Silent Hill: Townfall review – hauntingly perfect

Published: September 21, 2026

I’m a huge fan of all things horror, so I, of course, love Silent Hill. I was even a fan of the contentious Silent Hill f and played it fervently on release, despite it being quite a departure from the expectations set by Silent Hill 2 remake. However, I also acknowledge that this series has had some hiccups over the years, so when I picked up Silent Hill: Townfall, I was filled with a cautious excitement. Now, I can confidently say it’s one of my favorite Silent Hill games to date. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it’s one of my favorite horror games of all time.

Set in the 90s, Silent Hill: Townfall follows the story of Simon Ordell, who washes up on the shores of the small Scottish island of St. Amelia. A mysterious man called Richard has summoned him there to “put things to rest”, and, in order to do so, he must find a woman named Zoe.

It quickly becomes apparent that something truly terrible has happened on the island, leaving what was clearly once a beloved, close-knit coastal town eerily abandoned. With no memories and nothing but a series of brief, cryptic messages to guide him, Simon must piece together the tragedy that befell St. Amelia and its people, while also working out how he, Zoe, and Richard are tied to it.

While I’d love to wax poetic about the wonderful narrative, I feel delving any further here would inevitably risk spoilers. However, I will say it handles its themes beautifully, carrying the familiar themes of guilt, morality, and isolation, and balancing them with the topics of mass tragedy, political unrest, and communal loss that feel hauntingly real in a post-pandemic world. And, while the first ending you get is satisfying in its own way, in true Silent Hill fashion, you really need to commit to repeat playthroughs to get the full picture. In fact, there are five endings in total (though two are less serious endings), and I highly recommend seeing them all through.

Both mechanically and narratively, Townfall feels much closer to Silent Hill 2 than it does Silent Hill f. I know many fans were concerned about how the world of Silent Hill could expand beyond the titular location, especially with the somewhat tenuous links shown in f, but Townfall captures the spirit of the series with ease, making ‘Silent Hill’ feel more like a phenomenon than a location.

That’s not to say there aren’t any ties to the original games, though. One of the most obvious examples is that the nine red squares, which represent James’ “Nine Delusions” in Silent Hill 2, are present again, and they’re more than just a quick visual nod. I will, however, leave their relevance to Townfall to you to discover, though.

It also flawlessly carries the DNA of Silent Hill 2 remake’s gameplay. Diverging from f’s style of combat, Townfall prefers to keep you as underpowered as possible, with very sparse resources and weapons, no evade or dodge mechanic, a weak block/parry, and surprisingly heavy-hitting enemies.

Interestingly, while Simon remains at the heart of the game, Townfall actually employs a multi-protagonist system similar to Resident Evil 9. However, rather than switching between the weak but still-armed Grace and the zombie-bashing machine that is Leon, you’re switching between the weak but still-armed Simon, and an even weaker, markedly unarmed Zoe, who must hide, sneak, and resort to tossing bottles and bricks to distract and bypass enemies. As a result, throughout almost the entire game, you constantly feel like you’re one misstep away from death, which is exactly how a Silent Hill game should be.

The puzzles throughout Townfall are equally as clever, balancing era-appropriate, analog horror-esque visuals with symbolic elements to enhance your experience. Some are quite easy, but there are also a few that genuinely left me stumped at first, and others that left me enchanted afterwards. Two of the biggest highlights for me are where Zoe is caring for a patient and where Simon has to use a time-travelling cassette player to find an employee ID card (I promise it makes sense in context).

There are also some pretty effective jump scares and, unlike the cat-in-a-locker, they always have follow-through. From sneak attacks with QTEs to bodies falling from the sky, these feel truly earned, leaving you reeling until the next assault. This game understands what makes a scare work, and the artful audio design, from the haunting OST to the fantastic voice acting, only enhances this.

Now, onto the visuals. As a 90s baby from the UK, I was continuously stunned by how perfectly Townfall captures the location, with the tiniest details feeling almost impossibly real. From the coin vortex and guide dog donation bins to the cobblestone streets lined with ashtrays and run-down brutalist architecture, the attention to detail blew me away. Even saving your game is delightfully on-brand, with you having to dial a specific number from landlines and payphones. This only makes the horror hit harder, too, as the familiar, usually-cozy settings become alien and claustrophobic as soon as we step into the dank, ruinous landscapes of the Otherworld.

Of course, the monster designs are fantastic, too, especially if you stop post-game to learn their names and inspirations from the digital art book. But even without them, St. Amelia feels like an entity of its own, and will certainly come to mind whenever I’m walking down a dark, British alleyway this winter.

Performance-wise, Townfall runs smoothly and looks fantastic. For a quick spec-check, my PC has an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X processor, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, and 16GB RAM. In short, I meet the recommended specs in most areas, with the glaring outlier being the RAM (32GB? Do you think I’m made of money?), but the game is so well optimized that I encountered very few issues. The DLSS frame generation definitely does result in some muddiness and flickering at times, and I experienced occasional frame drops, but that mostly occurred upon first triggering cutscenes. I will note that I don’t have a 4K monitor, though, so your mileage may vary.

I can’t sing Silent Hill: Townfall’s praises enough. It ticks all of my boxes, gripping me from start to finish and earning a top spot on my list of the best horror games of all time. The story and world resonate deeply, embodying everything I love about the series while also providing something fresh, and I’m not above admitting that it had me shed a few tears throughout. The gameplay is fun and engaging, whether you’re solving puzzles, hiding from enemies, or squaring up to a horrifying beast, and the attention to detail is indisputable. In Silent Hill, the Otherworld looks different to everyone, and I think mine looks a lot like this.