Silent Hill: Townfall starts incredibly strong but gets maddeningly tedious

Scotland is a place that’s near and dear to my heart. Because my maternal grandparents hail from the country, I’ve travelled there several times and the culture as a whole has been a part of my life here in Canada. While I unfortunately haven’t returned in many years, Silent Hill: Townfall made me feel like I’ve been transported there.

It’s hard to explain. There’s something uniquely special about the country, like a pervasive warm coziness that seeps through its old architecture and rural towns, and Glaswegian developer Screen Burn so vividly captures all of that in Townfall while twisting it on its head. Set in 1996 in the fictional coastal village of St. Amelia (based on the real St. Monans), Townfall follows an American named Simon Ordell (The Leftovers‘ Jovan Adepo) as he washes ashore with no memory, IVs attached to him, and visions of a nurse named Zoe.

Admittedly, the premise of a man pursuing a woman in a mysterious fog-filled town is very similar to the likes of Silent Hill 2, but developer Screen Burn moves beyond the familiar trauma metaphors to explore corporate malfeasance and Thatcherism, particularly with respect to its impact on the healthcare system. The town also gets drenched in an eerie, almost apocalyptic shade of red, which introduces strange metallic pipes that block previously accessible routes and even hint at cosmic horror elements. All of this gives Townfall a unique flavour within the Silent Hill pantheon, even as Simon himself can often be a decidedly muted character.

And the first few hours of the game are truly sublime. Through the series’ first-ever full first-person POV, all of St. Amelia’s little corner shops, pharmaceutical ads and charity boxes feel all the more tactile and lived-in. The sense of haunting atmosphere is palpable here; gone are the typically friendly Scots who would populate these places, a feeling of isolation that’s only enhanced by eerie lighting in the streets and Canadian Pilotpriest’s moody ambient score.

The only others here, naturally, are monsters, represented here in the form of Slender Man-esque creatures that shamble and wail along the streets. And in a refreshing change of pace from last year’s ridiculously action-focused Silent Hill f, Townfall emphasizes stealth, so your best course is to try to steer clear of these fiends. While Simon can use a small assortment of weapons that include wooden planks, steel pipes and a revolver, combat is deliberately sluggish and durability and ammo are markedly minimal to make each encounter feel harrowing.

Instead, you have to use a handheld CRTV to track the ever-changing locations of enemies and attempt to skirt around them with the help of throwable objects and other sources of noises to distract them. This creates a nail-biting sense of tension as you hear a radio crackle to denote a nearby enemy, especially when there are multiple in the vicinity, and you can only monitor one at a time. Sometimes, I’d find myself trying to crouch-walk away from one, only to be discovered by another, frantically running into a nearby convenience store and locking the door for momentary respite. Other instances make smart use of the 90s setting, like an apartment in which I had to print photos in an adjacent room using a slow dial-up computer while an enemy was nearby. Sequences where you don’t have access to the CRTV, naturally, are all the more distressing.

Unfortunately, Townfall ruins this incredibly measured sense of tone and pacing by later throwing in a new recurring enemy type known as The Weight. This hulking brute is practically invincible, can run extremely fast and kills you in one shot, making him feel painfully unfair. What’s more, he’s first introduced in a basement setting in which you have to methodically check one of many rooms for the necessary items to progress, which becomes tedious as he’s constantly hounding you and, sometimes, even blocks your path.

And because these areas are comparatively much more claustrophobic and dimly lit than the streets of St. Amelia, it’s not like you can even easily sneak around him. It often just felt like trial and error of attempting to search one room, dying to him, then repeating with subsequent rooms. This sense of frustration is compounded by the fact that The Weight actively counters the IV drip system, which lets you combine materials to revive yourself upon death. Sometimes, I’d come back to life, only for The Weight to suddenly circle back and kill me again.

If I’m being generous, it would seem like this was an attempt at a stalker-type enemy like Mr. X from Resident Evil, but The Weight is far too nimble, erratic and powerful to evoke the same kind of looming threat. Instead, it’s just overbearing and completely upends the compelling gameplay loop.

Ultimately, Silent Hill: Townfall is worth playing due to its immaculate sense of place and (often) tightly-crafted fear-inducing stealth sequences. Just know that there’s more than a wee bit of a tedious grind in between those highs.

Silent Hill: Townfall launches on PS5 and PC on Sept. 24.

Image credit: Konami