Silent Hill is a franchise legendary for its nuanced storytelling almost as much as its inconsistency. Even taking the pachinko machines and mobile trash out of the equation, the games have always had a vast gulf of quality, often between the first three numbered entries and "everything else," but even the strange spin-offs have their good points, and oftentimes have their own defenders.
But three failed movies later, it was starting to feel like the games would be stuck in the past after the surprise hit of the Silent Hill 2 remake, and especially in the wake of the appalling attempt at online streaming-as-gameplay entry Ascension, I think a lot of people weren't betting big on Silent Hill f because we'd been conditioned to not.
It's not even that the game wouldn't be set in the titular small, midwestern American town in a sliding scale of "the 2000s" but rather in a rural Japanese prefecture in 1960, there have been attempts to show that Silent Hill is more a title than an actual place, but again: mixed results. The comic book series seemed to completely misunderstand the appeal of the games, and Homecoming too seemed more obsessed with callbacks and references to stuff people remember than carving its own path. I can tell you, regardless of how you feel about the rest of the game: f carves its own path and sets the bar incredibly high for whomever decides to try for another original entry next.
The basics are pure Silent Hill: a teenage girl named Hinako is facing down a difficult decision in amidst growing up in a time and place where her fate has largely been decided for her. Almost immediately, her town is overtaken by a strange, flesh-and-flowers growth that rampages at the behest of a sentient fog carrying some kind of unseen threat, the game jumps off quicker than most horror games, and it also unveils it's more combat-forward gameplay almost immediately.
It's established early that not only does Hinako have athletic pursuits (specifically track-and-field and baseball), but that she's something of a tomboy and even her peers see her as a bit "unfeminine," so when she hoists up a pipe and starts swinging for the fences against the fleshy monstrosities, it feels apropos that she knows what she's doing more than your James Sunderlands or Harry Masons: adults thrust into a situation they were completely unprepared for and messily using improvised weapons.
Hinako feels agile and strong, but never overwhelmingly so. Even on the casual difficulty, before a "story" difficulty was added to take even more of the edge off, the enemies can quickly overwhelm if Hinako is cornered, and the constant degradation of her weapons adds to the anxiety. It's still a horror game, a competent protagonist with good controls doesn't mean the game's terror is lessened. It simply means the player has more options, and I was particularly skeptical of the early take that the game was "Soulslike" simply because it had bumper-and-trigger based melee combat and a very basic dodge mechanic. The game's difficulty only becomes truly brutal on higher levels, there is no "enemy reset" mechanic nor even XP to be gained or lost upon death, it's a standard survival-horror death screen to a checkpoint. Only collectibles and lore are saved between checkpoint resets, which is a nice nod to player time.
The horror takes another tack when Hinako finds herself falling into the more mythical "Otherworld," where an absolute hunk in a fox mask guides her toward salvation (or does he?) and allows her to unlock weapons that recall traditional Japanese legend (a wakizashi, a naginata, and finally: a weapon of her own making that actually does turn her into a real badass), some of which is balanced by enemies that forever regenerate, unless killed in specific ways or areas. The foes in the Otherworld tend to be more vicious, aggressive, and durable to counteract the fact that Hinako's weapons are indestructible, and it's here that one of the game's only real flaws come out: there are only really 4 enemy types, not including the bosses. But one of the bosses is also just a beefed up version of an already-strong enemy-type.
They have subtle variations, some of which come with subtly variant behaviors, but ultimately: males who grapple and pummel and females who slash and dodge are joined by bloated, enormous juggernauts and truly disgusting "breeder" enemies that spawn more minions. This is hardly the first time this has been an issue, but Silent Hill 2 having a limited enemy variety felt more like a limitation on the console at the time, this is 2025 and four varieties of enemies, each with an Otherworld variant that does little more than change appearance and small behaviors, feels lacking. Especially in a game that insists you fight as much as you do: while enemies in the "real" world can often be evaded, the Otherworld foes often have to be tackled and overcome before progress is allowed. And by the third time you're playing through the game, a little variety would go a long way.
Which brings me to one of the more controversial parts of the game: the multiple endings. There is only one ending for the first playthrough, in staunch contrast to the previous entries, almost all of which had multiple endings depending on often subtle gameplay features, and more outlandish ones locked behind subsequent playthroughs. f dispenses with that and has a single ending that, while leaving a lot of questions, I actually found to be fairly satisfying. It's by far the bleakest ending as well, but the fact that it's fairly clear in its metaphor is actually refreshing for a series known to reward players who dig deep and leave those wanting a more contained experience a bit wanting. However, I can't recommend enough trying for at least one of the alternate endings and seeing how it speaks to you, as a player, because I found each ending more intriguing and interesting than the last.
The first New Game + playthrough tips its hand early: the dialog that opens the game changes and the struggles that Hinako is going through are made far more overt and obvious, and are frankly harrowing to anyone with modern sensibilities who thinks traditions like child marriage were left in the distant past. In Japan or America, for that matter. Conversations subtley change and new lore entries flesh out Hinako's gorgeously illustrated journal, and there is an in-game justification for why Hinako is suddenly thinking more clearly and seeing things more obviously, as well as full-blown confirmation of the supernatural. It's not a spoiler to say: this is not all happening in a teenage girl's mind as a metaphor for her growing inability to cope with the unfairness of the world. This is Silent Hill, and this stuff is as real as it gets, but it's ALSO a deeply layered, nuanced metaphor that only becomes deeper the more layers the player peels back. And by the end, it's hardly subtle but to be blunt: I've grown weary of "subtlety" being shorthand for "deep and also good" when it's just as often been a cloak that artists, and their producers, have used to seem mysterious and deeper than they are, all while their art is misappropriated and misused in the name of "trusting one's audience." I like that Silent Hill f has strong opinions on things like drug use, gender roles, tradition, religion, and assumptions that we make without knowing the full story.
The game actually does tie to the core Silent Hill games in some fairly small, fun ways that really lean into the notion that Silent Hill is a feeling more than a singular place, and without giving anything away: the idea that it started in Japan before traveling to America is a strange harmony of the game's own history and legacy. A Japanese-developed game that was nevertheless set in middle-America while speaking loudly to both audiences isn't a metaphor I'd thought I'd see play out onscreen, but the game actually accomplishes it with ease and earnestness.
Despite the combat ultimately being the game's biggest flaw, I could not stop playing it. The game has difficulty trophies, so if you're a platinum hunter, it might be best to steer clear (I found the highest difficulty more "cheap" than "challenging") and the puzzle difficulties are interesting, but you are sometimes stuck if you don't have a working knowledge of Japanese myth and iconography. More than once I had to look up a difficult puzzle solution, only to realize: I didn't have any basis for what the game even expected of me. The puzzles are generally well-designed and well-integrated into the world, it's much less finding crests and opening secret doors and much more experiencing the supernatural and needing to think about imagery in more abstract terms. But as the difficulty climbs, so too does the need to have at least some knowledge of Japanese culture, well beyond "I like anime." I was actually very fortunate to have a friend with plans to move to Japan that I could run things past, but if you already have a working knowledge of the culture, this is a massively interesting game because it is very, VERY Japanese while being incredibly universal in its themes of anxiety, ostracization, and societal expectation. As well as mental health, oh does it ever get into some uncomfortable places with the psychology of the game. It never feels like its wearing it as a costume, though, all of it feels like it's coming from a very real place of actual experience, at least it certainly did for me.
Silent Hill f is the very definition of an unexpected surprise, in the best possible way. I was skeptical when I first saw trailers, but within 20 minutes of the game starting, I was absolutely hooked. The pace is one of the best parts about the game, combat leads into smaller puzzles, giving way to combat and eventually a larger puzzle. The transitions into and out of the Otherworld are strange enough to keep the player on the backfoot and the voice cast, whether you listen in English or Japanese, is stellar. This isn't one of those games were the characters were given nothing but lines to read, the deliveries feel like the actors were able to capture the nuance of the spoken dialog very, very well. Fox Mask is an especial highlight in both languages, perfectly capturing the dichotomy of a beautiful stranger offering you a way out of your broken home life.
It's difficult to get much further into what I loved about this game without going into overt spoilers, but suffice it to say: if the thing you don't like about latter day Silent Hill is lack of nuance in the storytelling, this is the game for you. Forget about "intentionally" ropy combat to create a sense of tension, Hinako is an ass-kicker in a world that is still full of nightmares, the fact that she can dodge competently is hardly a deal-breaker. I'd honestly say start on "Hard" if you're looking for a "scary" level of challenge, but otherwise, the default difficulty is perfectly serviceable to give close-calls and require some resource management, especially on subsequent playthroughs.
Silent Hill f tried something new, and it's thrilling to see it rewarded because it did what I think a lot of us wished the series had long ago: opened up the world to tell a myriad of different stories that are all still united by the simple premise of a town that's gone completely mad.