During Sony’s February 2026 State of Play, the full reveal of Silent Hill: Townfall was a standout moment. The trailer showed off a ton of new details, from the game’s setting to its camera perspective to its protagonist. It also revealed a 2026 release date, which means we’ll get our hands on it before too long, making this the third year in a row with a major Silent Hill release. Is Konami’s flagship horror franchise back? Yeah, we’re thinking it’s back.
The Entire Silent Hill Timeline, Explained
Silent Hill is home to many strange occurrences and tragedies. This timeline highlights every important event that’s happened in the sinister town.
Following the State of Play was a Silent Hill Transmission on YouTube, which featured even more detail about the upcoming game, provided by the game’s director, Jon McKellan, and lead designer, Greame McKellan. We went from knowing next to nothing about Silent Hill: Townfall to having a bunch of things we’re excited about. Those exciting new details are outlined below, and hopefully, they get you more excited about this upcoming horror game as well.
First-Person Perspective
We’ve Come Full Circle
Way back in 2014, a sneaky little demo was revealed at E3. It was a first-person horror game set in a single, looping hallway, but every time you passed through the loop, small details would change. Sometimes there would be writing on the wall, or a photograph would be scratched out, or a ghost would be watching you from the upstairs landing. That demo was called P.T., and was eventually revealed to be a “playable teaser” for a game called Silent Hills, directed by Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro. Then, after Kojima’s heated departure from Konami, Silent Hills was canceled.
Now, 12 years later, we know that Silent Hill: Townfall will be a first-person horror game. While it’s not technically the first Silent Hill game to use this perspective, as Silent Hill: The Short Message was also a first-person game and Silent Hill 4: The Room had first-person segments, it is the first major series entry to use the perspective exclusively. It’s also the first Silent Hill game to feature first-person combat, as The Short Message is more of a horror walking sim. As Resident Evil has proven of late, first-person horror can be extremely effective and extremely scary with its limited frame of vision and more in-your-face horror. It’s an exciting change for the franchise, one that immediately shakes things up in refreshing ways.
St. Amelia, Scotland, 1996
Another New And Interesting Setting
Ever since Silent Hills’ cancellation, every new Silent Hill game (i.e., not a remake) has been set in a new location and not the franchise’s eponymous town. The Short Message was set in Kettenstadt, Germany; Ascension was set in both Hope Junction, Pennsylvania, and Norway; and Silent Hill f was set in Ebisugaoka, Japan, in the 1960s. Now, Silent Hill: Townfall is making the jump to a coastal town called St. Amelia, and the devs have confirmed that the town is located in Scotland in 1996.
Fit the 9 games into the grid.
That tracks, as Townfall’s developer, Screen Burn, is a Scotland-based studio. That’s exciting in itself, because it means the team behind the game has a personal connection to its setting, and the setting is always a major player in every Silent Hill game. This goes double for Townfall’s director, Jon McKellan, and lead designer Graeme McKellan, sibling creatives who are basing the in-game town of St. Amelia on their hometown. The Scottish setting also evokes memories of Still Wakes the Deep, another excellent first-person horror game set on a Scottish oil rig in the North Sea.
The CRTV
Radio Static, Now In Color
The standout feature of Silent Hill: Townfall’s February State of Play trailer was the CRTV. It’s a kind of portable television inspired by the old CRT televisions of the 1990s and early 2000s. CRT stands for Cathode Ray Tube, a sort of electronic vacuum tube that used electron beams to display images on a TV screen. These TVs were replaced wholesale by LED screens in the mid-2000s, which helps situate Townfall in its 1996 era.
The CRTV is Townfall’s take on the Silent Hill radio. This quintessential item appears early on in every Silent Hill game and typically serves to warn you about nearby enemies by emitting static. The CRTV has that element to it, but its usability has been expanded, which is what makes it so exciting. The CRTV’s screen will display nearby enemies (albeit not very clearly), even if you’re looking at them through cover or from behind a wall. Stealth seems to be a prominent component of Townfall’s gameplay, so the CRTV will likely be invaluable in that regard. It also seems like Simon is communicating with someone through the CRTV. Either that, or he’s picking up old videos of himself conversing with an unknown woman. Reenactments of past traumas picked up on the airwaves are also a common event in Silent Hill games.
Themes Of Hospitalization And/Or Illness
This Is Going To Be Very Uncomfortable
Every Silent Hill game has a traumatic theme at its core. The first game is about family dysfunction and child abuse. Silent Hill 2 is about grief and guilt. Silent Hill f is about misogyny and abusive/arranged marriages. Silent Hill: The Short Message is about online abuse and suicide. These themes are reflected primarily in the narrative, but also frequently in the monsters that stalk each game’s protagonist. In Silent Hill: Townfall, one of those themes has something to do with medical treatments, hospitals, and illness.
Silent Hill Protagonist Tier List
The Silent Hill franchise has had many player characters across over two decades of releases, with some of them proving far more iconic than others.
Simon Ordell, the protagonist, has a hospital admission bracelet on his wrist, one that shows his birthday and blood type. That second detail is key, as it means that he’s a patient, not a visitor. On his other hand, Simon still has an IV tube in his vein, taped in place with an only slightly bloody adhesive. Then, the first enemy we see in the trailer is a wrinkled figure sitting on a hospital bed. As we watch, the figure reaches into its chest, and an IV tube emerges, snaking through the air with a mind of its own. All of this theming is new territory for the Silent Hill franchise, and it raises a bunch of exciting questions. Is Simon sick, or did he hurt himself? Did he escape from the hospital? Does his trauma center on an event in a hospital? All of this is a gold mine for a Silent Hill story to explore.
Melee And Gun Combat
No Walking Simulators Here
As mentioned earlier, Silent Hill: Townfall is the first Silent Hill game to feature first-person combat, as every other first-person game in the series was a horror walking sim. Townfall will feature firearms, as Simon is shown opening a box containing a revolver (along with a grand total of four loose bullets; how survival horror is that?) and later using it to shoot a monster in a foggy alley.
However, there’s also a sequence where Simon is holding a wooden beam, maybe a fence post, and using it to first block an enemy’s attack and then hammer away at it until the creature goes down. First-person melee combat is a tricky nut to crack — just ask the numerous first-person action games that have struggled with it. Screen Burn is taking a big swing here with these combat mechanics combined with the first-person perspective, but the potential that they could pull it off is very enticing.
Simon Ordell
There’s Something Off About This Guy
Simon Ordell was revealed as the protagonist of Silent Hill: Townfall in the game’s February State of Play. He makes an interesting first impression. He’s a bit meek, and there’s something in his past that he’s trying to change. It doesn’t sound like he’s having much success in that endeavor. The trailer begins with Simon saying, “I woke up in the water again, but this time it was different.” The keyword there is “again.” For some reason, Simon keeps waking up in the water around St. Amelia, but this time, when he woke up, the town had changed. It’s a great setup for some classic Silent Hill trickery: is what’s happening real, or is it all in Simon’s head?
However, there’s just something about Simon that also seems off. For one, this game is set in Scotland, and yet Simon shows no trace of a Scottish accent. That’s not unheard of, but if he’s not a local, why is Simon in this small Scottish town, especially if he’s unwell? What is his connection to St. Amelia? Then there’s the conversation he has with the unnamed woman in the trailer, who tells him, “You did what you did.” What did Simon do, and what guilt is he carrying? Why is he so desperate to undo his past actions, and how far is he willing to go to make that happen?
The Otherworld
A Series Staple Returns
Silent Hill games exist in two realities. There are the (mostly) abandoned towns, shrouded in fog and hiding secrets and monsters at every turn, and then there’s the Otherworld, a twisted, sick version of the same town, often where the real terror lurks. These Otherworld sections are the rusty barbed wire versions of each game’s main areas, but every take on the Otherworld has its own spin. For example, the Otherworld in Silent Hill f is themed after a dark Japanese temple, with Torii gates and Inari shrines aplenty, which suits its rural Japanese setting.
Silent Hill 2 Remake: Otherworld Sections, Ranked
The Otherworld is a key aspect of the Silent Hill Games. Silent Hill 2 Remake did a great job, but some areas shine more than others.
While the true nature of Silent Hill: Townfall’s Otherworld has not been fully revealed, several moments in the latest State of Play trailer confirm its presence. The first indication is when Simon touches his IV bandage: the world goes dark, and an ominous red light illuminates Simon’s hand. That red light is a persistent motif seen in several other instances, including a long, narrow hallway with grated flooring, and the scene where Simon shoots a monster. Then there’s the shot of a monster in a hospital bed. It’s not immediately obvious, but this scene probably takes place in the Otherworld as well. For one, the color palette is completely different, going from the blue-gray of the trailer’s early moments to a sickly brownish yellow. The garden outside the creature’s hospital room is overgrown, with a wheelbarrow chained up in the background, all seen through filthy windows. We can’t say for sure that these scenes take place in the Otherworld, but the stark change in aesthetic during those moments suggests as much.
Screen Burn
A Relatively Unknown Dev Team With Some Quality In Their Library
Screen Burn, the studio developing Silent Hill: Townfall, is a relatively unknown developer, but this team has a history with horror games, and good ones at that. Their best-known release is a game called Observation, which was made back when the studio was still called No Code. It’s a sci-fi horror game where you play as a space station AI that is trying to solve the mystery behind the disappearance of the station’s crew. It’s sort of like an inverted Five Nights at Freddy’s, where you move between cameras and automated drones to explore the station, solve puzzles, and try to rescue any crew members you find. It’s a one-of-a-kind horror game that was well-liked among those who played it but didn’t get as much attention as it deserved.
Then there’s Stories Untold, a horror adventure game split up into four standalone episodes. Most of the game involves interacting with a computer, either in a text-based game or by switching between a pair of screens. However, later in the game, there is some first-person exploration as well. Neither of these games were massive hits or anything, but those who’ve played them know that this studio has displayed a consistent degree of quality and creativity in their work. It’s also worth noting that Screen Burn has never tackled combat systems before, but based on the latest Townfall trailer, we’re optimistic that they’re going to pull it off.
- Released
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2026
- Developer(s)
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No Code
