Silent Hill F Is an Unnerving and Symbolically Dense Return To Form

And while all of this sounds at risk of spoiling its frights by overexplaining this living hell, all of this imagery is tied up in an intentionally cryptic mystery that withholds information before doling it out in a somewhat bonkers format that is as bold as it will likely prove divisive (more on that in a bit). Basically, much of the time when you go, “ah, X is clearly a direct metaphor for Y,” some little plot detail will come along to complicate things, making the process of unravelling these central questions a long and rewarding one that avoids hamfisted allegory.

Eventually, the setting forks, with some sections set in a foggy version of Ebisugaoka increasingly beset by scarlet decay, while other segments take place in this game’s equivalent of Silent Hill’s Otherworld, a pitch black shadow realm that feels plucked from Japanese folklore. Regardless of which world you’re in, they’re both unnerving, with longtime series composer Akira Yamaoka working his magic with another all-timer soundtrack defined by an uncomfortable mix of familiarity and setting-appropriate nightmare noises. There’s something about the main theme, in particular, that feels like coming home, that is, if your home was a fog world defined by pain and suffering—much like the rest of the game, this opening brushes against what the original games evoked while taking things in a new direction defined by the particulars of this setting. While certain gameplay elements, like the frequent scraps with monsters, threaten to undermine some of the scares due to overfamiliarity, the unnatural sounds of Yamaoka’s soundtrack make even the umpteenth battle with a warped, fleshy puppet creature carry an edge of danger.

Because while there are probably too many fights in a way that deflates some of the game’s tension, there is a specificity to this setting that places you in Hinako’s shoes. Ebisugaoka feels lived-in and full of small details, and you’ll repeatedly backtrack through its tight, labyrinthine alleyways as this place slowly warps over the course of the story. Whether it’s the local candy store or a certain teal truck that keeps getting in the way, this neighborhood is laid out with landmarks that make it memorable, with the game’s impressive technical fidelity mirroring the generally excellent art direction that puts us in this specific time and place.

This grounded feel to the world, where Hinako communicates with her friends in a mostly regular, very un-Silent Hill 2 kind of way, makes it all the more raw as things spiral, eventually leading to some genuinely gnarly torture scenes that prey on this previous sense of normalcy—seriously, things get gruesome and personal in a way I wasn’t prepared for. And sometimes a freaky monster jumps out of a doorway, and it’s really damn scary. The early hours in particular have some downright diabolical scares, including a domestic encounter that legitimately made me scream.

Still, as alluded to, there is one element that unfortunately makes it so that Silent Hill f isn’t the scariest installment in the series, the C-word: combat. This is sort of an action game, one with a stamina meter, a bar that fills up to let you do extra moves, and later, a whole extra system that I won’t spoil, which involves a powered-up state that may as well be Hinako’s Devil Trigger. Now, it’s important to note that it’s not like she plays like Ryu Hayabusa or something; she very much comes across like a normal human teenager and not a somersaulting assassin. As for your basic moves, you can do a quick strike, a slow one, a dodge, and enter something called Focus mode, which lets you charge up a bigger swing and also makes it easier to see when an enemy is doing an attack that can be countered (i.e., they flash red).

There’s a weird balancing act necessary here because, as a horror game, you don’t want the action to feel overly empowering, because then enemies lose any sense of intimidation, but you also don’t want it to feel so anemic that it’s a complete chore. In terms of ensuring that Hinako doesn’t play like an action hero, your attacks are relatively slow, you can’t block with the default weapons, and your stamina runs out exceedingly quickly. This last point is particularly important because running out of stamina is quite bad here; you can’t run or really do anything when this happens. Because of this, you’re heavily discouraged from spamming the dodge button, which is a well-considered element that gives these encounters a deliberate feel.

At least at the start, you have to play relatively carefully, staring down these unsettling adversaries—a jittering puppet that moves in uncanny jolts or a faceless monster that lurches forward to put you in a deadly embrace—and wait until they make the first move so you can go for a counter. Unfortunately, though, after you’ve eventually fought one monster too many, you’ll probably stop playing things so safe as you beef up your stats, build up a bunch of healing items, and find equipable talismans that help you mitigate some of these problems. It also doesn’t help that some of the enemies stop telegraphing their moves clearly, with spastic motions that make it hard to distinguish between a slash and a step, which eventually made me lose faith in the combat and just start swinging to get these scraps over as soon as possible.

Part of the issue is that the game only has two difficulties for battles (at least before you reach credits), Story and Hard, neither of which feels quite right for an initial run. I wish there were a middle option between the two, because Story eventually becomes too frictionless, and Hard increases enemy health significantly enough that you’re spending even more time with the game’s weakest link, its fights. It’s not that this element is outright terrible, but it often doesn’t quite feel scrambly enough to be frightening or tight enough to be exceptionally rewarding.

One thing I will say is that there’s a very thematically interesting section where you essentially become much stronger as a means to reflect an outwardly “easier” path that Hinako can take in her life; even with this said, I wish there were either fewer encounters or more of them were narratively meaningful in this way. The storytelling and general sense of atmosphere make up for these missteps, and you move between different areas at a fast enough clip that this grim journey doesn’t get bogged down by battles, but there are still probably too many of them.

Then there’s one other element that I have mixed feelings about, which also happens to be difficult to discuss without at least vaguely spoiling the structure of the experience (while I won’t mention any plot specifics, feel free to skip this paragraph if you want to remain completely in the dark). Basically, the game’s first ending leaves more questions than answers, and you really need to complete New Game+ to experience the full arc of this story—to avoid going into details, it’s kind of got a NieR thing going on. It’s a bold choice, and changes keep things different the second time around, filling in gaps in our understanding and adding new situations to give the narrative a layered feel. But you still have to trek through familiar territory, and I wish this encore was a bit more abridged.

Still, even with this love-or-hate-it plotting choice and the fact that the game probably features too much swinging a lead pipe at various freaks, it also embodies just about everything that defines the Silent Hill series at its best: an uncanny setting full of unsettling people, a hallucinatory soundtrack that sucks you into this distorted world, and lots of fog—literally and in how truths are obfuscated. It’s both raw and surprisingly empathetic towards its lead. It’s desperately about something, but still wants to make you jump out of your seat when a long-haired monster lurches from the shadows to stab you with a rusty knife. In short, it’s Silent Hill, through and through.

Silent Hill f was developed by NeoBards Entertainment and published by Konami Digital Entertainment. Our review is based on the PlayStation 5 version. It is also available for the PC and Xbox Series X/S.

Elijah Gonzalez is an associate editor for Endless Mode. In addition to playing the latest, he also loves anime, movies, and dreaming of the day he finally gets through all the Like a Dragon games. You can follow him on Bluesky @elijahgonzalez.bsky.social.