Silent Hill f – 10 Brand-New Things We’ve Learned About It

After delivering one of last year’s best games with Silent Hill 2, Konami looks intent on keeping its resurgent psychological horror franchise’s momentum going. Silent Hill f, the series’ next mainline entry – and its first new entry in over a decade – was officially announced in October 2022, and now that the aforementioned Bloober Team remake is out of the way, all attention has shifted to f. At a recent Silent Hill Transmission, Konami and co-developer NeoBards Entertainment offered another look at the upcoming title with a brand-new trailer, while also revealing a bunch of new details on its story, setting, and more. Here, we’re going to go over some of those details.

SETTING

Every game in the Silent Hill series up to this point has been set in the eponymous fictional American town, but Silent Hill f is doing things differently. As previously confirmed, in a series first, the game is set in Japan, in a remote mountainous town in the 1960s. Named Ebisugaoka, the game’s setting is based on Kanayama, a real village in Japan. As explained by series producer Motoi Okamoto during the recent Transmission, the game’s development team traveled to Kanayama to take reference pictures and record sounds of day-to-day life in the village so they could recreate it in as much detail as possible. According to writer Ryukishi07, Kanayama served as the perfect inspiration for Silent Hill f’s setting because he could “really feel its history” when he visited it and was fascinated by its “labyrinthine alleyways.”

PROTAGONIST

We don’t know much about Silent Hill f’s wider cast of characters, but pertinent details have at least been revealed on the game’s protagonist- Shimizu Hinako, a teenage girl who, according to the game’s official website, was “cheerful and energetic as a child” but has “grown to become much more restrained” as she “struggles under the pressure of expectations from her friends, family, and society.”

Interestingly, it also looks like she’s going to have greater agency in the story than the series’ track record would suggest. Speaking during the recent Transmission, Ryukishi07 said, “Up until now, I have played every Silent Hill game, and one thing I noticed is that many of the female characters are put through a great deal of suffering throughout their lives, why is why I thought if this game is going to have a female protagonist, then I want her to be able to make her own decisions for better or for worse amid her struggles. I don’t want her to be just pulled along by the story, but to find her own answers. That was the kind of protagonist, or at least, the kind of story that I wanted to create.”

STORY

Now that we know more about Silent Hill f’s setting and protagonist- what should we expect from its story? Well, it’s not going to be a picnic, which you may have guessed. As the game begins, the town of Ebisugaoka is a fairly uneventful one, and Hinako’s own life doesn’t have much to stand out either. Things quickly descend into madness, however, when a deep, ominous fog rolls in and covers the entire town, and as a result, is completely transformed. Places that were once familiar to Hinako have been twisted beyond recognition by unspeakable and nightmarish dangers, and it now falls to her to navigate Ebisugaoka in order to survive – and maybe even try and save her home.

JAPANESE HORROR

Setting the game in Japan was obviously a very deliberate choice on Konami’s part, with the developers emphasizing during the recent showcase just how heavily Silent Hill f will lean into Japanese horror and themes. Series producer Motoi Okamoto explained, “While Silent Hill f retains the series’ core elements of psychological horror, we challenged ourselves by setting the game in Japan and leaning into those themes.”

He added later, “I believe the Silent Hill series was born out of blending the essence of Japanese horror with the essence of western horror. However, as it was based in the West for the longest time, it felt like the Japanese influence was fading. And so, this made us think, ‘what if we go in the opposite direction and make it 100 percent Japanese horror?’ And this game is the result.”

CENTRAL THEME

Something that the recent Transmission hammered home more than once was Silent Hill f’s central theme, which, according to sOkamoto, is “finding the beauty in terror,” which, in turn, informed other aspects of the experience as well, from story to art design (more on that in a bit). Okamoto explained, “A noticeable feature of Japanese horror is the idea that terror can be found within beauty. When something becomes too immensely beautiful and perfect, it instead becomes deeply unsettling. And so, players will experience this world through the eyes of a young girl who is faced with a beautiful yet terrifying decision. We want them to experience how these contrasting elements co-exist.”

STILL FOCUSED ON PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR

Many will probably have wondered why a Silent Hill game that isn’t set in the town of Silent Hill is even called that, and interestingly enough, that was a question that writer Ryukishi07 posed as well- before arriving at the conclusion that a focus on psychological horror to create unsettling dread is what’s central to the franchise’s DNA. That’s something that Silent Hill f is going to continue focusing on. According to the writer, the game will remain true to the series’ tradition of “portraying characters’ struggles with the evil within themselves, sin, discontent, and conflict in a visually striking way.”

ART STYLE AND MONSTER DESIGN

Konami confirmed back in 2022 that Japanese artist kera would serve as the lead art and creature designer on Silent Hill f, and during the recent Transmission, we got to hear more on what that’ll entail. According to kera, the core idea was to create something that felt unique and in keeping with the game’s focus on Japanese horror and its central theme of blending beauty and terror. The artist says, “I had to consider everything that’s come in Silent Hill before, and figure out how to take this game in a different direction, but still be Silent Hill. It might not be the exact same blood-smeared, rustic scenery, but I sincerely hope you’ll enjoy our vision and the world we’ve created.”

MUSIC

Akira Yamaoka has been composing Silent Hill music for pretty much as long as Silent Hill has been around, and sure enough, he’s returning to do the same for Silent Hill f as well. Specifically, he will be composing the game’s Fog World music, while the Otherworld music is being composed by Kensuke Inage. Meanwhile, Japanese musicians dai and xaki – who have worked with Ryukishi07 on his past projects – have also contributed.

PC REQUIREMENTS

We haven’t seen gameplay footage for Silent Hill f yet, nor do we know when exactly it will be releasing, but interestingly enough, Konami has already revealed its PC requirements. On minimum settings, to run the game at 720p and 30 FPS, you’ll need either an i5-8400 or a Ryzen 5 2600, along with either a GeForce GTX 1070 Ti or a Radeon RX 5700. Meanwhile, for recommended settings (which will run at 60 FPS in Performance Mode and 30 FPS in Quality Mode), you’ll need either an i7-9700 or a Ryzen 5 5500, and either a GeForce RTX 2080 or AMD Radeon RX 6800XT. On minimum, an SSD is recommended, while on recommended settings, one is necessary. On either setting, you’ll also need 16 GB of RAM and about 50 GB of free storage space.

PLATFORMS

Silent Hill 2 may have launched as a PS5 console exclusive last year, but Silent Hill f isn’t following suit. Konami has confirmed that whenever it is the game releases, it will be available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. On the latter, you can find it on Steam, Epic Games Store, and Windows Store. The game is also available to be wishlisted on all platforms.

2025-03-17 03:15

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