By Marley Sledge, Photographer 

After almost 13 years with no new and original content in the “Silent Hill” series, Konami finally pulls through with a new game: “Silent Hill f.” 

“Silent Hill f” takes place in 1960s Ebisugaoka, Japan, and follows a girl named Shimizu Hinako as she tries to survive her town being enveloped in scarlet flowers and flesh. In the process, she confronts trauma from family abuse, societal mistreatment and dysfunctional friendships.  

Since the announcement of “Silent Hill f” in October 2022, there has been significant discourse in the community over multiple new features. Primarily over the setting not taking place in “Silent Hill” and the game straying away from typical survival horror tropes by not containing any guns. After its release in September 2025, fans finally got to see for themselves how the game truly held up. 

Gameplay 

As soon as I started playing the game, my first thought was “This movement is horrendous,” which really isn’t a good first thought to have. However, I pushed on, and thankfully I would go on to really appreciate the gameplay.  

The part of the movement I specifically didn’t like was how abrupt coming to a stop was. It looked and felt odd, but in the end, I think this was a smart decision to fit in line with the rest of the gameplay.  

The game differs from other “Silent Hill” games in how it focuses heavily on melee combat and has mechanics such as dodging and parrying to supplement this style of fighting. Because of how fast paced, precise and close-quarters fights are, it is a good decision to have immediate stops to prevent you from running into enemies mid-fight. While I enjoyed the combat, it was somewhat jarring since most “Silent Hill” games have had very slow and tedious combat and have very heavily pushed the idea that it isn’t worth fighting every enemy. In “Silent Hill f,” though, I fought almost every enemy and had a surplus of supplies. 

 A major complaint many had before the game was that there were no guns, and I was skeptical too. While the melee combat was enjoyable, many feared how the ammo management would work. Ammo management is a major part of every survival horror and taking it away would remove a major gameplay mechanic. Luckily, they solved this through having durability on weapons that served as ammunition limits and toolkits served as ammunition. Despite this, I still had 10 toolkits after fighting almost every enemy in the game.  

Many said the fighting felt somewhat repetitive, and I agree to an extent, especially when there is hardly any consequence to taking a fight. I enjoyed the fighting regardless, and the change in pace in the fights felt like it matched the change in pace in the story as well, with Shimizu Hinako having much more of a fighting spirit than previous protagonists. 

Graphics and Performance 

While graphics are often dependent on the hardware, the game was beautiful on my settings, though on lower settings the game can look very poor. The game ran fine generally, but it took some time to get the setting right to make it run smoothly. This is partly due to just how good computers are getting, but even after I set the graphics to settings that ran fine for me, there were sections that would cause some performance issues later into the game. Towards the end of the game in the overworld, I started getting stutters in my game, and apparently this was a commonly reported issue. I believe part of the problem is as the game goes on, the number of flowers and meat blooming around the world increases, which inherently is going to cause more processing issues as there is more to process. Regardless, this is a solvable problem. 

Themes 

Every “Silent Hill” game discusses dark topics such as domestic violence and sexual abuse, but each game has its nuances in the subjects it touches. 

“Silent Hill f” heavily focuses on gender norms in 1960s Japan, and the consequences that rise from these norms such as sexual abuse, child abuse and domestic abuse. Despite the setting sounding so drastically different from modern day America, many of the themes are applicable to today, which really hurts to think about. 

The game really resonated with me in what it touched on, more so than other games, and I feel like it would apply to anyone regardless of what they experienced just because of the societal views surrounding women affect everyone in some way.  

The only complaint I have with the themes is perhaps the presentation. A major thing every “Silent Hill” game has done is having the enemies represent concepts, and generally the player has to do some critical thinking to realize what the monsters represent, but “Silent Hill f” holds your hand through the thinking. Hinako has a journal in the game where it details her thoughts, and while it is insightful to see what she is thinking, her insights on the monsters oftentimes just directly tell you what the monster is supposed to represent. This is a little annoying to me, but nothing more than that as in previous games it isn’t that hard to figure out what the monsters represent; it just doesn’t seem like something you should need to make easier. 

Atmosphere and Setting 

Atmosphere can truly make or break a game, especially with how big of a cultural staple the atmosphere in “Silent Hill” is.  

A major complaint people had going into “Silent Hill f” is that it doesn’t even take place in “Silent Hill.” Honestly, I understand the fear, as it is literally the title of the game. 

However, there have been so many titles in the series that I feel like the game has established itself beyond just the name of the town. Over the years “Silent Hill” has become known for its fog, themes, map design, pacing, music and monsters, and I feel as though all of this makes a “Silent Hill” game more than just the name of the town itself. “Silent Hill f” matched the feeling of every “Silent Hill” game before it in every sense besides gameplay, but outside of that it feels just like any other “Silent Hill” game atmosphere-wise. The game genuinely has my favorite soundtrack out of every “Silent Hill” game I’ve played. The level design matches every other “Silent Hill” game. The concept of moving around back and forth across a constantly changing town is the same. The monsters feel like “Silent Hill” monsters. The game is a “Silent Hill” game. 

Story 

I have very mixed feelings about the story of the game. On one hand, I love the story itself. On the other hand, I think the presentation could be a lot better.  

The game is very vague with many plot points, and it feels like it doesn’t resolve any of them well enough. You can infer many things, but defined conclusions are rare.  

The conclusion of the game itself also bothered me, and when I was approaching the end of the game, I was genuinely thinking it would be my favorite “Silent Hill” game, but after the end I felt very disappointed. There are multiple endings to the game as with most “Silent Hill” games, and you will likely feel more fulfilled after playing more endings, but the standard ending by itself should still feel somewhat fulfilling. 

There was also a plot point that was thrown into the standard ending that felt like it wasn’t explored enough in the base game, making it seem as though it was just wedged into the ending. 

Conclusion 

Overall, I really enjoyed the game, but there are still things about the game that bother me from minor gameplay mechanics to performance issues and story pacing problems. Besides these problems, the game has a great story and atmosphere that, in my opinion, is worth playing through.