Horror Obsessive
Simon Ordell’s most useful tool in Silent Hill: Townfall is not a gun, and it barely qualifies as a weapon. It is a handheld television that only shows you the truth once you physically aim it at the right building. That single mechanic says more about where Konami is steering this franchise than any marketing beat could: horror built from tools you work for, not readouts handed to you.
Townfall lands in the middle of the most interesting stretch this series has had in years. Bloober Team’s ground-up remake of Silent Hill 2 proved a legacy nightmare could survive a full rebuild, and NeoBards built an original story with Silent Hill f that still felt unmistakably like the series. Not every swing has connected: The Short Message came and went quietly in 2024, and Christophe Gans’ Return to Silent Hill drew a mixed reception in theaters this January. Still, the pattern holds. Konami keeps handing the keys to outside studios with their own horror instincts, and Screen Burn, the Glasgow studio formerly known as No Code, might be the boldest bet yet.
A Device Built by Someone Who Understands Stalking
Director Jon McKellan spent years at Creative Assembly on Alien Isolation before co-founding the studio behind Townfall, and that background shows in how the game treats confrontation. Combat exists, but it is framed as a last resort: little more than a wooden plank against something that used to be a person. Stealth is the actual language of the game, and the CRTV is how you speak it. Per Screen Burn, the device lets Simon “see” through the environment to locate nearby threats while also picking up signals that reveal more of the story.
The smartest part of that design is what it removes. There is no scan button, no glowing outline snapping onto an enemy through a wall. You hold the CRTV up, you turn it, and you watch a small screen fill with static until it resolves into something you did not want to see. Making the player do the work of looking is a better source of dread than any jump scare, because it turns ordinary navigation into the moment horror can catch you off guard.
A Town That Keeps Its Secrets on Paper
Konami and Screen Burn set the game in the fictional coastal town of St. Amelia in 1996, where Simon returns after being summoned to “put things right,” with only an IV line and a hospital wristband to explain how he got there. A nurse named Zoe Ellis reaches him through the CRTV, and the investigation leans on old-fashioned methods: reading notes left behind, digging through drawers, and piecing together files off a DOS-era computer. Instead of a hint system, Simon gets thought bubbles that nudge without spelling anything out.
“Not only is it a useful tool in encounters, allowing Simon to ‘see’ through the environment and locate nearby threats, but it also picks up signals from around the town that unveil more of the story,” Jon McKellan said of the CRTV.
That restraint is a lesson Townfall shares with Silent Hill f and the Silent Hill 2 remake: a mystery lands harder when the game trusts the player to sit with static and fog instead of explaining itself. Konami has set Townfall to launch September 24 on PlayStation 5 and PC, and if the CRTV holds up across a full campaign, this could be the Silent Hill revival that finally sticks the landing on something other than nostalgia.
Quick Takes
- Silent Hill: Townfall launches September 24 on PlayStation 5 and PC.
- Screen Burn Interactive, formerly known as No Code, develops the game with Jon McKellan directing.
- The game centers on the CRTV, a handheld device players must manually tune to locate threats and story clues.
- Protagonist Simon Ordell investigates the fictional Scottish coastal town of St. Amelia in 1996 with help from nurse Zoe Ellis.
- McKellan previously worked on Alien Isolation at Creative Assembly before co-founding the studio behind Townfall.
