“Silent Hill: Townfall” takes place on the fictional Scottish island of St. Amelia

The year is 1996. This time the “Silent Hill” series takes us to a lonely Scottish fishing island full of monsters, full of sorrow - and of course full of mysterious horror.

Welcome to St. Amelia: This time the “Silent Hill” series takes place on a fictional island in the Scottish North Sea. Photo: Konami/Annapurna/Screen Burn/dpa-tmn

Hamburg. The “Silent Hill” series had already broken away from its eponymous, fictional small US town in New England in 2025: After “Silent Hill f” took place in the Japanese, also fictitious nest of Ebisugaoka, the setting of the latest part “Silent Hill: Townfall” is in the Scottish North Sea, on the fictional island of St. Amelia.

There the hero Simon Ordell climbs out of the water - an IV tube in one hand, a hospital wristband in the other. And you accompany him along the way - from a first-person perspective for the first time in the history of the series. And the fog hangs even deeper and thicker than ever before.

What has Chapman Energy Group done on St. Amelia?

Evidence of protests against Chapman Energy Group (CEG), such as signs, can be found all over the island. But the city is deserted. Simon wanders around trying to figure out why he is here.

When he answers a call on a pay phone, he ends up in the so-called Otherworld with red lights, full of concrete, pipes and rust. There he finds his task: he has to find a nurse named Zoe Ellis, who seems to be the only one who has answers for him.

Story is told from three different perspectives

The development studio Screen Burn tells the story from three different perspectives:

Simon takes up the most space as the main character. He barely speaks aloud, his thoughts appearing as text on the screen as he drags himself around the island, trying to understand why he's there.

The nurse Zoe becomes playable from around the second chapter. Unlike Simon, who uses a small tube screen scanner (CRTV) to locate monsters, she only has a pager for orientation that can also indicate dangers.

And then there is the man with whom Simon had already been in contact on the pay phone: Richard, an enigmatic figure. He will also become playable later and represents the CEG group. He tries to close his eyes to the fact that the city is being overrun by corpses and monsters.

Fight carefully: weapons break quickly

Simon initially receives wooden boards as weapons, later metal pipes. But everything falls apart, even when blocking. Every hit wears out the respective weapon, so you should think carefully about whether you want to get involved in a fight at all. A revolver and a double-barreled shotgun are added later.

But both are so loud that they attract all nearby monsters. Weapons, like the remedies, are deliberately kept limited: in “Silent Hill” you are supposed to survive in other ways than facing your opponents head-on. Some opponents simply cannot be defeated at all.

“The Weight” is almost invulnerable, his touch deadly

The selection of enemies is manageable: faceless figures with ax blades in their heads, corpse-like bodies with IV tubes, a widow who storms in from under a cloth - and an enemy who attacks from ambush. But it wouldn’t be “Silent Hill” if there wasn’t also a big monster.

This time it's called "The Weight" and is introduced right at the beginning. It is almost invulnerable, walks as if under a heavy load, kills instantly on contact and first appears in almost complete darkness. While Simon narrowly escapes him throughout the game, some weaknesses become apparent in these encounters.

Number of enemies killed linked to the outcome of the story

The monsters usually give up when you hide. But sometimes they just break through the doors. This makes sneaking and hiding difficult and the game sections longer. However, that is intentional: How many enemies you kill determines which of five different possible endings the story leads to.

The CRTV is not an all-round, worry-free detector. Since each monster transmits on its own frequency, you have to actively switch between the signals; a short hiss announces new disaster in the vicinity. Properly aligned, the CRTV also shows silhouettes through walls.

The CRTV finds monsters, but also gives tips and guidance

As a distraction, objects such as throwing bottles, turning on radios or televisions can be used to get past monsters that you cannot fight. The CRTV also sends story fragments that indicate the next destination and provides puzzle clues and orientation - sometimes with their own mini-games to calibrate the signals.

The developers designed all the equipment just as carefully as the environment. You can feel the attention to detail as you walk through the city: notes appear on the paper map you hold in your hands as you explore.

Feeling like you're traveling back in time: back to the 1990s

There are also top-up cards for the electricity meter, dial-up connections to the Internet for emailing, diskettes in folding boxes, printers, cassettes and dictation machines. Today they seem like relics, but in 1996 they were part of everyday life.

In general, the game feels a bit like time travel - from saving by calling the payphone to puzzles that shift time and dimensions as you rack your brain.

Conclusion: Deep horror that stimulates the imagination

Screen Burn definitely delivers that special “Silent Hill” feeling. The island setting forms the ideal backdrop for a melancholic narrative with multiple endings that make you think about your own decisions.

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Creating a Scottish village in the fog with so much authenticity and reminiscences of the 1990s is remarkably well done. Even if the game mechanics may raise eyebrows at times, there is always a clear narrative reason for their implementation.

The three perspectives of the narrators come together at the end, but also leave some things open and thus stimulate the imagination. In the end, one thing is certain: Even when people are in the same place, they often perceive the events there completely differently.

Anyone who plays through the game a second time after around twelve hours in order to find more answers and perhaps get to the longed-for ending will realize that the developers have not only created a horror shocker, but also a profound story at the same time.

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