SILENT HILL f is all kinds of f’ed up. Set in 1960s Japan, you are Himiko, a high school student whose town is besieged by ancient, evil fog. Through nearly 15 hours and multiple playthroughs, you will fight, cry, scream, and smash your way through disgusting creatures as you try to save your family and friends. It never goes where you think; the story is dark as hell, and I loved it.
Hinako lives in the town of Ebisugaoka, Japan, during the 1960s. As the game begins, your hometown is abandoned except for yourself, three of your closest friends, and a bevy of terrifying monsters. A thick fog begins to descend as a disgusting, malevolent growth begins to spread corruption everywhere it touches.
SILENT HILL f deals with heavy subjects like mental, physical, and drug abuse. You will bounce between dreams and reality, as the two become intertwined with deep roots in Japanese lore. Many questions have been asked about the f in the game’s title. Musical connections like forte, the various fox statues placed around the city, or even f for FIVE. This is the first game in the series developed by a Japanese studio since the fourth entry in the series.
To find out what it means, you’ll need to play through Himiko’s journey multiple times. The game has alternate endings and handles New Game + well. It limits the amount of retreading various story beats, adding in extra context, and takes the game from a fun but strange experience to one that ended up unforgettable.
It’s so good, but I can’t fully say why!
SILENT HILL f is a tough game to talk about without spoilers. We were allowed to capture footage for video reviews up to roughly 5 hours of playtime (for me). I rolled credits the first time 8 hours in and 13 hours in the second. Those last 8 combined hours were wild, and I cannot wait to hear about people experiencing them after launch.
This is a melee-only game, with no real ranged attacks to speak of. Himiko will come across metal pipes, baseball bats, and more (oh, is there MOAR) as she struggles to survive. They can break, which is a pain in the butt. You will find toolkits to repair them on occasion. Also, some areas of the game let you stop worrying about weapons breaking, which is a nice change of pace.
A lot was said before launch about this being a Soulslike; it is not. While there is lock-on combat focused on dodging and “parrying”, it has little else in common with From Software’s revered genre-defining titles. You will use the right bumper for quick attacks and the right trigger for charged heavies. B is your dodge button, with perfectly timed dodges giving a satisfying slow-motion effect.
Himiko can parry, though not in the normal way. Certain enemy attacks cause them to Chromatic Aberration out for a split-second. Hitting the right trigger at this time leads to massive damage and full stamina recovery.
By holding the left trigger, Himiko can sacrifice her sanity meter to build up a powerful attack or have a far longer parry window. Sanity is affected by demoralizing roar attacks from enemies, which will cause health loss if the former is fully depleted.
Combat in SILENT HILL f feels almost great. Hits have a major impact to them. It is rare for it to feel cheap or overly long. That is, if you play on Story Mode difficulty the first time through, which the game recommends. I took them up on their offer as I only had a few days to do this entire review on PC (Xbox code is not available until launch, again).
Puzzles were kept at hard difficulty, again following the game’s directions. I tried out a second save with Story Mode puzzles, and oh boy, were they dumbed down. Overall, the balance felt a tad on the easy side in Story Mode and legitimately frustrating on Hard. You unlock an even harder “lost in the fog” difficulty after beating the game, and that is straight-up BS.
To help Himiko survive all of her puzzles and fights, there is a bevy of consumables. Inventory space is limited, especially during the first playthrough, unless you properly scavenge around. Chocolate can restore Sanity, Red Pills give you that and HP, & so on. There’s a lot of inventory juggling early on. As long as you explore off the beaten paths, you will gain slots slowly but surely.
The gameplay is good, if not great, for the genre. This is a creepy, scary, survival horror title. Himiko is tough for her age and size, but the foes around her are horrific monstrosities, wielding various blades, puking up toxic bile, and being all-around gross as hell. She can only reasonably do so much.
This terrifying unease permeates throughout every part of the title. An excellent soundtrack elevates every moment, via both bombast and subtlety. The voice acting was excellent in Japanese, so much so that despite the English one seeming decent enough, I ended up sticking with subs and not dubs.
SILENT HILL f runs in Unreal Engine 5 and looks fantastic, on PC at least. I have no clue how this will look or run on consoles, as unfortunately, this is the fourth of five reviews in a row, all on Steam. The game is Play Anywhere on Xbox, which means you get it on PC and Console with a single $70 purchase. Performance is helped by just how much damned fog there is.
After averaging around 100 FPS early on, before the fog rolled in, I hit a locked 120 the rest of the game with only the occasional hiccup. SILENT HILL f is essentially two large maps, the city and the dream state you enter. It isn’t a large open world title with incredible draw distances, and UE5 didn’t have its typical struggles. The atmosphere and story were made better by solid art design and excellent texture work on the character models.
Again, it’s really hard to explain why this game is so good without spoiling some incredible reveals. Himiko’s journey is fraught with heavy subject matter and twists I did not expect. It can be difficult to watch at times, with gore both shown and implied. f enjoys playing with perspectives and impossible choices.
At times, I felt helpless, angry that I couldn’t choose a different path, only to find out that I could, eventually. I had to earn it, though; no binary dialogue options to choose from here. There is a leveling system tied to a currency, ‘faith’. Offerings can be made at the game’s checkpoints, giving you a currency you cannot lose on death.
With faith, you can upgrade your total health, sanity, stamina, and what are essentially ‘talisman’ slots. These equippable items give you passive benefits like health recovery on kill or a shorter focus attack charge-up time. While Himiko can wear different outfits if you spend some extra real-world money, they seemingly do not affect gameplay. They do show up in all cutscenes, though, as they are rendered in real-time, though at a locked 30 FPS (even on PC).
As far as bugs were concerned, I never ran into one. A few graphical pop-in occurrences were about it. Rare is the game I review that doesn’t have at least one thing break during it, requiring me to reload a save. It never happened here, though, which would be great if that can carry on to the console ports.
Wrapping Things Up
SILENT HILL f is a terrifying and terrific title. This harrowing tale of choice and consequence should thrill and properly disgust any fellow survival horror sicko.
SILENT HILL f
Played on
PC
PROS
- A chilling story
- Excellent use of New Game +
- Impactful Combat
- Excellent Audio
- (Spoiler) made me shout WTF multiple times
CONS
- Difficulty tuning can feel off occasionally (not often)
