Over the course of its 26-year history, the Silent Hill series has built up a reputation for offering deep dives into the more psychological side of the survival horror genre and giving players complex stories and experiences that often resonate more deeply than those found in the genre’s action-focused contemporaries. This complexity, however, doesn’t mean the series is without formula. By and large, this formula generally consists of taking a tortured or doubting protagonist, placing them in the titular town covered with fog, and allowing the monsters of their mind (or cults) to envelop them to help them discover or face their transgressions. It’s a setup that’s worked time and time again for Konami, and it’s what gamers have come to expect from the beloved series.
And yet, I find that Silent Hill works best when it takes more risks with that established formula.
Take, for example, the premise of the fourth entry, Silent Hill 4: The Room. The game saw players take on the role of Henry Townshend, another “tortured or doubting protagonist” forced to confront their own internal distress. But while this part of the equation remained the same, gone was the titular town. Gone was the cult that played a large presence in the first and third entries. Gone was the series’ trademark fog.
