Silent Hill: Townfall brings the horror to Scotland
An amnesiac loner arrives in a remote coastal village on a Scottish island in 1996. The protagonist, Simon Ordell, washes up at the harbour with vague memories and an IV cannula stuck in his hand. This is the premise of Silent Hill: Townfall, the latest entry in the iconic horror series, developed by Glasgow-based studio Screen Burn.
Why Scotland?
Series producer Motoi Okamoto explained that the change of setting was intentional to refresh the franchise. "We felt that players were starting to become a little fatigued. Silent Hill was becoming slightly repetitive, we were using similar locations, the gameplay felt the same," Okamoto said. "We wanted to refresh the series and create a new sort of experience by interpreting Silent Hill not as a physical location but as a phenomenon, a state of mind."
Exploring St Amelia
During a two-hour preview of an almost finished version at Konami in Tokyo, the game's visual detail stood out. The town of St Amelia, inspired by St Monans and other Scottish fishing villages, features stacks of lobster cages, grey stone walls worn by sea spray, and shops selling seaside tat. An old British Telecom phone box sits in the town square. The town is abandoned, with estate agent signs on every street, dark homes, and flickering streetlights. A note at the police station indicates local anger at a corporation named CEG, with street protests having taken place.
Gameplay and period details
For the first hour, players freely explore unlocked homes, finding old PCs, horrible bathroom suites, and Formica-clad kitchens. Strange details emerge: Simon's hotel room is filled with medical equipment, people have been getting ill, and some have disappeared. A male voice on the telephone begs for help, and a video recording shows a woman named Zoe telling Simon, "You can't stay in this room for ever, you have to come back to me."
Puzzles are intricately tied to the 1990s setting. Early on, players must use a PC to check emails, but first need to restore electricity by fetching a pre-paid card from the local newsagent and putting it in the meter. This mechanic, familiar to UK gamers, reportedly confused American and Japanese journalists. The portable radio from previous titles is replaced by a small handheld television, styled like a Casio mini TV, which can be tuned to see static-filled images or video clips for puzzle clues and track monsters through walls.
Analogue tech and horror
Director and writer Jon McKellan explained the focus on ageing technology: "The tactility is the main reason behind it. It's kind of become our calling card and before Screen Burn I worked on Alien: Isolation and there was a lot of that VHS analogue aesthetic. I like marrying those visual concepts with narrative and UI design. Analogue tech is fragile, it's imperfect, it feels like it could break at any minute – and all those things work really well with horror." He added, "I think if Simon was walking around with a mobile phone and Google Maps it would be a very different experience."
Combat and stealth
Monsters include strange, tortured humans with axe heads for faces and arms bound by leather straps. Players start with only planks to defend themselves. Combat is demanding: players can block or strike, but creatures are fast and deadly. There is no parry or dodge, requiring very good timing. Alternatively, stealth is possible using the CRTV to see enemy locations and a peeking system to study patrol patterns.
Political undertones and personal trauma
The game's later section takes place in a hellish underworld of sewers, wire cages, and red lighting. Political undertones emerge through the CEG corporation, which has exploited and destroyed the village, reminiscent of towns like Grangemouth and Mossmoran affected by petrochemical giants. McKellan said, "We wanted to look at the relationship between the character and the society around them. What does it mean for someone to be in a town like this and have an impact on it – what do you do with that?" He added, "There is a lot of personal trauma in there – things that have happened to me or members of the team. We try to pull reference from real life because usually that's less bombastic and more grounded than Hollywood, and to me that's where the best horror comes from."
Release date and expectations
Silent Hill: Townfall will be released on 24 September. While the enemy figures seen so far are familiar Silent Hill archetypes, the setting is beautifully realised. The shadowing of the Silent Hill 2 narrative—a man searching for a woman he seems to have had a relationship with—is intriguing and likely to be subverted. The game promises a bleak, grounded horror experience.
