Silent Hill f review: horror that will stick with you

By Jesse Lennox Published September 22, 2025

Great horror games make me uncomfortable throughout the entire experience. Amazing horror games make me uncomfortable even when I stop playing.

Silent Hill f falls in the latter category for one simple reason: it understands that Silent Hill isn’t about the town, the cults, or even the fog or the monsters. The real horror comes from pulling at those existential threads we all hold inside of us that we’d rather leave buried.

After being missing in action for over a decade, the seminal horror franchise reintroduced itself to the world with the amazing Silent Hill 2 remake. Without undercutting the talent and effort put into that game, many looked to Silent Hill f as the true test to see if a new team creating an entirely new Silent Hill experience could live up to the series’ legacy.

Despite a few qualms brought on by the inventory and upgrade system, Silent Hill f stands alongside the best the horror genre has to offer. Beyond the locals, creatures, and disturbing imagery, it was the existential theme of self-sacrificing who we are to fit who society dictates we should be that creates the kind of dread that isn’t so easy to escape.

Despite being created by a Japanese team (though many entries have been tackled by Western studios post-Silent Hill 4), the series has always been set in an unspecified region of Northeastern America. With Silent Hill f, we not only go back in time to the 1960s, but also across the globe to a new fictional town called Ebisugoaka.

Hinako is a self-described average person with “nothing special” about her at all, living in a cramped and isolated spit of a town. Of course, being a survival horror game, things take a quick turn as she is forced to explore, solve puzzles, and fight physical manifestations of her own fears and regrets. The only people left in the town appear to be Hinako and a trio of her friends. Right from the jump, the dynamics between these four feel unnatural and off. Part of that is in traditional Silent Hill fashion, where characters are oddly calm about the supernatural events taking place, but it is mostly felt in the subtleties in how they speak to — and about — one another.

There’s clearly a history between these four, and the way their true feelings unfold is unrelentingly gripping.

This game won’t beat you over the head with its themes of bullying, discrimination, or societal pressures.

Most of the character-building comes from Hinako’s journal, which she updates in her own words and interpretations throughout the game. While I initially thought this leaned too much on the tell rather than the show side of narrative delivery, after a few hours, I had changed my tune. Reading Hinako’s interpretation of her friends, family, society, and the monsters, all contribute to fleshing out who Hinako is. More importantly, it slowly reveals why Silent Hill has come for her. After all, I don’t think it’s a secret to say that good people don’t end up in Silent Hill.

And who Hinako is — who she really is — is the source of Silent Hill f‘s horror. This game won’t beat you over the head with its themes of bullying, discrimination, or societal pressures. Instead, it wants to let them linger in the fog, just far enough that you can see their shadow without fully making out what it is you’re seeing.

In an attempt to dance around spoilers, that is the entire crux of the second half of Silent Hill f. In addition to exploring the town searching for a way to escape the fog, Hinako will find herself in an otherworldly Japanese temple with a mysterious man donning a fox mask. Beyond the environmental change, there are some character and mechanical choices that, at first, I felt hurt the experience. The way Hinako behaves and the choices she makes feel so disconnected from who I saw her as in the “real” world.

Each section offers its own set of mysteries and narrative threads that keep a steady narrative pace of curiosity, payoff, and development until the two finally merge.

the best compliment I can give to Silent Hill f‘s world is that I was never comfortable there.

As I delved further in, I realized the game was counting on me feeling the way I had in order to put a stronger point on its themes when it was ready to pull back the curtain. And Silent Hill f doesn’t hold back in its portrayal of the sacrifices someone has to make in order to fit the mold society has forced on them. It doesn’t shy away from the ugliness of womanhood and femininity, nor does it pull any punches. That makes it a tough game to play at times, but an important one.

The least surprising aspect of the experience is its beauty. The narrow and cramped layout of Ebisugoaka would be claustrophobic enough without the oppressive fog. The detail crammed into this compact space made exploration rewarding just for the sake of it, and I was surprised by how often non-interactable areas added personality to the world. I describe the game’s visuals as beautiful — and in a dark way that’s true — but the best compliment I can give to Silent Hill f‘s world is that I was never comfortable there. Even in a “normal” house, something always felt off or uncanny, even if I couldn’t identify what it was.

Every version of Silent Hill tailors itself to its subject, and Silent Hill f is no different. Hinako’s torture is specific and pointed, but the tip of that blade is universal: the pressure to be who others expect us to be. Will we hang on to our true selves, or will time, friends, family, and societal pressure force us to sacrifice that part of ourselves bit by bit until there’s nothing left? Is happiness being ourselves, or chaining ourselves to the role we’re expected to fill based on our gender, race, or culture? Seeing it represented as Silent Hill f does, the choice seems obvious, but it’s never that simple.

Combat has been a point of discussion since it was shown off in early trailers. I’m of the belief that any combat system — including the total lack of one — can be appropriate if the game itself justifies it. The combat systems in the first several Silent Hill games would be abysmal in a more action-focused game, but the clunky and imprecise nature adds to the horror and sense of helplessness.

Silent Hill f‘s combat is more “fun” than most previous entries, but done so intelligently. You have a light and heavy attack, dodge, and counter for specially telegraphed attacks, all governed by a stamina bar. If there had only been attacks, Silent Hill f would feel just like one of the older games, but the slowdown for a perfect dodge or satisfying crushing blow and stun I get off a counter turns it into something else.

Silent Hill f‘s combat is more “fun” than most previous entries, but done so intelligently.

Don’t expect to play Silent Hill f like an action game. Weapons have durability, for one, and enemies never drop health or other items. That means fighting, even when done perfectly, is always a net loss and I was encouraged to avoid most fights. The exception to this rule is the otherworld, where I got special weapons that never lost durability. If that sounds like it undercuts the entire tension of combat, you’d be right. This is one of the things the game expects you to take note of, consciously or unconsciously, until it pays it off later on in service of the narrative. That moment of realization clicking into place was one of the strongest moments of the game.

Monster design is rife for dissection. From the naked Kashimashi with burned-off eyes and scarred smiles, to the mask-wearing Ayakashi, there’s a ton to glean about Hinako’s feelings about the pressures she’s under from her peers and society here.

What isn’t quite as cohesive with the narrative is the inventory system. Hinako can only carry a limited number of items on her person in addition to three weapons. These include all healing items, repair kits, sanity-restoring items, and offerings. There’s no stash system, and only minor ways to increase your inventory slots if you search diligently, so I was discouraged from exploring if I had no room in my inventory. The only way to free up space, aside from actually using my items, is the new offering system.

The shrines that act as checkpoints also serve as a way to “sell” my items to turn them into faith. Faith can be used to either purchase omomori, which are equipable charms with various buffs, unlock additional omomori slots, or level up my health, stamina, or sanity. Introducing the choice of sacrificing precious healing items for a permanent upgrade later is a solid one, but it ends up killing the pacing. I spent far too many instances managing my inventory at shrines offering items, then doubling back through areas to grab things I couldn’t hold to bring back and offer up to grind up faith. And in the end, the buffs were so minor and unnecessary that the entire system felt unfulfilling and extraneous.

The puzzles here almost universally depend on knowledge and understanding of a character’s personality or feelings to solve

Sanity also felt like a superfluous addition. It can be used to enhance attacks, and is drained by getting grabbed by monsters, but there’s no consequence for it running out until it is fully depleted, and any further sanity loss is taken as health damage. It is a completely ignorable function that is never integrated into the story or character the way everything else is.

Besides combat, exploration and puzzle solving are yet another worldbuilding tool in Silent Hill f‘s toolbox. The puzzles here almost universally depend on knowledge and understanding of a character’s personality or feelings to solve, not necessarily logic. Besides the main town itself, there aren’t that many bigger bespoke puzzle-box levels like prior games. That was initially disappointing, but it keeps the pace from stalling out and shows off a much wider range of environments without bloating the runtime.

The only snag in exploration — which is a bit more pronounced during chase sequences — is how finicky specific environmental interactions can be. Whenever there’s a door, climb, or drop point, Hinako needs to be placed just so for the prompt to appear, causing a handful of unnecessary deaths.

With any horror game, the big question always comes down to whether or not it is scary.

Silent Hill f is terrifying.

Yes, I jumped more than once when a monster pounced on me from a hidden corner, but that is more akin to surprise than true fear. Fear is what I felt in the scenes that turned the metaphorical act of Hinako sacrificing who she was to conform to others into literal acts. That’s the kind of fear that sticks with me — not any monster that can be killed, or even a curse that can be cleansed, but the unfathomable monster that is society. The monster that we are, but pretend we aren’t. Even though Silent Hill f misses the mark with things like the offering system and unnecessary sanity meter, every other component eventually comes together to make something unmistakably Silent Hill.

Silent Hill f was tested on PS5.