SILENT HILL f - Digital Deluxe

I went into Silent Hill f bracing for disappointment, the way you do with any long-dormant franchise that suddenly comes back with a new studio at the wheel. What I found instead was a game that earns its place in the series while doing something genuinely different: ditching the American small-town backdrop entirely and rooting its horror in Japanese folklore, body horror, and the kind of psychologically dense storytelling you get when you hand the script to Ryukishi07, the writer behind Higurashi When They Cry. The setup puts you in control of Hinako Shimizu, a high school student in the fictional 1960s town of Ebisugaoka, which gets swallowed by supernatural fog before the first hour is out. The story is built to withhold. You spend most of the runtime piecing together fragments, questioning what Hinako knows and what she's hiding from herself, and the payoff lands hard even if the journey sometimes feels deliberately opaque. Supporting characters are thin, and the side cast barely registers as people, but Hinako herself is drawn with enough depth to carry the weight. The atmosphere, sound design, and art direction are all doing serious heavy lifting throughout, and there are stretches that are genuinely unsettling in ways that feel fresh rather than recycled. Combat runs on a melee-only system: pipes, sledgehammers, and improvised weapons, plus a dodge, a counter, and a focus meter to manage. On paper that sounds like a lean, tense setup. In practice, the combat loop goes stale faster than it should. The same enemy types recycle too frequently, the pace is sluggish by design, and the lack of ranged options means every encounter is an up-close grind. There is a shrine offering system where you can sacrifice healing items to earn Faith, a resource used for character upgrades, which creates a real tension between short-term survival and long-term build investment. It is a smart idea that just does not go deep enough to break the repetition. The puzzles, on the other hand, are some of the best the series has produced in years: clever, occasionally stumping, and clearly designed by people who understand why the original games worked. Separate difficulty sliders for puzzles and combat are a welcome quality-of-life addition. Developed by NeoBards Entertainment, a Taiwan-based studio new to original game development but experienced with the Resident Evil franchise, Silent Hill f sits at a Metascore around 86 from critics, which feels about right. It is a game that does one thing, atmosphere and narrative dread, at an exceptionally high level, while the second thing it is supposed to do, make combat feel meaningful, falls short of that same bar. Horror fans who play these games for the story and the creep factor will find plenty to chew on. Players who need satisfying action to stay engaged may check out mentally around the midpoint.

Alex · Scout Team

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