by finding a phone and dialing a specific number, and although this is slower than a standard save system, I loved it.

The radio is a staple of Silent Hill, and in Townfall it comes in the form of a CRTV. This handheld device serves multiple functions. Simon receives messages through it that guide him to his next destination, and it also broadcasts additional story details or puzzle clues. Sometimes this involves a mini-game to calibrate the signal on the screen. The CRTV can also detect enemy locations, which might be its most important function. Nearby enemies show up as signals, and you can see their outline on the screen. This lets you track the enemy’s movements and have a rough idea of its location. It’s a neat system, although I found it cumbersome to hold the shoulder button to bring up the CRTV while simultaneously using the triggers to navigate between different signals.

Using the CRTV to track enemy locations is important because the game emphasizes stealth. Although there is combat, both with breakable melee weapons and eventually ranged weapons, fighting is slow and dangerous. Between how dangerous enemies are and their sheer persistence if you try to run from them, stealth is often the best option. In fact, even though I’m usually frustrated by breakable weapons, it didn’t bother me here since I spent most of my time trying to avoid enemies anyway. However, that’s also my biggest criticism. While the sense of danger definitely adds to the game’s tension and makes it genuinely scary at times, it puts much more emphasis on stealth than I’d prefer.

As for the story, I realized early on that I had no idea why Simon was there. The game starts with a message that seems to call him to St. Amelia, but he never indicates his goal. However, it turns out that he isn’t sure why he’s there either, so that made sense after all. I just wish that was conveyed more clearly at the start. The mystery of St. Amelia’s disaster and Simon’s role gradually unfolds as you play, and although I initially worried the plot might be too obvious, there was more going on than I expected. It’s heavy on medical horror, even more so than past games, and the symbolism of the monster designs is on point with the story they’re telling. On top of that, the industrial-style Otherworld really grew on me and is my favorite Otherworld of the later Silent Hill games. Townfall is unusual in that it feels both disconnected from the rest of the Silent Hill series and clearly in the style of Silent Hill, and in the end I enjoyed what they did with this game.