As far back as I can remember, I have always been a Silent Hill fan. There was a time between Silent Hill: The Room and Silent Hill: Short Message when Konami didn’t know what to do with their venerable horror series. These were the bad times when the franchise lost its main creative voices and got passed around to developers who didn’t understand what they had.
After what seemed like a never-ending string of embarrassing sequels, culminating with Silent Hill: Book of Memories, Silent Hill was done. While Konami continued to produce new merchandise based on the games and licensed character appearances in games like Dead by Daylight and Astro’s Playroom, all hope seemed lost… and then Silent Hill Short Message was released for free.
Short Message was like a mission statement from Konami that showed that Silent Hill was coming back in a big way. This free short game gave gamers a glimpse of what was coming, establishing the tone and visual style that the games would adopt. After a lot of skepticism from the fans, Konami (along with Bloober Team) delivered the remake of Silent Hill 2, and it went above and beyond expectations.
There was another Silent Hill announcement that was shrouded in mystery. Along with a remake, there was going to be a new entry, set in a new town and during the 1960s in Japan. What does “f” stand for? Folklore? Flowers? Fuku? Female? Fog? Forte? Foxes? Find out in our Silent Hill f review!
Silent Hill f
Developer: NeoBards Entertainment
Publisher: Konami
Platforms: Windows PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 (reviewed)
Release Date: September 25, 2025
Price: $69.99
Silent Hill f abandons the messy lore that has been a terrible burden for the series. Connections to past games are tenuous at best, but this is all for the better because it’s free to blaze its own trail and not lean on the tired gimmicks the franchise has been known for. This is a perfect gateway for newcomers, now that the series has effectively become an anthology horror franchise, with core themes, aesthetics, tone, and audio-visual language tying it together.
In what ways is f a Silent Hill game? Pretty much in every way that matters. It’s 1960s Japan, in the Gifu prefecture’s rolling hills of Ebisugaoka, and Hinako Shimizu is about to have a bad day. Not wanting to spoil the surprises, all I can say is that the structure follows the classic Silent Hill formula of a cast of characters lost in a foggy town where fears and insecurities are made manifest as physical monsters.
Hinako and her friends being residents of the town is unique for the series, and the event is a new occurrence. Ebisugaoka is still a place with a checkered past involving curses, folklore, and substance abuse, like any backwater, remote rural town anywhere. It makes you realize that the town of Silent Hill wasn’t all that unique, and the spiritual power over it can exist in many forms.
As Hinako makes her way through Ebisugaoka, trying to regroup with her friends and loved ones, she is spirited away to Silent Hill f’s version of the otherworld. Taking the form of a massive Shinto shrine that defies the laws of space, Hinako meets an enigmatic man wearing a fox mask. Every time she visits this dark place, players are left in the dark about whether this guy is on the level or not.
One thing is for sure: the fox mask is a trickster, and not everything you see is what it seems. Even Hinako isn’t what she appears to be, and as the story develops, it can feel like making friends with the wrong kid at camp. The dark place reveals more about her in abstract and symbolic ways, drawing you deeper into her interpersonal relationships with her friends, family, and basically everyone in her small town.
It isn’t just Hinako’s demons lurking around town; it’s as if the collective anxieties have been manifest. Sometimes they don’t take the form of monsters, and Ebisugaoka becomes a twisted version of itself. Everywhere you look, you can parse the meaning and mise-en-scène storytelling that the best Silent Hill games are known for.
Ebisugaoka is a sprawling labyrinth with countless turns, looparounds, hidden areas, and, of course, a fog so dense that it’s like marching through a feculent Redbull fart. The provincial Japanese landscape is absolutely drenched in this hazy miasma, and it’s crawling with monsters like roaches in a Detroit gas station.
This is a scary game, and it employs all of the tricks in the book to make you feel the fear. Vaguely seeing a twisted figure hobbling in the fog is kinda creepy, but nothing tops the creature that only sneaks up on Hinako when the camera isn’t pointed at it. The designs and erratic animations are unsettling enough, but are compounded by the stomach-churning sound design.
The imagery is a mix of grotesque beauty and melancholic agony. Some areas will play tricks on players with decoy enemies and have a real one lurk among them. Since Hinako has limited regenerative stamina, slapping decoys with a sickle will leave her open to being jumped. It’s a well-earned jumpscare that left me as a stammering, palm-sweating, pants-pissing, panicky, actual factual scat-man.
After you collect yourself and wipe the cold sweat from your brow, it’s time to throw down in a battle royal with some monsters. Silent Hill f is the most combat-focused the series has ever been, but that is not to say that Hinako will be juggling dolls with melee attacks. Combat is very measured and stamina-based. Dodging is fast and very responsive. Hinako has ninja-like agility and can perfect-dodge, charge attacks, and even parry.
Silent Hill f is set in Japan during the 60s, so don’t expect any guns. Hinako gets a decent variety of melee weapons of varying styles, durability, and weight classes. About halfway through the game, there is a dramatic change that is unlike anything the series has seen before. It also happens to involve the most disturbing scenes in the franchise. It’s a moment where the game cements itself as a genuine classic and best in the series.
The puzzles in Silent Hill f are some of the best the series has seen. In an endlessly repeating open field shrouded in fog, there exists an ingenious scenario where players must extract a thorn from the correct scarecrow by following clues provided in a confession letter. The game features many other excellent examples, and it offers three difficulty modes specifically for the puzzles in case you want to be put to the ultimate cerebral test.
There are many resources to manage, making this the most survivalist survival-horror entry in the series. On top of regular inventory limits, Hinako has to contend with stamina, weapon durability, and sanity. Doing charge attacks and focusing on connecting counters/parries drains sanity, and running out depletes life. Just being around monsters can lower her max sanity, so it’s always important to keep a stock of items to restore it.
Sometimes you may not want to carry extra items because making them into offerings at shrines (save points) is how Hinako earns faith: Silent Hill f’s main currency. She’ll need faith to buy stat upgrades, accessories for perks, or more accessory slots. This kind of system was overdue for the series for a while, and adds another layer of commodity to consumable items.
Like always, multiple endings foster replay value, but it’s handled differently in Silent Hill f. You can only get one “canon” ending on the first run, but new game + features new choices and routes for different endings, including a hilarious UFO ending. This prevents confusion over what the true ending is and offers a chance for players to do things differently and more efficiently on subsequent play-throughs.
This is the true fifth Silent Hill that fans deserve after The Room. It’s a fascinating and haunting exploration into new territory; a dark take on the “coming of age” drama that’s distinctly Silent Hill, with visceral and challenging combat and diabolical puzzles. Silent Hill is back… we just had to go to Japan to get there.
Silent Hill f was reviewed on PlayStation 5 using a code provided by Konami. Additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy is here. Silent Hill f is now available for Windows PC (via STEAM), Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.
