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In my stressed desires, I see that city.
Genuinely. I feel I’ve a cluster of neurons devoted particularly to Silent Hill and Resident Evil, each video games that closely outlined my childhood. I bear in mind getting Silent Hill 2 for Christmas, and spending the festive day bunkered down in my room with the curtains drawn, having myself a second Halloween as an alternative.
Silent Hill stays one of many business’s most iconic, most legendary online game franchises, horror or not. The uniquely haunting environment, uncanny enemies, and now retro graphics have discovered a brand new life in trendy instances, too, inspiring a wave of analog horror tasks in gaming and past.
It’s in opposition to this backdrop of admiration and nostalgia that I dove into Silent Hill F on Xbox Series X (and a bit on PC too, via Xbox Play Anywhere). This is the first truly new entry in the franchise in years upon years, with a barrage of disappointing spin-offs in its rear-view mirror.
Following the assured remake of Silent Hill 2 from Bloober Team, it started to appear to be Silent Hill was prepared for an enormous comeback. Bloober can be remaking Silent Hill 1, and probably, Silent Hill 3 and possibly even the controversial Silent Hill 4 will observe. But remakes will not final. Silent Hill wants new blood, too, which is the place NeoBard stepped in with Silent Hill F.
Like a number of Silent Hill followers, I used to be sceptical at greatest about this undertaking for quite a lot of causes, from its fight focus to its utterly new setting. However, after spending a few dozen hours in Ebisugaoka, I left this new nightmare feeling haunted in the most effective and most acquainted manner attainable.
Silent Hill is again. F is an unmissable Xbox, PC, and PS5 sport for horror followers in all places.
This evaluation was written totally on Xbox Series X with an Xbox Play Anywhere (Xbox / PC) code supplied by Konami. Konami didn’t see the evaluation previous to publishing.
Silent Hill F Review: Art and Performance
Silent Hill F follows the classic franchise traditions, taking place in a contemporary Earthly locale twisted by horrific corruption and nightmarish fog. Set in the mountain village of Ebisugaoka, Silent Hill F puts us in control of Hinako Shimizu, a troubled mid-teen embroiled in what seems to be standard high school drama and familial tensions. Those notions unravel quite quickly in Silent Hill F, however. More on that in the story segment.
Ebisugaoka is a truly gorgeous location and a very impressive canvas for presenting the horrors of Silent Hill F. Washed in that familiar fog, the town gradually succumbs to a seeping rot comprised of rapidly spawning Higanbana red spider lilies and mounds of heaving gore. Silent Hill F uses light and shadow incredibly well, contrasting the desaturated natural tones of its wooden architecture with the glistening crimson of the strange contagion gripping Ebisugaoka — leaving the impression of a town gradually slipping into the underworld.
No self-respecting Silent Hill landscape would be complete without horrific monsters to go with it, and F is no exception here either.
In typical Silent Hill fashion, the monsters in the game are in part inspired by the protagonist’s central traumas. Expect to see contorted mannequinized school students eager to stab you in the back, and screeching matriarchal and patriarchal figures strewn through a nightmarish lens.
Silent Hill F’s combat scenarios join previous games with dynamic music, which ramps up as more enemies enter the fray, or as your health depletes. Akira Yamaoka reprises his role as Silent Hill’s signature sound architect, joining with Kensuke Inage, Dai, and Koichi “Xaki” Sakita to score the game. The team did a truly amazing job here, weaving in subtle nods to Silent Hill’s iconic wailing radio in among the twisted Japanese folk-inspired tones.
I found the game to be decently performant on my Xbox Series X and my RTX 4080 PC. On Xbox Series X, I would have liked to have seen a smoother frame rate from the game’s “quality” mode. I found it to be a tad too choppy to abide, and ended up switching it to performance mode for 60 FPS. Even there, some sequences had performance issues, but it was relatively rare. My PC is pretty beefy overall and was able to run Silent Hill F on high settings without issue. On the Legion Go (Z1E) on 30W turbo, it was also very playable, and even on lower settings like 15W, there were plenty of tweaks you could pull to get it to hit a smooth 30.
Silent Hill F Review: Gameplay
Silent Hill F is a survival horror at its core, with a large maze-like township with a solid variety of locales. You’ll traverse densely packed urban areas, haunted farmland outskirts, mountain trails, and traditional complex interiors. There’s also Silent Hill’s signature “otherworld,” which I won’t spoil here; suffice to say that I felt like these segments were the game at its weakest and least creative, ironically, since inside an “otherworld,” you’re technically no longer constrained by having to make something seem realistic.
I found myself wishing more of the game took place in the township with its variety and “lived-in” sense of realism, rather than the repetitive and occasionally maddening corridors of the other world. Alas, maybe next time.
I played through most of Silent Hill F on the “hard” difficulty, although its “Story” difficulty says that’s the difficulty setting for a standard Silent Hill experience. I wanted to get a good taste of its approach to combat, which even generated use of the dreaded “soulslike” word in some reports, and get a sense of how the different settings differed. As someone who’s played a decent amount of soulsborne and soulslike games, I’m not sure I’d attach the “soulslike” moniker anywhere near Silent Hill F, but its combat is a lot more involved than previous instalments.
For those worrying that they made Silent Hill F more combat-heavy for the simple sake of it, there are actually some compelling story reasons as to why she’s oddly adept with a baseball bat and the like, which you’ll find out as you play. I’m not sure I’m a huge fan of the game’s stamina, health, and “sanity” meters, as it does give it a bit more of an arcade-y feel. But I also acknowledge that’s a personal taste thing. What I feel less is an issue with taste is how combat sometimes intersects with encounter design, which isn’t always congruent.
It’s satisfying to successfully intercept an enemy attack, leading to a powerful swing that will usually immediately stun or stagger a monster. You can extend these “parry” windows by spending sanity meter, too, which slows down time a bit. You can also spend sanity meter to tee up your own powerful attacks even outside of parry windows, albeit at permanent cost to your meter maximum. You can replenish all of this with consumables found in the field, of course, in tried-and-true survival horror fashion.
Where the combat doesn’t perform as well is towards the end, when the game goes trigger-happy with combat gauntlets. Hinako is easily staggered by enemies, and being ganged up on in a corner and stun-locked can make for a frustrating end.
I played through most of the game on “hard” difficulty, but towards the end, when anywhere up to 4 monsters were chasing you down at a time, stunning, staggering, and depleting your stamina, I started to feel as though the combat hadn’t been designed with these types of encounters in mind. Hinako is hardly agile and moves incredibly slowly in general. There are some charms and things you can equip that marginally improve your combat prowess, but it does little to offset the number of interrupts the game occasionally wants to throw at you.
The problem on the other end is that “Story” difficulty is too easy, ironically. The game absolutely inundates you with health consumables to the point you will have a permanently full inventory and will trivialize combat to the point of not needing any thought or care.
I think more care and effort spent on some of Silent Hill F’s late-game forced combat situations might’ve helped its overall feeling, because the underlying combat gameplay is very good. It’s very satisfying to crack into an enemy’s porcelain skull with a sledgehammer, and managing equipment durability does force you into fearful and risky scenarios. I just wish it were tuned a little more with forethought to how frustrating some encounters can be on Hard difficulty, and how bland and easy Story difficulty is.
Luckily, the story is so, so good that any combat foibles I had were quite easily washed away.
Silent Hill F Review: Story (No Spoilers)
Hinako serves as the main protagonist throughout the entire game, as she navigates her increasingly haunted town and collaborates with her remaining school friends, who seem to be the only survivors.
At the start, Hinako leaves her family home following what seems to be some kind of argument with her parents, and resolves to meet her friends in her town. Set in 1960s Japan, the game’s themes revolve around societal expectations at the time, which have caused strife between Hinako, her parents, and even her school friends.
While not explicitly stated, Hinako and her friends seem to be around the “tween” age, where the divide between childhood play and more adult concerns becomes blurry. Hinako and her best friend, Shu, still pine for the old days when they could hang out and play pretend battling aliens, even if society expects them to behave more “appropriately” for young men and women. That’s only the most surface-level tension going on in Hinako’s life, however.
The further you play, the more you’ll learn about how complex and dark Hinako’s personal life is, which feeds the horrors plaguing the town of Ebisugaoka.
In Silent Hill F, you’ll explore a variety of locations Hinako is familiar with, and she’ll remark, often nostalgically, about childhood events therein. Silent Hill F follows familiar themes and traditions from previous games to some degree, but there are some absolutely huge curve balls that left me jaw agape.
Silent Hill F pulls absolutely no punches with its story delivery, and explores very mature themes in a way that doesn’t come across as simplistic or exploitative, nor for spectacle. The game leaves a lot up to the user’s interpretation, too, potentially weaving in visual hints, metaphors, and symbolism that have broad implications both for Hinako and the entire Silent Hill mythos.
It’s difficult to really traverse the depths of Silent Hill F’s story without straying into spoiler territory. Suffice it to say, the character performances are excellent across the board, urging me to dig deeper into the game’s rabbit hole despite some frustrations with the game’s combat difficulty roller coaster. I found myself eagerly reading every note, and hanging on to every word, searching for clues in that familiar Silent Hill way. The dark corners of Hinako’s personal experience made a fitting canvas for Silent Hill F, which combines those familial horrors with Japanese mysticism into something truly unique.
Like Hinako, I often found myself transported back to my childhood years in Silent Hill F, albeit vicariously through the safety of its video game lens — enthralled, intrigued, and horrified in the best possible way. I was restlessly invested in Hinako’s plight from start to finish, and I’m curious to see if she will return someday, in some form, in a future instalment.
Silent Hill F Review: Final thoughts
If there’s one word I can use to sum up how I felt about my experience with Silent Hill F, it’s grateful. This was clearly a labor of love for NeoBard and everyone who worked on the game, tasked with adding to the legendary canon that is Silent Hill.
With years hidden in the shadows, Silent Hill as a franchise has taken on a life of its own to some degree, as fans pine for the uniquely gnawing horror that it represents.
Going from minimal expectations, it’s more than I could’ve hoped for to say that Silent Hill F is absolutely worthy of a place among the best entries in the franchise, and definitely one you should personally experience.
Silent Hill F is thoughtful in its themes, confident in its presentation, ambitious with its combat design, and unapologetic with its violence. It’s a game that will stick with you after you reach any one of its conclusions, and the nightmare continues even further in New Game+ with additional story elements.
Silent Hill F is one of 2025’s best games, whether you’re a fan of horror or simply want a deep story, frankly. Definitely don’t miss this one.
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