Silent Hill f goes back in time and back to basics

Silent Hill f starts off with a grounded (but still heavy) setup, establishing a miserable family dynamic for protagonist Hinako. With an alcoholic, abusive father, a submissive mother and an absent sister, who’s shown in flashbacks with that classic horror trope, face unseen. Something horrible is about to unfold in the sleepy, remote village of Ebisugaoka, sometime in the early 1960s.

The latest entry in the Silent Hill series still has jumpscares, like you’d expect from the horror series, but both the setting and game systems are more focused on tension, putting both Hinako and the player under constant duress. A typical health meter is joined by a sanity gauge and even your weapons have limited durability, so you’re forced to pick your fights.

During a two-hour demo, I had to do exactly that. As Hinako escapes her family home to find someone, anyone, to talk to, the village is eerily empty. A kei truck blocks the direct route to the local shop, with a crushed bird nearby adding to the weird. Soon, a sinister fog and red undergrowth attack four assembled high school students. 

Konami

Of course, it only gets weirder. As marionette nightmares pop up, all Hinako can do is run and evade attacks. A focus mode, pressing L1, burns the sanity gauge but gives better prompts for both dodging and eventually counter-attacking monsters.

Hinako is no soldier. She’s no battle-hardened survivor. When I eventually find a steel pipe to fight back with, even fast attacks are a little sluggish, while heavy swings, which can often stun and knock down enemies, take a while to charge up and can be hard to aim if you haven’t locked onto the enemy. If there’s more than one attacker, it’s a tense struggle and I’m often forced to burn through recovery items more so than when facing a sound and light-sensitive crawling beast, a fleshy-spherical ogre and other middleweight boss fights.

Fortunately, there are hokora, miniature Shinto shrines, dotted around the village, which act as save points. The eerie location of Ebisugaoka and when a friend continually calls Hinako a "traitor" further amplify the sense of dread. The older sister is briefly shown during a flashback, but her face is obscured. Even in the younger sister’s journal, the biog page for the sister is covered in scribbles and ink. It’s very Japanese Horror, and less shotgun-to-the-zombie-face. And just plain stressful.

A new sanity system is intriguing too. It's not an entirely new premise: the Gamecube's Eternal Darkness would manipulate the graphics and sound within the game as the character's sanity declined. But that was, depressingly, over 20 years ago. 

Some items can top up your sanity, but if you don’t use them, you can offer them at a shrine for an in-game currency and spend that on charms to boost Hinako’s stats. I managed to afford a stamina-boosting charm during my playthrough and was tantalizingly close to affording another charm before getting cut down by scarecrows dressed as high-schoolers.

The scarecrow confrontation is hopefully a good example of nuanced puzzles that will appear in the full game. Initially, a bloodied rag tells you to take the thorns out of the one scarecrow that isn’t part of the group – the one that isn’t going to cut you up with their sickle. Unfortunately, all of the scarecrows have a thorn, so you’re tasked with finding the pattern of his group.

Konami

The entire experience is drenched in atmosphere, supported by this new sanity system — is there anything more 2025 than a mental health gauge? The constant feeling of isolation ("Where is everyone?") and unanswered questions made the demo a persuasive introduction to the game. A particularly tense moment involves collapsing after a fight, further emphasizing the character's vulnerability. Also, there’s some kind of dashing fox spirit in a mask, who coaxes Hinako through the dreamlike, blood-soaked temple areas. The mysterious fox spirit knows her name, which adds yet another layer of intrigue. 

I hope all will be made clear when the game launches, roughly a month from now.

Silent Hill f launches on PlayStation 5, Windows and Xbox Series X/S on September 25 2025.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/silent-hill-f-preview-gamescom-2025-123030305.html?src=rss https://www.engadget.com/gaming/silent-hill-f-preview-gamescom-2025-123030305.html?src=rss