I can’t stop thinking about Silent Hill f. Konami’s latest entry in the long-running survival horror franchise, this time developed by NeoBards Entertainment, is easily the most fascinating game I’ve played all year. From its disturbing lore and ties to Japanese mythology, to its weirdly unnerving cast of characters, each run through the foggy streets of rural Ebisugaoka unveils major revelations about the town and its inhabitants.
For this article, I have attempted to keep spoilers for Silent Hill f to a minimum. But if you’re wholly unfamiliar with the game, I highly suggest going in blind before reading this piece, as I do touch on narrative elements and themes that only become apparent once you’ve gotten stuck in. Consider this a light spoiler warning if you have even the slightest interest in Silent Hill f.
That’s not just the usual case of spotting moments of foreshadowing on repeat playthroughs - though there is certainly plenty of that. Rather, Silent Hill f has one of the best implementations of New Game Plus I’ve played in quite some time. Taking a leaf from the Nier playbook, Silent Hill f demands you play it through multiple times in order to piece together the full picture.
However, that’s not as much of a slog as it sounds. New Game Plus in Silent Hill f changes things up considerably. Many cutscenes play out differently, enemy placements can vary, entirely new areas open up to you, and some puzzles even have different solutions for you to contend with. While the skeleton of the main playthrough is there, all these elements ensure you never quite know what to expect on subsequent playthroughs.
But it’s not just Silent Hill f’s approach to New Game Plus that has me singing its praises. Even by series standards, its plot is crushingly bleak. Misogyny, drug addiction, abandonment, and control. All shape the lives of the game’s deeply tragic main cast, and it’s at once gratifying and heart-wrenching to witness protagonist Shimizu Hinako battle the horrors to overcome her personal demons.
Silent Hill f might just be my game of the year, if only because its totality lives rent-free in my head.
Fitting in
If you’re unfamiliar with the game, firstly, consider playing it for yourself. I wouldn’t want to spoil the experience for you here. Silent Hill f doesn’t take place in the fictional Maine-located town in the US. Instead, we’re transported to 1960s Japan, in the sleepy - and also fictional - rural town of Ebisugaoka.
Our protagonist is high schooler Shimizu Hinako, a girl who despises the demands and expectations of the era’s patriarchal norms, something that saw her ostracized as a child with her dislike of playing with dolls, and her preference for hanging out with boys. Growing up, Hinako and her best friend Shu, for example, would often play ‘Space Wars’ with one another - an elaborate game of pretend that has them fighting against an imaginary alien force.
Hinako's journal, which you consult to learn more about characters, locations, and notes on puzzles, is all written by her. Not only do we see that she's an excellent sketch artist, Hinako isn't shy about airing her grievances and frustrations with Ebisugaoka, her parents, and even her friends to an extent.
One thing I find quite ingenious about Hinako’s personality is how it's effortlessly woven into her capabilities as a survival horror protagonist. Her background as a trophy-winning track star goes a long way to explain a near-bottomless well of stamina and ability to defend herself in combat.
Much like Harry, James, and Heather before her over in the town of Silent Hill, the ‘curse’ that befalls Ebisugaoka seems tailored around Hinako’s past, her fears, and the traumatic moments she’s lived through. At home, her father is an abusive drunk, while her mother is someone she describes as ‘pitiful’, meekly living in the father’s shadow. It's a dreary existence that threatens to consume her at every given opportunity.
Fox tale
The horrors Hinako faces in Ebisugaoka - from knife-wielding dolls to scarecrows draped in school garb - aren’t even close to being the most terrifying thing about Silent Hill f. Hinako’s home and social lives are one thing, but the town’s insidious obsession with superstition also manifests itself to make her existence a living hell.
Arguably, the primary antagonistic force in Silent Hill f is - as ever in this series - some kind of supernatural cult, often referred to as the Fox Clan. They inhabit a strange otherworldly realm that Hinako is transported to throughout the story whenever she slips out of consciousness.
Playing into Ebisugaoka’s paranoid superstitions and its reverence for foxes as creatures, the clan does seem to be a known entity, from what we can gather from documents strewn about the town. Their primary objective is spiriting away young girls, making them into brides, and inevitably offering them as sacrifices. To be blunt, they are vile.
In essence, this is the core struggle of Hinako’s journey - a force so powerful that it can succeed in stripping away the identity (both physically and metaphorically) of even someone as independent as her. My heart sank every time Hinako entered the Fox Clan’s bizarre realm, because she would inevitably end up losing a part of herself (again, both physically and metaphorically) in service of their goals.
Hinako’s journey is brutally upsetting. Which comes as no surprise, really, given lead writer Ryukishi07’s previous works, including the harrowing Higurashi When They Cry visual novel series, which deals with similar themes. But there is at least a shred of hope here, as each New Game Plus run following your first playthrough edges ever closer to the truth of Ebisugaoka.
Again and again
Silent Hill f’s take on New Game Plus (NG+) is incredibly refreshing, especially in an age of gaming where such a mode is often treated as an afterthought, or worse, saved for a post-launch update. In Silent Hill f, NG+ does have all the usual hallmarks. You’ll carry over things like your inventory, stat upgrades, documents, perk-granting omamori, journal entries, and certain key items.
Here, though, New Game Plus isn’t just a bonus mode; a way for you to exact revenge on Silent Hill f’s monstrous horrors with a significantly beefier Hinako. No, subsequent New Game Plus runs are absolutely a requirement if you want to uncover the totality of the game’s narrative. Again, not dissimilar to how Nier Replicant and Nier Automata handle repeat playthroughs.
Silent Hill f has four endings in total (well, five if you count the joke UFO ending), the last of which is the game’s ‘true’ conclusion. But to get there, you’ll need to have witnessed at least two other endings, including the one you’re locked into on your first go.
And it’s a heck of a journey to get there. Cutscenes are expanded, providing additional context and hidden details. New documents that shed light on the town and its history can be collected. There’s also no shortage of new rooms to discover, new scares to catch you off guard, and a general sense of great unease as areas that once seemed like set dressing come to life with frightening new details (a certain shrine you can find early in the game comes to mind there).
There are some brilliant quality-of-life touches, too. The main menu’s ending guide (which you can view upon beating the game once) will list the criteria for reaching each conclusion. And if you want to speed things up by skipping cutscenes, a prompt will let you know whether or not the one you’re watching has changed in any way by stating it’s new.
I simply can’t get enough of Silent Hill f. It’s one of the best horror games I’ve played in recent memory, and firmly finds a place in my top three Silent Hill titles next to the original Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3. The rural Japanese setting is such a refreshing change, and the integration of the country’s history and mythology plays exceptionally well into Silent Hill f’s brand of horror.
If you’re looking for a deeply impactful and unforgettable horror experience this Halloween season, I can’t recommend Silent Hill f enough, and you can pick it up today for PS5, Xbox Series X, Series S, and PC via Steam.
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