Silent Hill: Townfall is the Konami-backed psychological horror game from Scottish studio Screen Burn Interactive (known as No Code when the game was first revealed), published with Annapurna Interactive and first revealed at Konami’s Silent Hill Transmission on October 19, 2022. It moves the series’ dread to St. Amelia, a fictional Scottish town, and plays in first person. The fear comes from slow-burn atmosphere, analog tech that turns on you, and the old Silent Hill rule that the monsters are personal.
A quick note on that Length line. Guide sites quote different hour counts for the main story, and we have not confirmed one. We would rather leave it blank than give you a made-up number.
Story and setting
You play as Simon, the protagonist Konami’s trailers introduced, who arrives in St. Amelia. It is a small Scottish town with the grey, salt-bitten look of a place the rest of the world forgot. This is not the lakeside resort from the 1999 original. Townfall is one of several recent entries that let the Silent Hill phenomenon reach beyond the town’s borders, alongside The Short Message (set in Germany) and Silent Hill f (set in 1960s Japan).
The setting leans hard on analog technology. The 2022 teaser was built almost entirely around a pocket television, a small handheld CRT set flickering with cryptic video signals in the dark, which is the game’s evolution of the static-spitting radio Harry Mason carried in the first game. Projectors, phones, medical spaces and dense woodland all come up in the chapters players have documented. The chapter select includes early chapters titled Arrival, Zoe, The Patient and Clara Woods. Names like Zoe, Clara and Richard are part of the story we will keep spoiler-free here.
It plays first and foremost as a slow, character-driven psychological thriller with horror bleeding through the cracks. It is not an action game.
How it scares you
Screen Burn’s team previously worked as No Code, and their earlier games show exactly why Konami picked them. Stories Untold made a text adventure terrifying through a CRT monitor. Observation made you complicit as a space station’s AI. Townfall carries that DNA: dread through interfaces, devices and environments rather than constant monster closets.
| Game | Year | Studio name at the time | Publisher | What it taught them |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stories Untold | 2017 | No Code | Devolver Digital | Horror through retro hardware and screens |
| Observation | 2019 | No Code | Devolver Digital | Slow-burn sci-fi dread, unreliable systems |
| Silent Hill: Townfall | Out now | Screen Burn Interactive | Annapurna Interactive, Konami | Both, applied to Silent Hill |
What actually frightens you in St. Amelia:
- The camera. First person means you can’t see what is behind you, and the game knows it. Tight interiors and doorways do a lot of work.
- Sound. Play with headphones. Static, distortion and off-screen noise are your early warnings, a design idea the series has used since 1999.
- Pacing. Long quiet stretches of exploration and puzzles build tension before anything hostile shows up. The release of that tension is rarely a cheap jump scare.
- Strange places. Medical rooms, blood-stained corridors and the woods each feel wrong in a different way. The horror is environmental first.
- Personal monsters. In Silent Hill, creatures reflect the protagonist’s guilt and memory. Townfall follows the tradition that made “silent hill pyramid head” the most analysed monster in horror games.
We rate it 4/5 for scares because the dread rarely lets up. Gore is moderate: there is blood and some grim imagery, but it never wallows. If you can’t handle gore at all, the atmosphere will still get you.
Getting started: your first hours in St. Amelia
What you need before you start:
- Headphones or a decent sound setup. Audio cues matter.
- A dark room and a properly calibrated brightness setting.
- A notebook or your phone’s notes app for codes and clues.
- Patience. This is a slow game by design.
Steps for a smooth first run:
- Calibrate brightness honestly. Set it so the “barely visible” symbol is barely visible. Cranking it up flattens the atmosphere.
- Pick your difficulty with care. Silent Hill games traditionally split combat and puzzle difficulty. If your options offer that split, pick puzzle difficulty based on how much you enjoy riddles, not how brave you feel.
- Read every document. Notes, files and labels carry story and often the answer to the next puzzle.
- Write down every number. Door codes and combinations in this series are often spread across several rooms.
- Check every door twice. Locked doors get noted. A door you passed earlier may open after story events.
- Listen before you enter. If the soundscape shifts, slow down.
- Save at every opportunity. Don’t push on with a long unsaved stretch behind you.
Common mistakes:
- Rushing. Rushing means missing collectibles, story notes and puzzle clues, and then backtracking in frustration.
- Ignoring the radio-style audio cues and blaming the game for “unfair” scares.
- Brute-forcing codes instead of rereading the documents in your inventory.
- Setting puzzle difficulty too high on a first run. Hard puzzle modes in this series can be properly obscure.
Expected result: a first playthrough that feels tense rather than frustrating, with most of the story context and a good share of collectibles picked up along the way.
Lore and ending
Spoiler warning
This section discusses Townfall’s place in Silent Hill lore and how its ending structure works, but does not describe specific ending scenes.
We are holding back a scene-by-scene ending breakdown until we have verified every branch against the game itself. Getting an ending wrong in an archive is worse than waiting. Here is what holds up.
Townfall belongs to Silent Hill’s modern idea of the town as a force rather than a location. The fog, the Otherworld and the creatures shape themselves around what a person carries inside them. That is why Simon’s story plays out in Scotland and still counts as Silent Hill. The phenomenon goes where the guilt is.
Expect your ending to reflect how you engaged with the people and memories around you, which is the series’ long-running approach. Silent Hill 2 (2001) graded you on behaviour you barely noticed you were showing, such as how often you checked certain items or how much you let your health drop. If guide sites list multiple endings and New Game Plus extras, treat a second run as part of the intended experience, not padding.
The radio deserves a mention. In 1999 it warned Harry about nearby monsters. In Townfall, analog devices feel less like tools and more like a line to something that is listening back.
Where it fits in the series
Townfall is a new, standalone story. It is not a remake or a remaster, and you don’t need any earlier game to follow it. It came out of the same October 2022 Transmission that announced a wave of revival projects.
| Project from the 2022 Transmission | Developer | Type | Release |
|---|---|---|---|
| Silent Hill 2 | Bloober Team | Remake of the 2001 game | October 8, 2024 |
| Silent Hill f | NeoBards Entertainment | New mainline story, 1960s Japan | September 25, 2025 |
| Silent Hill: Ascension | Genvid with partners | Interactive streaming series | October 31, 2023 |
| Silent Hill: Townfall | Screen Burn Interactive | New standalone story, Scotland | Out now |
For context, here is the wider release order. Original games and remakes are listed separately so you don’t mix them up.
| Year | Title | Developer | Original or remake |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | Silent Hill | Team Silent | Original |
| 2001 | Silent Hill 2 | Team Silent | Original |
| 2003 | Silent Hill 3 | Team Silent | Original |
| 2004 | Silent Hill 4: The Room | Team Silent | Original |
| 2007 | Silent Hill: Origins | Climax Studios | Original (prequel) |
| 2008 | Silent Hill: Homecoming | Double Helix Games | Original |
| 2009 | Silent Hill: Shattered Memories | Climax Studios | Reimagining of the 1999 game |
| 2012 | Silent Hill: Downpour | Vatra Games | Original |
| 2014 | P.T. | Kojima Productions | Playable teaser (cancelled project) |
| 2024 | Silent Hill: The Short Message | HexaDrive with Konami | Original |
| 2024 | Silent Hill 2 | Bloober Team | Remake |
| 2025 | Silent Hill f | NeoBards Entertainment | Original |
Which to play first? If Townfall is your first Silent Hill, start with it. If you want the foundations, play the Silent Hill 2 remake first. It is the clearest introduction to the “monsters as guilt” idea that Townfall builds on.
Where to play
As of October 2026, check the official store listings on your platform for current availability, pricing and editions. We are not listing platforms we haven’t confirmed against a live store page, and the same goes for subscriptions. Don’t assume Game Pass or PS Plus inclusion unless the service’s own catalogue shows it.
Steam Deck status is also unverified as of October 2026. If you plan to play on Deck, look for Valve’s compatibility badge on the store page before buying. Our “pc horror games” round-up tracks the PC picks we have personally confirmed.
If you liked this
Observation (2019): the same team’s earlier game, a slow sci-fi dread piece built around a system you don’t fully trust.
Silent Hill 2 (2024 remake): the purest version of the guilt-made-flesh idea Townfall inherits.
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (2009): another psychological, combat-light entry where your behaviour quietly shapes the story.
FAQ
Who made Silent Hill Townfall?
Screen Burn Interactive, a studio from Scotland, developed it. Annapurna Interactive and Konami are behind it. The team previously released Stories Untold and Observation as No Code.
Is Silent Hill Townfall a remake?
No. It is an original standalone story set in the fictional Scottish town of St. Amelia. It isn’t connected to the Silent Hill 2 remake beyond sharing the series’ themes.
Do I need to play other Silent Hill games first?
No. Townfall stands on its own. Playing the Silent Hill 2 remake first will help you appreciate how the series uses monsters and memory, but it is optional.
Is Silent Hill Townfall first person?
Yes. The game plays in first person, which makes tight rooms and doorways far more stressful than in the older third-person entries.
How long is Silent Hill Townfall?
Guide sites quote varying hour counts for the main story, and we haven’t verified one yet. Expect a slow, exploration-heavy pace, and add time if you hunt every collectible or go back for other endings.