The Most Exciting Things Confirmed For Silent Hill: Townfall

The February 2026 Sony State of Play event gave us a complete look at Silent Hill: Townfall, and it was a highlight. The trailer showed off a lot of new information about the game, including where it takes place, how it’s played, and who you’ll be playing as. It also announced a 2026 release date, meaning we won’t have to wait much longer to play. This will be the third year in a row with a significant Silent Hill game release. It seems Konami’s popular horror series is truly making a comeback.

After the initial announcement, a detailed video was released on YouTube about the upcoming Silent Hill: Townfall. The game’s director, Jon McKellan, and lead designer, Greame McKellan, shared a lot of new information. We’ve gone from knowing almost nothing about the game to being genuinely excited about it, and you can find all the details below. Hopefully, this will get you hyped for the new horror game too!

First-Person Perspective

We’ve Come Full Circle

Back in 2014, a short, creepy demo appeared at the E3 gaming convention. It was a first-person horror game that took place in a hallway that constantly repeated, but with subtle changes each time you went through it—like new writing appearing on the walls, pictures being defaced, or a ghostly figure watching you. This demo, called P.T., turned out to be a preview for a game called Silent Hills, which was being directed by Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro. Unfortunately, after Kojima left Konami under difficult circumstances, Silent Hills was canceled.

After 12 years, we finally know that Silent Hill: Townfall will be a horror game played from the first-person perspective. While previous Silent Hill games like The Short Message and parts of Silent Hill 4: The Room experimented with this view, Townfall will be the first major installment to use it throughout the entire game. It will also be the first to feature combat experienced through the character’s eyes. Considering the success of recent Resident Evil games, this change could make Silent Hill incredibly immersive and frightening, as the limited view heightens the sense of horror. This is a welcome and invigorating new direction for the series.

St. Amelia, Scotland, 1996

Another New And Interesting Setting

Image via Konami, Annapurna Interactive, Screen Burn

Following the cancellation of Silent Hills, recent Silent Hill games (excluding remakes) haven’t taken place in the iconic town of Silent Hill itself. Instead, each new installment has featured a different setting: The Short Message was set in Germany, Ascension spanned Pennsylvania and Norway, and Silent Hill f was located in 1960s Japan. The latest game, Silent Hill: Townfall, continues this trend, taking players to the coastal town of St. Amelia in Scotland, in 1996.

Fit the 9 games into the grid.

Criteria Grid Pick a tile to place a game.

Time: 00:00

Results

—

More Games

Pick a game

Choose 1 of 9

It makes sense that Townfall feels so authentic, considering its developer, Screen Burn, is based in Scotland. This is great because the team clearly has a strong personal connection to the game’s setting, which is always a key element in Silent Hill games. This connection is even stronger with Townfall’s director and lead designer, brothers Jon and Graeme McKellan, who are building the in-game town of St. Amelia on their own hometown. The Scottish location also brings to mind Still Wakes the Deep, another fantastic first-person horror game set in Scotland, this time on an oil rig.

The CRTV

Radio Static, Now In Color

One of the most noticeable details in the February State of Play trailer for Silent Hill: Townfall was a portable TV called the CRTV. This device is modeled after the older, boxy TVs from the 1990s and early 2000s, which used cathode ray tube (CRT) technology to display pictures. CRTs, which used electron beams, were largely replaced by LED screens around the mid-2000s, helping to establish the game’s setting in 1996.

The CRTV in Townfall is similar to the radio in Silent Hill. Like those radios, it uses static to alert you to nearby enemies. However, the CRTV does more than just warn you – it actually shows blurry images of enemies on its screen, even if they’re hidden behind walls or objects. Since stealth appears to be a key part of Townfall, the CRTV will likely be a very useful tool. There’s also a mystery surrounding the CRTV: Simon seems to be communicating with someone through it, or perhaps watching old recordings of himself talking to an unidentified woman. This echoes the way Silent Hill games use radio waves to replay past events and traumas.

Themes Of Hospitalization And/Or Illness

This Is Going To Be Very Uncomfortable

All Silent Hill games explore deeply disturbing topics. The original focuses on troubled families and abuse, while Silent Hill 2 deals with grief and guilt. Silent Hill f tackles misogyny and forced marriages, and Silent Hill: The Short Message addresses online harassment and suicide. These themes aren’t just in the stories; they’re also represented by the frightening creatures players encounter. Silent Hill: Townfall appears to center on issues related to healthcare, hospitals, and sickness.

The protagonist, Simon Ordell, is wearing a hospital bracelet that displays his birthday and blood type – a clear sign he’s a patient, not just visiting. He still has an IV line connected to his arm. Interestingly, the first enemy shown in the trailer is a patient in a hospital bed who pulls an IV tube from their own chest, and it moves independently. This hospital setting is a new direction for the Silent Hill series and creates a lot of intriguing possibilities. Is Simon ill, injured, or escaping from the hospital? Does the story’s central trauma involve a hospital event? These questions offer rich material for a compelling Silent Hill narrative.

Melee And Gun Combat

No Walking Simulators Here

As we discussed before, Silent Hill: Townfall is the first game in the Silent Hill series to include fighting from a first-person perspective. Previous first-person Silent Hill games focused on exploration and atmosphere. Townfall introduces guns, with the main character, Simon, finding a revolver and only four bullets – a classic survival horror touch! We see him use the gun to fight a monster in a foggy alley.

The game also features a unique combat sequence where Simon uses a wooden beam – possibly a fence post – to both defend against and attack enemies. Getting close-quarters combat right in a first-person game is notoriously difficult, as many action games have proven. Screen Burn is taking a bold approach with its combat system and first-person view, and if they succeed, it could be really impressive.

Simon Ordell

There’s Something Off About This Guy

During February’s State of Play, Simon Ordell was introduced as the main character of Silent Hill: Townfall. He immediately comes across as a quiet and somewhat hesitant person, haunted by a past he’s struggling to overcome – with little apparent progress. The game’s trailer opens with Simon saying, “I woke up in the water again, but this time it was different.” The word “again” is key: Simon repeatedly finds himself waking up in the water near St. Amelia, but this time, the town itself has changed. This sets the stage for the classic Silent Hill style of psychological horror – leaving players to question whether what’s happening is real or a product of Simon’s mind.

Something about Simon doesn’t quite add up. Despite the game taking place in Scotland, he doesn’t have a Scottish accent, which is unusual. If he’s not from around here, it’s strange he’d be in this small town, especially considering he’s not feeling well. What’s his connection to St. Amelia? And what did he do to warrant the mysterious woman in the trailer telling him, “You did what you did”? It’s clear he’s burdened by guilt and desperate to change something from his past – but what exactly, and how far will he go to fix it?

The Otherworld

A Series Staple Returns

The Silent Hill games take place across two distinct realities. There are the towns themselves – largely deserted, covered in fog, and filled with hidden dangers – and then there’s the Otherworld, a disturbing and warped reflection of those same locations, often where the most frightening experiences happen. These Otherworld areas are typically grim, industrial versions of the towns you explore, but each game puts its own unique spin on them. A good example is Silent Hill f, where the Otherworld is designed like a dark Japanese temple, complete with traditional Torii gates and Inari shrines, fitting the game’s setting in rural Japan.

Although we don’t yet know exactly what the Otherworld in Silent Hill: Townfall will be like, the recent State of Play trailer gives us several clues that it’s present in the game. For example, when Simon touches his IV bandage, the screen goes dark and a creepy red light shines on his hand – this same red light appears repeatedly throughout the trailer, including in a long hallway and during a fight with a monster. There’s also a shot of a monster lying in a hospital bed, which likely takes place in the Otherworld. The colors shift dramatically in this scene, changing from the cool blue-gray of earlier parts of the trailer to a disturbing brownish-yellow. The garden outside is overgrown and neglected, with a chained wheelbarrow visible through dirty windows. While it’s not confirmed, the noticeable change in visual style strongly suggests these scenes are happening in the Otherworld.

Screen Burn

A Relatively Unknown Dev Team With Some Quality In Their Library

Screen Burn, the studio behind the upcoming Silent Hill: Townfall, is a smaller developer, but the team has a strong background in creating quality horror games. They’re best known for Observation, a game they made under the name No Code. Observation is a sci-fi horror title where you play as the AI of a space station, investigating the disappearance of the crew. It’s similar to Five Nights at Freddy’s, but with a twist – you navigate the station using cameras and drones to solve puzzles and find survivors. While it was a unique and well-received horror game, it didn’t achieve widespread popularity.

Another interesting game is Stories Untold, a horror adventure divided into four separate episodes. You’ll spend most of your time interacting with a computer – either through text-based games or by managing multiple screens. Later on, you’ll also get to explore environments in first-person. While neither of these games were blockbuster successes, players consistently praise the studio’s quality and imaginative approach. It’s also notable that Screen Burn hasn’t created games with combat before, but the recent Townfall trailer suggests they’re on the right track to deliver a compelling system.

2026-02-14 18:37