Konami’s Silent Hill franchise is the cream of the crop when psychological horror is on the menu. Decades after its 1999 debut on the PS1, the series and its chronology haven’t stopped intriguing (and scaring) players, especially with the release of Silent Hill f.
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The oppressive fog has never been thicker, making now the perfect time to dissect the franchise's twisted and hopelessly ambiguous timeline. It’s a trek through abandoned hospitals and mist-shrouded streets, and it definitely isn’t a place that players will forget any time soon if history is anything to go by.
Making Sense Of The Silent Hill Timeline
The following timeline is based on official Konami sources and developer statements. Konami uses a relative timeline, with Silent Hill: Origins designated as "Year Zero." All other games are positioned relative to Origins, creating a flexible chronology that's not based on hard-and-fast dates. It's also worth noting that Silent Hill: Shattered Memories won't be included since that game is separate from the mainline continuity.
Warning! Spoilers Ahead!
Prehistory
The Founding Of Silent Hill
Before the mist made it a driving hazard, the region surrounding Toluca Lake was occupied by Native American tribes, notably the Toluca. The sacred land was believed to be a nexus of supernatural energy where the barrier between worlds was thin, and ritualistic practices flourished as a result.
Things took a grim turn in the 17th century. European settlers founded the town that would become Silent Hill, forcibly displacing or massacring the indigenous population in the process. With the town’s establishment came the never-ending unrest - countless deaths and the gradual rise of the Order, a cult that blended native beliefs with its own esoteric dogma.
Silent Hill f
1960s Japan
Silent Hill f
- Released
- September 25, 2025
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Partial Nudity
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror, Action
Silent Hill f rewinds the clock to 1960s rural Japan, far from the hazy environs of Toluca Lake. A series of bizarre deaths plagues the small village of Ebisugaoka. Hallucinatory nightmares and grotesque mutations are just the tip of the weirdness iceberg. Local children are at the epicenter, with rumors of ritual sacrifice, possession, and curses.
While direct connections to the mainline Silent Hill are subtle, thematic throughlines are evident: trauma, cultism, etc. The village is a new setting for these familiar themes, and it illustrates how Silent Hill's psychological terror is just as effective in Japan as it is in America.
Silent Hill: Origins
Year Zero
Silent Hill: Origins
- Released
- November 6, 2007
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
By the late 20th century, Silent Hill is firmly in the Order’s grip. This secretive cult, blending Christian iconography with occultism, is obsessed with summoning a god they believe will purge the world’s sins. Their project requires a child of immense psychic power to get the ball rolling. This child is Alessa Gillespie, whose mother, cult priestess Dahlia, subjects her to years of abuse and ultimately an immolation meant to activate Alessa’s abilities.
This event forms the backbone of Silent Hill: Origins, in which trucker Travis Grady gets mixed up in the aftermath. The Order’s failed experiment fractures Alessa’s soul, unintentionally creating a psychic doppelganger ("Cheryl") and trapping Alessa in a liminal state of agony. With the ritual incomplete, both the cult and Alessa’s own subconscious begin to bleed into the town’s fabric, laying the groundwork for the subsequent horror that fans have grown to love…and fear.
Silent Hill 1
7 Years After Origins
Silent Hill
- Released
- January 31, 1999
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ Due To Animated Blood and Gore, Animated Violence
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
Seven years after the failed ritual, a now-adopted Cheryl Mason returns to Silent Hill with her father, Harry. The Order takes the opportunity to finish what it started by kidnapping Cheryl in the hopes of reuniting her with Alessa and finally birthing their god. Harry’s search through the increasingly nightmarish town forms the premise of Silent Hill 1, while cult members are picked off one by one.
The finale sees Alessa, Cheryl, and their monstrous "god" form colliding with Harry in an intense battle, ultimately ending with the cult’s defeat and the apparent destruction of their deity in the canonical ending. Cheryl/Alessa is then reborn as an infant ("Heather"), delivered to Harry as an act of gratitude.
Silent Hill 2
1980s
Silent Hill 2
- Released
- September 25, 2001
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Violence
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
According to Masahiro Ito, Silent Hill 2 takes place "in the 1980s," approximately 18-21 years after the events of Silent Hill: Origins. James Sunderland receives a letter from his deceased wife, Mary, luring him to the town where they once vacationed. What players discover is that the letter is a manifestation of James's guilt, as he had actually killed Mary only days or weeks before the game's events, not "several years" as his traumatized mind believes. As James explores Silent Hill’s shifting landscape, he meets other lost souls - Angela, Eddie, and Maria - battling their own traumas. The monsters that stalk James famously mimic his psychological torment.
The Order and its rituals are largely absent; the town functions instead as a purgatory, manifesting punishment based on a person’s inner turmoil. The multiple endings drive home the subjectivity of Silent Hill’s reality. James may be damned, redeemed, or caught in endless repetition. What’s certain is that Silent Hill’s curse has evolved: it now reaches out to any who bear a sufficiency of regret, sorrow, or self-loathing.
Silent Hill 3
24 Years After Origins
Silent Hill 3
- Released
- August 6, 2003
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood and Gore, Violence
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
Seventeen years after Cheryl/Alessa’s rebirth in the original game, the Order locates her again, now a teenager named Heather Mason. The cult’s remnants are hellbent on resurrecting their failed god, targeting Heather as the vessel. After Harry is murdered, Heather returns to Silent Hill. She eventually confronts the cult’s new high priestess, Claudia Wolf, and upon Vincent's advice, swallows a capsule of Aglaophotis given to her by her father. This substance causes her to vomit out the fetal god, expelling it from her body before it can be born. She then confronts and destroys this premature, imperfect deity.
Heather destroys the entity and breaks the Order’s power once and for all. Silent Hill 3 closes the loop on Alessa’s tragic story while reinforcing the themes of trauma and spiritual self-determination. With the Order finally shattered, the town’s curse persists, but this story thread, at least, comes to a definitive end.
Silent Hill 4: The Room
Middle Period
Silent Hill 4: The Room
- Released
- September 7, 2004
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- m
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
While the Order’s main branch is destroyed, "receptive" individuals continue to exploit the supernatural energies of Silent Hill. The most infamous is Walter Sullivan, an orphan indoctrinated by the Order’s Valtiel sect. Walter had committed his first set of ten murders and ritual suicide during the 1980s (contemporary with Silent Hill 2). Convinced he can reunite with his "mother" - Room 302 of South Ashfield Heights - Walter enacts the 21 Sacraments, which involves committing plenty of gruesome murders.
Henry Townshend, who moved into the apartment several years prior, becomes ensnared when his apartment transforms into a prison/portal to the game’s underworld sometime in the early 2000s. Silent Hill 4 deviates from the formula by focusing on urban, apartment-based horror, but its mythos is intertwined with the events and entities of the earlier games.
Silent Hill: Homecoming
Later Period
Silent Hill: Homecoming
- Released
- September 30, 2008
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language, Sexual Themes
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
In the years following the original trilogy, the reach of Silent Hill’s curse extends to nearby communities. The town of Shepherd’s Glen was founded by four families who made a secret pact with the Order: in exchange for peace, each family would regularly sacrifice one of their own. Over the centuries, the tradition becomes institutionalized, but eventually the covenant is broken.
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Alex Shepherd, a veteran, returns home to find his brother missing and the entire town slipping into madness, uncovering generations of willful ignorance in the process. Old spirits and the abominations of Silent Hill exact retribution, annihilating Shepherd’s Glen and its founding families.
Silent Hill: Downpour & The Short Message
Contemporary Period
-
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Silent Hill: Downpour
Display card tags widget Display card system widgetDisplay card community and brand rating widgetSystems
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7 /10Display card main info widget end Display card media widget start Display card media widget end- Released
- March 13, 2012
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language
- Developer(s)
- Vatra Games
- Publisher(s)
- Konami
- Franchise
- Silent Hill
- Genre(s)
- Survival Horror
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Silent Hill: The Short Message
Display card tags widget Display card system widgetDisplay card community and brand rating widget Display card open critics widget Display card main info widgetDisplay card main info widget end Display card media widget start Display card media widget end- Released
- January 31, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
DIGITAL
Silent Hill: Downpour takes place in contemporary times (speculated to be the early 2010s), though some suggest it takes place earlier. Prisoner Murphy Pendleton escapes custody when his transport crashes outside the titular town. Similar to James Sunderland, Murphy’s journey is one of psychological self-discovery; the town warps itself to reflect Murphy’s ambiguous morality and inner demons.
Downpour added new things to the lore, including an Otherworld Corrections Officer who punishes the damned. The cult is gone, replaced by the town’s autonomous hunger for retribution. Murphy’s fate, like everyone who enters Silent Hill, is uncertain, but the cycle endures. The town remains an engine for purging, punishing, and (sometimes) redeeming those who wander into it.
The Short Message, which also features a contemporary setting, tackles the alienation emblematic of city life and isolation in the digital age. Anita, a teenage girl, is drawn to a condemned apartment block by a cryptic text message. The familiar staples of the franchise are all present, yet they're juxtaposed with smartphone screens, social feeds, and the gnawing feeling that someone, or something, is watching.
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