Much has been said about the recent Silent Hill Transmission showcase, but there is one thing that most viewers can agree on. Out of all the projects shown, Silent Hill f is the most novel of the efforts. Although this showcase essentially marked Silent Hill’s revival, several projects are focused on recapturing the fame of Silent Hill 2. Others like Silent Hill: Townfall and Silent Hill: Ascension have been described in vague terms that leave their final forms uncertain. Even though Silent Hill f just got a trailer with no release date, it still managed to put out something both different and concrete enough to hook a variety of fans.
Silent Hill is in dire need of this considering the state that Konami last left it in. Infamously, PT, the playable teaser for Silent Hills, was struck from the PlayStation Store when its corresponding project was canceled. The later announcement of a Silent Hill Pachinko machine was the nail in the coffin. Now, with both the Silent Hill Transmission and rumors of more Metal Gear and Castlevania in the future, it seems that Konami is returning to its old franchises. Silent Hill f hasn't proven itself to be as ambitious yet, but its differences from the norm definitely make it something to look out for.
Silent Hill May Have Been Too Focused On Keeping Silent Hill Around
Among fictional towns, few are harder to place on a real life map than the titular Silent Hill. Rumored to be somewhere in Maine, the foggy town is meant to be an American setting viewed through a Japanese lens. The intermingling of Western and Eastern tropes made Silent Hill what it was, both in terms of the town's attributes and the horrors that occurred in gameplay. There have been minor visits to areas near Silent Hill throughout the franchise, but the focus remains on a small, fictional town. Even PT took pains to make its looping home resemble an average middle class American household.
Silent Hill f intends to break away from this. Essentially, the new game will show what the town would look like if it was transposed into the Japanese countryside. A lot of buildings shown in this new town look fairly old, and the game has been said to take place in the 1960s. It's a shift from the norms followed by prior entries, but it could be just what the series needs. Like PT and some of the most innovative entries in Silent Hill before it, Silent Hill f seeks to recapture the magic of Silent Hill by escaping the rigid structure that has been built up within it.
New Scares and Stories Abound in Silent Hill f’s Setting
It's true that Silent Hill f may not feel like a Silent Hill game, instead resembling Fatal Frame or Team Silent's other horror series Siren. Taking Silent Hill out of the titular town is a risky move, but that's what the series needs. In the eyes of some fans, Silent Hill began to rot as early as its PS2 days. Almost every project after Silent Hill 4 was compared unfavorably to the original trilogy. Only the experimental Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and the lost PT rose above their peers.
Not only will Silent Hill f bring a fresh setting, but it will also bring new horrors as well. It looks like the game is fully embracing a traditional Japanese setting with monsters based around deadly red spider lilies rather than metaphor-ridden flesh beasts. It's too early to say what the full rogues’ gallery will look like, but it will definitely be slanted more towards Yokai in a spirit world than American horror movie monsters. Even the iconic SH otherworld may end up overtaken by plant matter instead of the traditional rust.
There's a ton of new and exciting things Silent Hill f could do with its setting, and its current status as a spin-off means it's free to try whatever it wants. Seeing Silent Hill branch out into other haunted small towns around the globe would be a great direction for the series to go in, especially now that Konami is spreading the license around. With the Silent Hill 2 remake holding down the Western front, the team of Ryukishi07, Kera, and NeoBards Entertainment should be able to cut loose in their new take on Silent Hill.
Silent Hill f is now in development.