Screen Burn

Silent Hill: Townfall achieves what only the very best horror games can. It slowly worked its way into my psyche. Even when I wasn’t playing, part of my subconscious remained trapped in the game’s remote town setting. Like its protagonist, I felt haunted by my experience. It’s one of the most intense and unsettling play experiences I’ve had this generation, and I say that as a huge compliment. Last year’s Silent Hill: f opened up the franchise with a new setting (‘60s rural Japan) and refreshed gameplay. It signaled that Silent Hill was expanding. Silent Hill: Townfall fully lives up to that potential. It delivers a survival horror that is unmistakably Silent Hill but unlike anything in the series before. Townfall is the best new Silent Hill game since 2001’s legendary Silent Hill 2 — assuming you don’t count the acclaimed 2024 remake as a wholly “new” game. Its story and setting are masterfully crafted, its first-person perspective is vital to the experience, its puzzles are (mostly) excellent, and the enemy encounters had my fingers trembling on my controller.