Silent Hill f trades rust and decay for eerie natural beauty, set in the rural town of Ebisugaoka. Inspired by real-world Japan, its unsettling atmosphere stems from the contrast between idyllic scenery and creeping horror. Monsters, designed by artist Kera, echo Silent Hill 2’s disturbing style, while a haunting soundtrack by Akira Yamaoka and Kensuke Inage deepens the game’s eerie, dreamlike tone.
For the first time, Silent Hill f moves away from its traditional U.S. setting, trading small-town Americana for 1960s Japan. This shift marks a major change for the franchise, offering a fresh cultural and visual perspective that promises to make it the most unsettling and unique Silent Hill entry in years.
Why Japan And Why Now?
Though many of the previous games in the Silent Hill franchise have been turned out by Japanese studios, it’s still more than a little surprising to realise that Japanese publisher Konami has resisted the urge to fashion a series effort in its home isles until now. Partially borne from the idea that the series’ Western identity had become creatively stagnant, Silent Hill f’s shift to the sleepy rural town of Ebisugaoka also stems from a desire to embed the sort of Japanese identity into the game that other titles in the series have lacked. Given the folklore-inspired, spine-tingling horrors spawned forth by other horror titles which share a similar setting, such as Yomawari, Fatal Frame and Forbidden Siren games to name a few, the very idea of a legendary horror series like Silent Hill taking a run down this particular avenue is an extraordinarily compelling prospect, to say the least.
A New Horror Paradigm For The Series
When a franchise or series is relocated from one setting to another, such a change is much more than just geographical in nature. When that shift from one country to another is made, there are also changes in audiovisual aesthetics, the texture and fabric of local folklore, culture and other such aspects that can all be responsible for shaping that new experience and that is precisely the case with Silent Hill f.
It’s certainly worth noting that a big proponent of this change for lifting the series from its titular town to this much more rural Japanese locale was Ryukishi07. A popular visual novelist employed by Konami to pen the story for Silent Hill f, his visual novel Higurashi When They Cry, clearly shows that Ryukishi07 demonstrates a firm grasp of what makes Japanese supernatural horror work and based on everything we’ve seen already, his suitability for fleshing out the world of Silent Hill f appears to be readily assured.
It’s Still Silent Hill Through And Through
Even though Silent Hill f whisks the player off to a location thousands of miles away from the series’ typical North American stomping grounds, Silent Hill f nonetheless remains a Silent Hill game at its core.
Beyond the grotesque monstrosities and visual horror that have long defined the franchise, Silent Hill has always delved into the nature of trauma and how it takes shape both in the mind and in reality. In Silent Hill f, that trauma is realised through the lens of Shimizu Hinako, a disaffected teenager whose life is turned upside down when a mysterious fog seeps into Ebisugaoka and begins twisting and corrupting everything around her, forcing our protagonist to face the twisted remnants of her past.
From a game design perspective, Silent Hill f also rigidly follows the broad outline defined by the series more than a quarter of a century ago. That is to say that players can expect a familiar mix of third-person exploration, combat, puzzle-solving and the sort of white-knuckle frights mixed in with a feeling of rising dread that the series has long been known for. Except that this time, Silent Hill f presents players with an entirely new setting that freshens up the series to such an extent that it could very well prove quite difficult to head back to its titular location after the credits roll on Konami’s latest series entry.
