Silent Hill Townfall - All about the new SH game for PC and PS5

Silent Hill Townfall - Horror Game for PC and PS5

Let's continue to explore the new projects in the Silent Hill series.

In previous articles, we've covered all information about "Silent Hill F", "Silent Hill 2 Remake", and "Return to Silent Hill" — now let's take a look at another project called "Silent Hill Townfall".

How did this project start? What's the story about? How does the gameplay work? Who are the people developing the game? And what can we expect from this project? Let's find out the answers to these questions.

Story

The events take place in 1996 in Scotland. The protagonist of the story is a man named Simon Ordell.

One day, he hears a radio message from a mysterious woman (who probably was his girlfriend in the past). She says she's waiting for Simon in the town of Saint Amelia, located somewhere on a small island.

Without thinking twice, Simon decides to head there immediately. But something strange happens along the way – he loses consciousness and awakens in the town, near the shore. And it soon becomes apparent that Saint Amelia is quite a creepy place, much like Silent Hill.

Everything is shrouded in thick fog, and people have disappeared. However, the town is littered with posters and banners, as if mass protests had taken place there just yesterday. And terrifying monsters roam the streets. What happened here?

It's immediately obvious that the game's premise is largely reminiscent of Silent Hill 2. In interviews, the developers say that the "theme of guilt" will be an important element of the plot. This is also a clear parallel with the story of James and Mary.

Silent Hill Townfall - monster from the game

Gameplay

Here's what we know about the gameplay so far:

1) The game is entirely first-person. Konami had previously tried using such a camera type in "Short Message" and "P.T.", but those were short games without any combat system. Townfall will be the first major first-person title with action elements in the SH series.

2) The game features battles with monsters. Its combat mechanics are reminiscent of FPS shooters, but it features not only gunplay but also close-quarters combat. You can hit enemies with sticks, axes, and other weapons.

3) The protagonist can block attacks during combat (we've seen this idea before in Silent Hill 3 and SH Downpour).

Silent Hill Townfall - TV radio in the game

4) The developers promise to include stealth elements in the game. And players will be able to decide for themselves whether to engage in combat with monsters or use a stealthy approach to get past them unnoticed.

5) The idea with a buzzing radio (that warns us when monsters approach) will return. But now we'll have some kind of hybrid between a radio and a pocket TV.

6) Remember how in Forbidden Siren we could mentally tune into the right "wavelength" and learn the location of enemies? Townfall has a similar idea. If you tune your radio-TV to the right frequency, it will display a picture on the screen that gives you a rough idea of where the monster is.

7) The game also features the ability to carefully peek around corners. This is useful for stealth.

Simon Ordell - Silent Hill Townfall main character

How the project started

It all started when Konami decided to release a series of indie horror games titled "Silent Hill: Short Stories".

To do this, they signed a contract with the Annapurna company (an indie game publisher), which would act as a "middleman" and find developers for these projects (the games were supposed to be developed by different people).

Ultimately, Annapurna selected No Code / Screen Burn studio to develop the game. But at some point, the entire concept changed. Instead of several small indie games, they decided to make a larger game.

Townfall was officially announced in 2022, but then a long period of silence began. For almost four years, there was no news about the game, and many thought the project was dead.

However, in February 2026, it was suddenly resurrected — the developers published a new trailer and announced that they would release the game this year. The release is scheduled for PC (Steam, Epic Games Store) and PlayStation 5.

Developers

The game is being developed by a small Scottish studio "Screen Burn" (originally called "No Code", but later renamed). It employs about 30 people.

Previously, this studio primarily worked on indie puzzle adventure games (Observation, Stories Untold) and casual games (Super Light Arc). Townfall will be their first major project.

In interviews, the developers claim to be ardent fans of Silent Hill and even say that they are "obsessed with it". However, this is highly questionable.

For example, the game's scenario writer (John McKellan) mentioned that he completed SH1 only once many years ago and never played it again. It's unclear whether he finished the other games (he didn't mention the other installments).

Another amusing thing is the "Silent Hill collection" that the company's employees put together and now proudly display in their videos:

Silent Hill - Collection of game discs for PS1, PS2, and PS3

For some reason, this collection includes two discs with the abominable Homecoming, but only one disc with SH1. And there's no original edition of SH2 (there are only re-releases and a remake).

When developers proudly show to the fans how many versions of Homecoming they've bought and don't see a problem with it, that's a worrying sign. And it seems that none of the company's 30 employees even bothered to buy the original edition of SH2 when it was initially released. So I don't really believe their "we are obsessed fans" narrative.

I'm also saddened that not a single member of the original Team Silent is involved in the creation of SH Townfall.

In all other new games (SHF, SH2R, Short Message), the developers always invited someone from Team Silent to assist and consult them. But here they didn't invite anyone at all. Although it's possible the TS members themselves refused to participate in such a project.

Silent Hill Townfall - PC and PS5 game screenshot

My impressions

Personally, I only liked three things about SH Townfall: the town (it looks pretty good), the radio-TV idea, and the music at the beginning of the trailer.

But there's also a whole lot of problems:

1) The plot premise is too formulaic, and it seems like the developers are just trying to copy SH2's story.

2) Not a single secondary character is visible in the trailer. This is a bad sign. Good scenario writers always devote a lot of attention to secondary characters.

3) The authors are trying to push the BLM\"diversity" political agenda in a strange and inappropriate way. The protagonist is Black, even though Black people make up 1% of the Scottish population. Plus, the theme of the protests in the town is reminiscent of the BLM protests in the USA. Plagiarizing the SH2 plot and shoving inappropriate political propaganda into it is clearly a bad idea.

Silent Hill Townfall main character Simon

4) The trailer only shows two types of monsters. A small variety of enemy types is usually the first sign of dull gameplay.

5) The game mechanics are very similar to FPS. So there's a risk that the gameplay will ultimately degenerate into a primitive shooter with identical enemies. And there would be no motivation to use stealth because you can just easily shoot the monsters. It's quite difficult to maintain a balance between stealth and action.

6) The developers have no experience in creating games with action or stealth elements. Previously, they only made simple puzzle games. Therefore, the gameplay may turn out poorly executed.

7) Judging by the interviews, it seems like the developers are not very familiar with the Silent Hill series and don't understand the fanbase. They probably got this project completely by chance (most likely due to some friendly connections with the Annapurna company).

Silent Hill Townfall - gameplay screenshot

Conclusion

Overall, I'm rather skeptical about Silent Hill Townfall and don't have high hopes for this project.

If we're lucky, maybe we'll get a decent stealth horror game with a nice-looking town. But more likely, we'll get a janky FPS shooter that will try to clumsily rip off SH2's story and push the "diversity" propaganda.