Silent Hill: Townfall Review – Finding the Light

It’s another year, and another new Silent Hill game has been released. After 2024’s excellent Silent Hill 2 remake, Konami followed that up with NeoBard’s horror opus Silent Hill f last year.

Can Konami make it three years in a row of not only releasing a new Silent Hill game, but one that’s worthy of playing yet again? Our review dives down and sees whether the shift of view also means a shift in quality in our review of Townfall.

With Silent Hill: Townfall, Konami aims to follow in Capcom’s footsteps and release a first-person entry in the horror franchise without sacrificing the experience much like what Capcom managed to do with Resident Evil 7. Does it work though? For the most part, it does.

New Protagonist, Same Fog

In Silent Hill: Townfall, players will be introduced to Simon Ordell, who wakes up on a boat in the harbor of St. Amelia, a fictional town set in Scotland in the year 1996.

Checking out the abandoned town, that familiar fog envelopes the entire place, and Ordell will slowly understand his connection to the inhabitants and the town, as more and more fragments of his past take shape.

Given this is set in 1996, mobile phones aren’t as commonplace. Instead, Ordell has to use a CRTV, which is a pocket-sized TV that can tune to signals that players can use, like in past Silent Hill games, to detect monsters and so on.

The device gives a very retro vibe and ’90s setting, and it has that Silent Hill feeling where even if there are no monsters around, you can’t help but feel creeped out by the environment. There’s a stillness that oozes with unsettling dread, where every distant groan or flicker of overhead lighting makes you feel like something unseen is watching your every move.

Same as with the environments and visual details, for better or for worse, Silent Hill: Townfall does rely on the fog, though this horror game is a lot more focused on puzzles than in past entries in the franchise.

All these tie up to give horror fans a Silent Hill in first-person (more on this in just a sec), but the point-of-view isn’t the only thing that’s different for Townfall, as the game relies heavily on is stealth, which isn’t something the franchise is known for.

First-Person That Finally Works

Silent Hill and first-person are probably two things franchise fans want to see, especially after the whole P.T. debacle and the recently released Silent Hill: Short Message. It’s a genre mix for a franchise that has long been defined by its third-person survival DNA, so the thought of ever getting a well-done first-person Silent Hill went up in smoke when P.T. was killed off.

However, it seems with the right team, a first-person Silent Hill game may not seem so disconnected from the franchise roots as many would believe.

Jon McKellan, who co-founded the new studio, Screen Burn, has accomplished the unthinkable, delivering on a Silent Hill title with Townfall that captures the core DNA of the franchise. It’s not without its issues, particularly when it comes to pacing around the mid-game and a few trial-and-error puzzle encounters that test your patience more than your nerves. Yet, Silent Hill: Townfall succeeds where it matters most: atmosphere, vulnerability, and psychological dread.

Where Townfall will likely be an issue for everyone is, well, in the very thing that makes this title strong: its stealth.

Let me explain.

In general, the stealth mechanics are pretty solid, and a powerful tool for you to use while traversing in locations. You’ll quietly sneak past enemies, throw a beer bottle or brick to cause some noise, and seek shelter in closets, praying a monster doesn’t snatch you out of it.

Instead of constantly needing to use your weapon

Tune Your Antennae

The CRTV scanner works more than just being a plot device to uncover hints too. Because it’s first-person, you lack the ability to view around corners and such, and you pan around to see if the coast is clear. The CRTV solves that by allowing you to tune into a monster, giving you an X-ray vision of them to keep track of their location, even through walls. It sounds like cheating, but it’s done so well that it never really feels like that, but rather ups the tension in the moment.

But where stealth does fall apart is in the moment where it no longer really feels like a viable tool to use, but rather one you’re forced into, and in the most unreliable way. There are a few moments in the game like this, and they all focus around one of the stalker bosses. It’s a tall walking monster, and getting caught results in death since it’s a one-hit-kill enemy.

The sections it’s featured in are pitch dark, so you’ll need to rely on your flashlight. Sounds reasonable, but in reality, the AI and pathing around the monster just doesn’t mix well here.

Earlier parts of the game condition you to wait, study your enemy, then when an opening comes up, take it to sneak by, or defeat them. Here, there’s really no openings to take as the monster only seems to patrol in the exact same area as you’re in, rather than roaming around the small section it occupies.

This means you’re constantly within a few feet of it, which more often than not results in alerting it, dying, then doing the section over again.

For what should be the best stealth moment in the game, it just ends up being a grueling and tedious trial and error as you try to make the AI move elsewhere.

You’re better off speedrunning the section it’s in; that way you can learn the map layout, that way you can abuse the AI, and force it to lose its pathing to you. It doesn’t feel like the intended way to play, especially since it sets you away from the objective and it being pitch black, with nothing but a dimming flashlight to help, but it most certainly is a way to bypass most of it.

It’s probably my biggest gripe with the game, and depending on how long you spend on it, could very well be the section that bogs the entire game down.

The good news is, there’s little to no reason why this can’t be addressed either before or shortly after launch. So I can’t imagine it being an issue for long.

But besides that, and perhaps some of the puzzles being more obtuse than they should be, which, let’s be honest, Silent Hill is known for having difficult, hard-thinking puzzles, the stealth mechanics work wonderfully in the game.

It’s not a franchise known to be stealthy, but given the first-person perspective and considerably slower pacing and movement, it works really well here while maintaining the core DNA of Silent Hill.

Going to Town

Save for the stealth issue, there is a lot to like about Townfall. New protagonist Simon Ordell is a believable character, and one that has their own inner demons to contend with.

While the horror game’s performance is ghastly on its own in some areas, it’s nothing game-breaking, and we’re expecting developer Screen Burn will roll out an update or two down the line to smooth out the rough spots.

Konami’s commitment with restoring Silent Hill to its former glory continues on with yet another incredible new entry in the series. While it initially cast doubt with its first-person perspective, make no mistake, Silent Hill Townfall is everything you’d want out of a Silent Hill game.

Issues aside, Screen Burn Interactive has absolutely nailed the feel, look, and atmosphere of psychological dread that fans have been craving for decades. It’s 3/3 for Konami when it comes to the Silent Hill franchise release, as Townfall is another horror experience gamers will want to get lost in.

Silent Hill: Townfall review code was provided by the publisher for review purposes. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.