Silent Hill: Townfall review - A breathtaking scare-fest in spooky Scotland

Silent Hill: Townfall is a claustrophobic analogue terror and one of the most delightfully experimental entries into the series so far.

Its small-town Scottish setting doesn’t just ooze '90s nostalgia for anyone who grew up in the UK, but its streets are so tight almost to the point of oppression, making the game's slow burn experience an engrossing and breathtaking one.

As you’d no doubt expect from a Silent Hill game, Townfall’s story isn’t all that straightforward to understand, leaving you to peel back layers of dialogue and imagery as you start to unpick what’s going on.

• Order Silent Hill: Townfall from Amazon (£49.99)

Protagonist Simon may be the star of the trailers, but the story is actually about three people whose lives have become intertwined after a local disaster, seemingly stuck reliving it.

It’s a departure from the more personal narratives Silent Hill is used to tackling but it’s a worthwhile one, looking at the effects of local communities on multiple levels thanks to corporate overreach and lack of government support and local infrastructure. This feels like more than a passing nod to the pandemic and its almost fever-dream-like space in our collective memories, despite its widespread devastation for so many.

You’ll get the chance to step into each of these characters and see the world from their point of view, though the overall gameplay doesn’t change too much, aside from Simon who is the only one with the CRT TV.

The CRT TV really is a game changer for lack of a better cliché. It’s not just a nice and tactile way to deliver narrative chunks and offer up fragmented clues of where to go next, it’s also your way of understanding where enemies are in the world – which, given the more stealth approach you’ll need to take, is vital.

Each time a threat is around, you’ll hear the static pop, telling you to pull up the CRT TV and tune the frequency in, with each creature having it’s own channel. It’s lo-fi nature means you’ll need to remember which creatures belong to which channel, and flick through constantly to keep an eye on who’s closest to you at any given stage.

Yes, you’ll have seen that there are weapons in the game, albeit limited in both ammo and durability, but even when you can afford the resource to pick a fight, it’s most of the time absolutely not worth it.

The mechanics are there to get some good swings in, or get lucky with a flare gun, but these characters aren’t combat-trained and this isn’t Kingdom Come Deliverance, so if you come in expecting a fleshed out battle system allowing you to go Rambo on some fleshy monsters, you’ll be disappointed.

Firstly, if you go in swinging, you’ll likely take a few bruises yourself, meaning you’ll need to make a call on using your limited health supplies to keep yourself in tip-top shape. And if you do survive the encounter, there’s usually plenty of enemies around who’ll have taken notice of all that commotion you’ve made and will hunt you down as penance.

Instead, Townfall calls for a more measured and patient approach – hiding behind cars, garden fences and anything else that can conceal your quaking body. Scan the area and learn enemies' patterns to manoeuvre past them effectively. Maybe throw a bottle or brick at a car to set the alarm off and move the herd away from your path.

This is easier said than done, especially as the map begins to fill with more and more creatures as you move through the story. Each have their own movement patterns, attacks, reactions and ability to spot you hiding by a planter or metal gate. This means we were always tense and ready to sprint towards some semblance of safety.

You’re equipped with a map of your surroundings in most areas, but with no pause or respite while doing so, finding a good time to unfold it and do some research isn’t easy, and doesn’t come often, which left us really flexing our memory muscles to know which direction to take and which doors we'd just found a key for.

There’s inspiration from other horror as you can imagine – Alien Isolation even getting a nod in its very own trophy – but we also couldn’t help but feel little echoes of inspiration from PT, fleshed out into fuller ideas.

Like one particular house that’s almost trapped in a time bubble, the surroundings and enemies morphing around you depending on if you’re listening to a tape recording from today, tomorrow or yesterday – requiring you to flick through for puzzle solutions and items to find.

It’s cool, intriguing and creepy, helping to hammer home the game’s themes around family devastation whilst creating one of its most memorable moments. Honestly, though, there are so many of these memorable moments baked into the experience.

There’s even a nod to the time loop theory fans have long applied to Silent Hill 2, and all these creative choices go to show that the team at Screen Burn don’t just love the Silent Hill series, but they get what makes it tick and what makes players want to come back to it time and time again.

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The otherworld feels different in Townfall, as oppressive and brutalist style concrete walls tower over spaces and create deep dark holes to explore as the characters feel trapped under the weight of both the world around them and their long-standing guilt.

This is fitting, as you’ll contend with stalker enemy ‘The Weight’ quite a bit when trapped here – they can’t be killed, only slowed down for a time. And even then, you’ll waste a lot of resource in doing so, meaning you’ll need to really tread carefully and pick your hiding spots well as The Weight mixes up their movement patterns and is willing to chase you anywhere once they’ve got a bead on you.

As we hid in a locker, The Weight at such an angle that they're invisible on the CRT TV with only their movements and screams discernible, we’d be lying if we said these moments didn’t sometimes cause some frustration as survival can feel like so much to juggle.

Pop out, check the CRT TV, open your map while they’re a distance away and plot your route. But wait, too late, they’ve spotted you and have started charging – maybe you can jump into a locker in time, maybe not. But that relentless panic forces you into the mind of the character, and once you do crack it, plan the perfect route, distract the enemies and find your key or important item – it’s a rush that reminds us why we play horror experiences like this.

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The same can be said of the puzzles, with a few in Townfall easily being some of the hardest we’ve had the pleasure of trying to decode. Sifting through scraps of paper and writings on the wall put our general logic to the test in efforts to decipher if we were on the right track or full-on overthinking things.

Silent Hill: Townfall is a stunning spin-off for the series, taking to a new setting and telling its own unique story, expanding your ideas of what exactly a Silent Hill experience can be.

With a semi-open world littered with tense corners to explore, creative puzzles to unravel and heaps of analogue nostalgia – Townfall never outstays its welcome, and we are so ready to dive in again.

Silent Hill: Townfall releases 23 September for PC and PS5. We reviewed on PS5, and you can order your copy now.

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