Silent Hill f won me over with its chilling Japanese horror – but its Soulslike combat left me struggling

The two most iconic series in the survival horror genre, Resident Evil and Silent Hill, share a similarity in having American settings and characters interpreted by Japanese developers. However, with Konami handing over the latter’s development to external studios, it has become more open to reimagining the series in multiple projects.

While Bloober Team did a tremendous job with Silent Hill 2 Remake last year, it’s Silent Hill f that I find a more tantalising prospect. Not only is it the first new mainline game in over a decade, but it’s not actually set in Silent Hill. At least not the one you know.

UE5 sets the atmosphere

There are, nonetheless, some notable differences from past Silent Hill games. Rather than a strange town you enter, Ebisugaoka is where the protagonist, high school student Hinoka, lives, and the slow opening has you get acquainted with her rural small-town life.

The town’s design shares a similarly muted grey palette and a melancholic tone, especially as you learn of the personal troubles Hinoka has at home, including a drunk, abusive father, and a strange relationship with an older sister seen dressed in a beautiful kimono, whose face is not shown for reasons not yet known.

The script, penned by renowned horror writer Ryukishi07, is something of a slow burn, better for you to just take in the atmosphere (although I still take issue that the Gamescom demo demanded four hours of players’ time rather than simply setting up save files I could skip ahead to if I had wanted to). But when a familiar fog begins to engulf the town, it also happens with a distinct Japanese twist.

The muted greys contrast with the blooming of red spider lilies, also known as Higanbana, often associated with death and the afterlife in Japanese culture, which here take on a literally fatal form for one of Hinoka’s school friends, and for Hinoka herself if you fail to escape in time. This flower is a major visual theme throughout, usually a sign that you should nope out and run from the direction you came, even if sometimes you have no choice but to wade in. It’s also an apt symbol for Silent Hill f’s underlining theme of finding beauty in terror.

I was enraptured with the atmospheric environments of Ebisugaoka, as I wandered its narrow alleys of wooden houses, which take on a maze-like structure even when you get to more seemingly open fields. There’s certainly a bit of Project Zero in how it leverages culturally Japanese elements like masks and altars to spooky effect, especially as a distinctly Japanese classical ‘gagaku’ score is used to signify the presence of an enemy. But there are also comforting touches too, such as the shrines you use to save progress or the way you craft and equip charms to provide buffs, just as they were used traditionally to ward off evil spirits.

Stop-motion animation tricks

What Silent Hill f most creepily get right are its enemies, which have that same unsettling and jerky stop-motion-like marionette movement. I’m, however, a little more wary of how you deal with them. Being set in Japan and playing as a teenager, firearms are obviously a no-no, so Hinoka is reliant on another series staple, a lead pipe that remains clunky as ever to swing.

However, NeoBards has also tried to add a little more depth to this in what essentially turns the rudiment melee of the series into something approaching a Soulslike, from being able to perfect dodge attacks to perfectly timed counters, the latter also requiring spotting a kind of shadowy visual glitch around the enemy just before they strike. That doesn’t mean this is suddenly more combat-oriented. These pipes can wear out and break, either requiring repairs or finding another pipe lying around, while if you run away, Hinoka will visibly knacker herself out even before her stamina bar has depleted.

I should also stress that there is an option to play on an easier ‘story’ difficulty, which I did select for the demo, and I didn’t get far enough to a proper boss fight to see whether attempting to marry its deliberate clunkiness with the timing demands of a FromSoftware title, or the recent Soulslike Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, is a good idea. Maybe I’m just getting fatigued over so many underwhelming and frustrating Soulslikes, but it’s also just that I still think the most compelling aspect of the Silent Hill series is its vibe rather than trying to prove myself in combat, especially not when also under pressure to solve its many trademark obtuse puzzles.

Silent Hill f launches on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC on 25 September.

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Alan Wen is a freelance journalist writing about video games in the form of features, interview, previews, reviews and op-eds. Work has appeared in print including Edge, Official Playstation Magazine, GamesMaster, Games TM, Wireframe, Stuff, and online including Kotaku UK, TechRadar, FANDOM, Rock Paper Shotgun, Digital Spy, The Guardian, and The Telegraph.