The game asks players to set aside the series’ trademark fog and focus instead on the town itself. It is a more intimate horror experience than the series usually offers, built around a seaside town in Scotland in 1996. The game draws on the kind of puzzle-heavy exploration that Silent Hill fans have not seen in a while.
Players explore St. Amelia from a first-person perspective using a handheld CRT screen as Simon Ordell, a man who wakes up in the sleepy seaside town and sets out to uncover its mystery. The horrors that pursue him make fighting them undesirable, so Screen Rant‘s review instead emphasizes the value of exploration, mapping, and running away from them.
Setting The Scene
When Simon wakes up, the town before him seems idyllic, but a familiar fog soon rolls in. This experience does not match the expectations set by the last two entries, Silent Hill f and Silent Hill: Townfall, even though it shares their name. The setting stands apart from anything seen in the series’ older entries: a seaside town in Scotland, rather than the well-known foggy streets.
The town is a small, winding place, filled with paths that aren’t open from the beginning. Some routes open up through the story, while others can be reached through optional means, such as breaking or unlatching locks. To move through it, players use a lifelike map brochure that can be summoned with a button press. Simon leaves various markings to point the way, but they rarely come with any further explanation.
The town is drawn from an actual place in Scotland known as St Monans, and that is plain to see. The review calls the town lovely, praising it as a splendid reprieve from the swollen open-world design found in many other large-budget titles.
Test Your Equipment
Simon’s gear is mostly junk, and his perspective is strictly through a first-person lens. His primary implement is a large plank that works as both a shield and a weapon to swing. It is not ideal for facing off against hordes of foes head-to-head, but since the game keeps things more laid-back, you will not need to do that often.
Townfall centers around exploration, puzzle-solving, navigation, and light stealth and combat. That mood breaks from some of the more low-key titles in the Silent Hill series, which is why the review pushes readers to set expectations before starting. Those who cherish old-school adventure games will find much to enjoy in the game, though that may come as a surprise to fans of the classic Silent Hill titles.
Finding The Keys
Townfall’s puzzles are small but clever. Players must find keys for different locks, some of which are a bit out-there and demand critical thinking. One early puzzle offers almost no signposting, instead depending on the player’s familiarity with the CRTV to figure out a lock combination from several vague photos.
The game offered a welcome break from similar titles that merely guide players step by step, and especially when it came to solving the puzzle in question. The review points out that the puzzles will appeal to fans of older adventure games, though classic Silent Hill fans may not be pleased.
The Town’s Secrets
The open format lets players roam St. Amelia freely, turning up healing items and keys that may come in handy later. Haste and hiding both work as a strategy, and enemy encounters tend to be few and far between, which produces some tense moments.
Once, while being pursued by a monstrous creature, the writer dashed at full speed down a market street and crashed into a family clinic, then shut and secured the door as the thing hammered against the window. A phone number discovered in another puzzle provided a clue about where to head next.
The chief strength of Silent Hill: Townfall is how naturally its events unfold, even though the game is built around a rigid chapter-based structure behind the scenes. The town itself has clearly earned its spot in the series’ canon.
The Many Flavors
The 1996 setting does real work in Townfall, and it is plain to see how much the team depends on it and how central it is to the story. The watchful pace may not suit a lot of players, and it does not always turn out well, but it succeeded often enough that the reviewer felt moved to return to the game after finishing it.
The game includes both highs and lows, with some stretches that move slowly and revelations following a lengthy puzzle session that feel less enlightening than expected. However, the atmosphere ultimately raises Townfall to a new level.
The Recommendation
Silent Hill: Townfall is a conditional recommendation waiting in the wings, a new survival horror game for players who are fine with some first-person scares. It will not be a classic Silent Hill experience, as far as mainline entries go.
The critique is lighthearted and acknowledges that the game falls short of being the Hill players may anticipate. There is a give-and-take dynamic at play, yet the mood is what ultimately lifts Townfall above all else.
What To Expect
Before you begin playing Silent Hill: Townfall, there are several things worth understanding, including the game’s setting. The story takes place in a town, which is locked in permanent fog, and this fog is where the game’s horror comes from. The town is a place of mystery and dread, and the fog hides secrets. The game borrows from earlier horror video games, and its setting and atmosphere are built on the ideas that came before it.
- Set in St. Amelia, a seaside town in Scotland in 1996
- Protagonist: Simon Ordell, waking up after fog rolls in
- First-person perspective, handheld CRT screen
- Exploration, puzzle-solving, stealth and light combat
- Small town, labyrinthine routes, unlockable paths
- Based on a real town in Scotland called St Monans
The game is a break from the series’ usual format. It is not a bloated open-world AAA project, and it is not the same foggy streets of the series’ older entries. It is a smaller, more intimate horror game that rewards exploration, mapping, and running away from horrors rather than fighting them.
Source material: “Silent Hill: Townfall Review – Not The Hill You'd Expect,” Screen Rant.
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