Silent Hill: Townfall brings the series’ horror to a Scottish fishing community

Silent Hill: Townfall is set in St Amelia, a fishing community where most residents disappear after a mass tragedy and the town is enveloped in supernatural fog.

Players control Simon, an unassuming outsider who hides from monsters, explores the town and gradually reveals the reason for his visit: guilt. The other playable characters are Zoe, a nurse, and Richard, the chief executive of an energy company that promised prosperity for the island.

St Amelia and its residents

The town draws on the fishing communities of Fife’s East Neuk. Its story includes island poverty, absent lairds and an oil-drilling corporation, while the exact events behind the residents’ deaths are never fully explained.

The game’s visual style contrasts blood-red moonlight, deep shadows and stark white torchlight. Simon also discovers a portable television that receives cryptic messages from Zoe and tracks nearby monsters through rough outlines on its screen.

Exploration, combat and puzzles

The pace is deliberately slow. Simon scavenges for items, hides, runs from enemies and sometimes fights them with a pipe. Some buildings can be entered only by cutting through a fleshy doorway with a scalpel.

Information is delivered through actions and objects within the game world. Simon physically removes the map to view it, while saving requires finding a telephone, lifting the receiver and dialling a number. Puzzles involve emails, floppy disks and documents, although the review found a late puzzle based on industrial symbols excessively obscure.

Silent Hill: Townfall will be released 24 September for PlayStation 5 and PC. It will cost £44.99.