Silent Hill f Review (PC): Horror without the Town

“In my restless dreams, I see that town. Silent Hill. You promised me you’d take me there again someday…” Well, Konami, you’re not living up to that promise. With Silent Hill f, it is obvious that the town we all love no longer means that much to you. What we now have is a “love letter” to the Japanese side of the series, with the “soul” and “spirit” of the game being what drives the game to have the Silent Hill label without the town itself being involved. Can Silent Hill f be Silent Hill without Silent Hill? Let’s find out.

Name: Silent Hill f
Platform(s): PlayStation 5, Windows (Reviewed), Xbox Series X/S
Developer: NeoBards Entertainment
Publisher: Konami Digital Entertainment
Game Type: Survival horror
Mode(s): Single Player
Release Date: September 25, 2025

Silent Hill f: Lost in the Fog

Story Review – Some Vague Spoilers

In 1960s Japan, teenager Shimizu Hinako lives in the small, remote town of Ebisugaoka, nestled in a mountain pass. An average teen, she passes the time with nothing particularly special about her life. Until, that is, a deep fog descends on Ebisugaoka, and everything Hinako knows crumbles as she finds her once-familiar home infested with spreading danger, the town empty except for the horrors teeming in the fog. Alongside her three friends, Hinako traverses the town and its horrors, watching more than just pure horror unfold before her as a Fox Masked man guides her through another world filled with Japanese mythology and more horrors based around the actions of others, all while something unknown tells Hinako that she is being misled by the only one she can trust. There is more to be told as Hinako makes her way out of two realms of horror.

After playing through the game for many hours, Silent Hill f continues to follow in the tradition of not letting much be known in terms of the actual reason why things are happening till near the end of the game. During the sections I’m allowed to talk about, one of Hinako’s friends dies from the weird red plants that have infested Ebisugaoka and returns as the game’s first real boss. There is some connection as to why this happens, but given that a lot of Silent Hill f is 100% unapologetically Japanese in setting, culture, and mythology, there is something that I feel gets lost in the translation (Or requires too much time on Wikipedia looking up Japanese rituals, cultural meanings, mythology, etc). The use of the Fox Spirit, being a misleading character, plays a part in the story, but until the truth is revealed, you’re going to feel like you are as lost as Hinako is as she makes her way through the town.

Relationships play a big part in Silent Hill f , with Hinako’s friendships with Shu, Rinko, and Sakuko being tested and also causing drama. From what I was able to understand, and can reveal, Rinko likes Shu, or at least that’s how it comes off as, and Rinko is willing to hurt Hinako to get what she wants. Sakuko calls Hinako a traitor for some reason, but we might never find out why. This all makes Silent Hill f come off as some sort of horror style J-Drama at times, something that I didn’t expect when playing the game.

There is a lot to the story that I would love to tell everyone about in this review, but it all comes so late in the game that I don’t want to spoil anything. After all, half the mystery of Silent Hill f is the story itself, leaving you lost in the fog just like trying to get through the town itself.

Creepy and Spooky, and very, very Ookie!

I can already hear the clicking of keyboard keys as I type this, but I’m going to say once again (and probably a lot more thought-out the review), Silent Hill f is very Japanese in its style and locations. In the parts I’m allowed to talk about (We don’t break embargos here), I spent a lot of time running around the town of Ebisugaoka, which looks very much like every stereotypical Edo-period town you would see in Samurai films or on the Toei Studio Park in Kyoto. The houses look very traditional in nature, with sliding paper doors and the whole nine yards, with the layout being very close together, making things feel very claustrophobic, which is great as it brings one of the main things that makes a Silent Hill game a Silent Hill game… Plus, you do get a lot of roadblocks and fog to make you feel very lost. It’s amazing to see that something that was created to cover the limitations of the PlayStation’s draw distance has become something that really makes you feel like there is always something hiding in the shadows.

The contrast comes from the other world, or the underworld. By contrast, there is a lot of RED in this underworld, with red being the color usually associated with demons and the struggle between good and evil spirits in Japanese folklore. During these sections, you will have moments where things seem pretty normal, only for everything to be spun on its head due to the appearance of a red mist that drains your sanity, or some new monster that is going to make your trek through the underworld something of a pain in the ass.

Speaking of the monster design, Silent Hill f has some of the plainest but interesting designs I’ve seen since Silent Hill 2. The first monster you face is Kashimashi, a doll style monster which branishes a knife as a weapon, but the skin of the monster is this almost burn-like texture, giving off this unsettling look through a face that does not have any eyes. These doll designs continue with other monsters, ranging from another knife weilder, a sword weilder, and a mess of doll heads and arms. While these designs are very cool, I felt like some of these have been done before in other Silent Hill games and movies. Another standout is the Ara-abare, a huge mass of red puss-filled lumps and veins mixed with one huge knife. This thing is treated like a mini-boss and feels like it is the Pyramid Head of Silent Hill f. No matter what creature is introduced in Silent Hill f, they are always going to be very creepy, and the more you learn about these creatures (especially the bosses), the worse they feel… in a good way.

This is not Silent Hill f Souls!

There was some debate when the demo appeared at Gamescom, and some sites started calling Silent Hill f a “souls-like” game just because it’s got a melee combat system with dodge and parry mechanics. As stated on The Outerhaven before, Silent Hill is not a Souls-like game… You can’t dodge-roll or block, so there! That being said, using the dodge and parry mechanics is key to survival in Silent Hill f. First, using dodge is more of a “pick your battles” type of thing, as avoiding battles from time to time will not only save you time, but will save your weapons from breaking. As for the parry mechanic, using it is the key between life and death, as enemies will take extra damage when in the stunned state that happens when you hit a successful parry.

One thing that I really dislike about Silent Hill’s combat is twofold: Stamina and Weapon degradation. A POX ON THE PERSON WHO THOUGHT THESE WERE GOOD IDEAS! Honestly, having these in Silent Hill f feels like they were inserted to create a false tension when playing the game, where the knowledge of having your weapon break mid-fight makes you worried about getting into key fights that you’ll need to do to progress. Stamina, on the other hand, is just one of those mechanics that feels lazy in 2025. Given how high the amount of stamina that is spent to do the basic things is, it is overwhelming to hell, leaving you having to do one or two light hits before using a dodge. Sure, you can increase these with charms you get by sacrificing items to a prayer shrine, but the increases are so small that it feels like you’re waiting your time and items to get these increases, leaving you having to do everything with a horribly low stamina bar that will cost you more time than you know. Hell, it’s one of 4 bars that you have to keep an eye on at all times, which is too much when you get into a tense situation.

One of the new mechanics, and meters to keep an eye on, is Sanity. This meter, which is a bunch of flowers above your health bar, is used to focus on an enemy (aka slow time down, making it easier to parry) or use a focus attack (A charged-up swing). There is a risk vs reward here when using focus, as enemies can do psychological attacks on you, lowering your focus meter till it is completely depleted with any further psychological attacks, then taking a hit to your health… This is a big pain with bosses as they will do 2-3 of these attacks in a row, usually ending up with a game over happening on the third strike. So keeping an eye on this meter becomes something that is a must during those times.

Overuse of a map to work out where you are going. Too many misleading side roads and directions. Small dot indicators for items. The last thing I want to add about Silent Hill f is navigating around the locations in the game. Getting around Ebisugaoka is a nightmare in itself, mostly thanks to the third-person perspective feeling sluggish and the town being created in a way that doesn’t make sense at all. In the playthrough I did with the game, I spent more than half my time in an average 2-3 hour session looking at the damn map, trying to find whatever tiny alleyway I needed to get through to keep the story going. This led to so much frustration that I almost gave up playing multiple times, but the story was just enough to keep me pushing through to the next section. Hell, when I got to the school, I was thankful for a smaller location that was easier to navigate than that damn town.

By contrast, one of my favorite sections of Silent Hill f was an open field that was surrounded by fog. In this area, you needed to find the correct direction to run in by taking paper seals out of the Ayakakashi, a Scarecrow enemy that would attack if you picked the wrong one. If you decided to just try and run your way through it randomly, you would enter a thick fog and return to the previous location, forcing you to interact with the Ayakakashi. Using the fog in a creative way like this is something that feels like Silent Hill games of old, but using the fog in a new way to the series.

Travel through the hills once again…

Once you have made your way through Silent Hill f, is there any reason to traverse through the fog once again? Well, if you think everything changes with each playthrough, then no… To a degree. In the Silent Hill tradition, there are multiple endings to the game to be found, with a hint of a possible Alien ending to be found too, maybe. To be honest, as of writing, I am still working my way through the game, taking breaks so I don’t go too insane with fright. But if talk is to be believed, then I’m going to be playing Silent Hill f a lot more once I’m done playing for the first time.

One thing that I’m going to recommend for PC players is that you wait for the people who mod the game to work out how to remove the Stamina and Weapon Degradation mechanics, which will make the game a lot less frustrating and will allow you to play the game your way and not force you to play with the horrible, outdated mechanics that have been added to artificially make you feel a false sense of fear.

Speaking of PC, let’s talk about how Silent Hill f handles on the glorious PC platform.

I’m using a Ryzen 5 3600 with 32Gb of DD4 RAM, and a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 to play games these days. Silent Hill f runs completely fine in 3440×1440 resolution with no screen tearing or pixelation. This is because you can change the graphics settings through the now all too common settings: Performance (Lower graphics quality for faster loading), Balanced (Just what it says on the box, a balance between high quality graphics and fast-ish loading times), and Quality (Ultra level graphics, but slower load times). So, it’s up to you when it comes to getting the best out of Silent Hill f. You do have the ability to change the FPS settings too, choosing between 30, 60, and unlimited FPS. The recommendation would be 60 FPS minimum on any PC, but the cutscenes will be 30 FPS regardless of what you choose. Lastly, I would say that you might want to consider turning off motion blur as it does make things slow down a little and creates this horrible movement effect that comes up like crap when recording videos.

Otherwise, jump back into Silent Hill f as many times as you want, add it to speedrun lists, and do all that other good stuff that comes with playing a horror game. After all, October is only a bit over a week away, and Silent Hill f would make a great addition to any Halloween spooky month playlist.

Sairentohiru: Basho no nai seishin

If anyone remembers my Resident Evil 7 review, you will know that I am one of those people who feels very much that there are specific things that makes a Resident Evil game a Resident Evil game, and that Resident Evil 7 contained very little connection to the previous games while being a really good horror experience. The same thing is going to be said about Silent Hill f. Silent Hill f is a great horror experience and captures the spirit of Silent Hill games of the past, BUT without the town itself being involved, or having a direct connection to the previous Silent Hill games, I wouldn’t call Silent Hill f a Silent Hill game. Hell, I’m not really sure if I would add this to the ranking of Silent Hill games I’ve done before, and I did Silent Hill: The Arcade on that list.

Once again, I feel that Silent Hill f is a very good, almost perfect, Japanese horror game and is right up there with Fatal Frame and Forbidden Siren in terms of using Japanese settings and culture to create some amazing, creepy, and atmospheric frights. I say this with my whole chest to the point where if this did not have the Silent Hill branding on it, I would still review is highly due to the creativity of the design and story. I hope that Konami keeps Ryukishi07 (The story writer for Silent Hill f) on staff and gets whoever they are to do something that works with the previous storylines of Silent Hill. Heck, get them to do the in-development Silent Hill remake and amp up the scares for that.

Silent Hill f is a great horror game that does what Konami set out to do, create something that keeps the Japanese side of the Silent Hill games alive for the next generation… Now, can you do this again for the rest of us?

Review Disclosure Statement: Silent Hill f was provided to us by Konami Digital Entertainment for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy for more details.