Silent Hill f – horror classic comes back to life in a fog-bound 60s town

The Guardian

2 days ago

As the humidity rises in 35-degree Tokyo, so too do the dead. Ever since the Edo period, Japanese summertime has been associated with the arrival of supernatural forces – a season defined by malevolent spirits. As the country's temperatures soar, it's believed that the barriers separating the world of the living and the dead begin to wane, allowing once contained ghosts to slither into our realm.
It's under this sweaty backdrop that I find myself wandering Silent Hill f's fog-laden Japan. Set in the fictional town of Ebisugaoka during the 1960s, players are put into the dust-coated shoes of a misunderstood teenage girl named Hinako. Summer or no, Hinako's tale begins in suitably bleak fashion. Fleeing her drunk and abusive father, Hinako miserably roams the intricately rendered streets of her rural home town. Failing to live up to the lofty standards set by her impossibly beautiful older sister, Hinako finds herself teased by classmates – lost, and struggling to understand her place in society.
'Gender is a big part of the story,' teases series producer Motoi Okamoto. 'We can't really elaborate too much but the 1960s was when the women's rights movements started to take form in Japan … So this plays a major role in why we decided to go with the time period.'
Despite the town's inevitably eerie nature, Ebisugaoka is an utterly gorgeous virtual locale. As I roam its near-deserted streets, I can't help but peer into every cobbled corner, slide open each translucent bamboo door, and examine the lavish detail of every Inari shrine. It's a refreshing change from the Japan usually depicted in games – either a neon-drenched Tokyo or ye olde samurai epic.
'Horror games from Japan – and based in Japan – have not seen major releases over the last decade,' says Okamoto. 'Silent Hill has always been a marriage between western horror and Japanese-style horror, but as time progressed, we believed that the Japanese essence was starting to wane. So with Silent Hill f, we decided that we wanted to infuse the Japanese themes more strongly.'
It's not long before the town's unsettling beauty gives way to outright horror. As a plume of fog descends on Ebisugaoka, puppet-esque beings pursue Hinako, strikingly beautiful red plant-like tendrils rising up from the soil. These crimson flowers can attach to your legs during combat, tethering you helplessly to the floor as the mannequin-esque monstrosities judder menacingly towards you.
In keeping with the setting, there are no firearms in Silent Hill f. Instead, Hinako defends herself with whatever weapons she can muster – namely daggers, baseball bats and scythes. Tense melee combat is the order of the day. Perfectly timed dodges and counters replenish Hinako's stamina, allowing her to land a follow-up attack, resulting in a surprisingly Dark-Souls-esque survival horror.
'One of the first things that I had in mind going into this game was I wanted to incorporate more action,' says Okamoto. 'But of course, since this is a horror game, we can't lean entirely on the action. We also needed to have those tense moments in between … I think we've managed to strike a fairly delicate balance.'
Initially, I'm not so convinced. For the first hour, combat in Silent Hill F feels gruelling and sluggish. Each dodge and hard-won hit is slow and imprecise, resulting in some baffling early deaths. Yet where early battles frustrate, I slowly warm to the tense melee, eventually clicking with its considered cadence. While the inconsistent difficulty in this preview build could use a pre-release tweak – one late demo boss saw me suddenly dying upwards of 30 times – the scrappy combat fits survival horror surprisingly well.
'A lot of people say they really enjoy being scared by horror games, but I think what they actually mean is that they enjoy the tension,' says Al Yang, game director at the studio developing the game with Konami, NeoBards. 'The fear of the unknown is one thing, but jump scares constantly? That's going to get very old, very fast.'
Instead, Silent Hill f has stress built into its every system. In a Lovecraftian touch, players must pay attention to their sanity meter, leaving offerings at shrines to restore Hinako's mental stability. 'You need to know how close your candle is to going out, to really have it feel tense,' adds Yang. 'You can see the durability of your weapons … you're very aware of your own limitations, of how close you are to dying – or running out of resources – and that is what creates tension.'
Where the early hours see you navigating labyrinthine alleyways, tightly knit streets soon give way to foggy rice fields and eerily abandoned farmhouses. Yet for all Ebisugaoka's horrifying monstrosities, there's a refreshingly human yarn at Silent Hill f's heart. As Hinako searches for her friends while the town goes to hell, flashbacks and believable conversations keep you invested in her past, present and future. As with previous entries, there's a dreamlike quality to every encounter, leaving you unsure which interactions are real, yet the beautifully realised 60s setting consistently grounds things.
'When it comes to exploring time periods, if you go too far back, it becomes so detached from our familiar reality that it basically borders on fantasy,' says Silent Hill f's script writer, Ryukishi07 about the 60s setting. 'Whereas the present is too grounded in reality … so there's really no room for interpretation. It's why I've always [enjoyed] the possibilities that arise from the period in between the past and present – that's where fantasy and reality intersect.'
It feels fitting to be playing a new Silent Hill during Japan's equivalent of Halloween. For years, this was a series that seemed dead and buried – but now, like the spirits crossing into Japan, Silent Hill lives again.
'When I became involved with Silent Hill, my plan was that we cannot just have one remake and let that be the end,' says Okamoto. 'We could have just brought the old fans back and had a nostalgic get together – but I wanted there to be some kind of progression. I think fans can have more faith that Silent Hill has made a comeback … and that things will keep coming.'
Silent Hill f is released on PC, PS5 and Xbox, 25 September