Last Updated on June 12, 2025 by Amber T
Back in 2022, developing giants Konami released an exciting update on their long-dormant Silent Hill series. Known as the Silent Hill Transmission, the live-streamed event enthralled fans of the survival horror game franchise which, to be frank, had long since fallen out of favor since its glory days of the mainline series of Silent Hill to Silent Hill 4: The Room. The Transmission confirmed new spin-offs, interactive media experiences, a movie sequel and, most excitingly, a new mainline game, the first since 2012‘s Silent Hill: Downpour.
With Silent Hill f right around the corner from its September 25 release date, we're breaking down everything we know about the newest entry into the iconic gaming franchise.
Development Insights
Silent Hill f has a veritable dream team behind it to ensure nightmare-inducing visuals and effectively creepy gameplay. Developing Silent Hill f is Taiwanese company NeoBards Entertainment (who have worked across the Resident Evil and Devil May Cry series), and producing the game is Motoi Okamoto, who has worked with Konami since 2019 and both directed and produced Silent Hill: The Short Message, as well as oversaw production on Bloober Team's Silent Hill 2 remake. Okamoto's handling of the project bodes exceedingly well, as Silent Hill 2 remake made short work of the doubters by becoming one of 2024's best-selling and most beloved games.
In June, Konami's Press Start event had further insights from Silent Hill f‘s developer diaries, with producer Motoi Okamoto explaining more on how Silent Hill f was developed as a way to bring the essence of Japanese horror back to a franchise that had become overtly Westernized, with NeoBards Game Director Al Wang commenting on returning to the series roots, and โโฆnot merely copy, but really understand what the key atmospheric elements that defined the classic Silent Hill titles were in order to evolve them for Silent Hill f.โ
Returning from the original Team Silent (who oversaw development on the first four Silent Hill games) is composer Akira Yamaoka, along with Kensuke Inage and previous Ryukishi07 collaborators Dai and Xaki. Silent Hill creature designer and art director Masahiro Ito has confirmed he has nothing to do with the project. Instead, delivering the visual frights of Silent Hill f is Japanese artist Kera (Spirit Hunter NG), who is handling creature and character design. Just one look at Kera's work and it's obvious that Silent Hill f will be a blend of the downright terrifying and utterly beautiful.
Handling the story of Silent Hill f is writer Ryukishi07, best known for his work on the visual novel series When They Cry, and previously teamed up with Konami for the 2009 visual novel ลkami Kakuushi. Ryukishi07's writing is known for its blend of sadness and horror, with an added dash of pitch-black humor, which could mean we're in for one of the most emotionally effective Silent Hill games since Silent Hill 2.
Art and Design in the Silent Hill f Trailers
The firstSilent Hill trailer was developed by Japanese VFX and animation company Shirogumi, specifically chosen by Okamoto due to Silent Hill f‘s distinctly Japanese setting. In an interview with CG World, Okamoto comments:
“We decided to create a teaser video from the early stages of game development. Since the game is set in Japan, we wanted to ask a Japanese CG production company to create it, and we approached Shirogumi, who had worked with us on Konami's previous work, as we thought they would be the most suitable.”
Shirogumi director Hirohiro Komori, who was in charge of the teaser's direction and VFX, added his excitement:
“When I heard it was a teaser video for the “SILENT HILL” series, I just had to do it. Based on limited materials, I worked with Okamoto to come up with the scenario and visuals for the trailer. As a result, I think we were able to create an image that makes full use of our technology and specifications,
The teaser features plenty of references to traditional Japanese religious and spiritual practices, including the vision of a torii gate, which marks the entrance to a Shinto shrine and a transition between the real world to the spiritual realm. The red flowers seen throughout are red spider lilies, known in Japan as higanbana and representing death as the flower of the afterlife. When crafting the trailer, Shirogumi team were keen to depict the uniquely Japanese combination of beauty and horror. If Silent Hill f looks even a little like this trailer, they've nailed that.
To fully submerge in the immersive details of 1960s Japan, the Shirogumi team undertook careful historic research to perfectly represent the era. Per Komori:
“Mr. Ogura led a tour of libraries all over Tokyo, gathering lots of photos from that time that matched the setting. We used more than 35 books as reference, and we did very detailed research on everything from the types of tin, to the designs of the pipes and torii gates, to the window frames and furniture edges,”
The teaser ends with chilling rendition of the original Silent Hill theme played on traditional Japanese musical instruments, further tying it back to the core of the series and teasing fans that we might even be getting a sort of ‘origin' story of sorts.
In March of this year, another Silent Hill Transmission event revealed a second trailer for the game, introducing fans to the theme of โfinding the beauty in terrorโ via the game's equally horrific and breathtaking visuals. Following that, our first gameplay footage out of PlayStation's State of Play event in June showcased our first look at some of the game's monsters in action. Staying true to the themes of Japanese horror, the monsters unveiled seem to pull from traditional Japanese folklore and culture, with creatures like the ayakakashi dressed in a traditional seifuku uniform, and the oi-omoi monster resembling traditional Japanese hina dolls. Then there's the Ara-abare, a giant fleshy mass not too dissimilar to the Insane Cancer enemies of Silent Hill f, although covered in higanbana spider Lillies.
One popular theory is that, due to the time of its setting and various hints in the trailer, Silent Hill f will examine the physical, mental and cultural traumas left behind after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.
Plot and Character Details
Further footage for Silent Hill f has fleshed out the setting of the mysterious town of Ebisugaoka. While it may seem strange for a Silent Hill game to actually not take place anywhere near the town it's named after, it isn't the first time it's happened. The first few levels of Silent Hill 3 take place outside of the town, with protagonist Heather Mason only travelling there later in the game. Silent Hill 4: The Room is linked to the town in story, but mostly takes place in the fictional city of Ashfield. Even Owaku Hiroyuki, the writer of the first four Silent Hill games has gone on record as saying Silent Hill is not a town; but a metaphor.
Furthermore, Silent Hill f wouldn't even be the first title set outside of North America, as Silent Hill: The Short Message takes place in Germany. Leaning into the Japanese setting would set Silent Hill f apart from all other main entries in the series, aligning it more closely with other distinctly Japanese horror games like Fatal Frame, Kuon and Siren (which was created by original Silent Hill director Keiichiro Toyama).
Leading the game is high-schooler Shimizu Hinako, Silent Hill‘s first female protagonist since Silent Hill 3‘s Heather Mason. Hinako is described as struggling to meet the idealized image that her parents, her friends, and society push onto her. She used to be a cheerful and lively child, but itโs apparently been a long time since she last smiled.
The full trailer also revealed other supporting characters, namely Hinako's classmates Iwai Shu, Nishida Rinko and Igarashi Sakuko. Fittingly, high schoolers are often the subject of popular J-horror movies, and many traditional Japanese ghost stories and urban legends like Hanako-san or Aka Manto often stem from the whisperings of high school girls.
Modeling supervisor Ogura Taiga and the Shirogumi team dished more on creating the painstaking detail of the Hinako's model:
“We took the best of both the scan and the drawing. We left the skeletal distortion of the scanned model intact, while keeping the balance of the arm length, hand size, body width, etc. as close to the design drawings as possible to a natural look […] For example, we reproduced the way the feet are crushed by their own weight, and expressed the changes in body shape and the sinking of the skin due to the pressure of clothes and socks with morphs,”
Silent Hill might be famous for its gruesome, twisted monsters, and the Silent Hill f teaser promises no shortage of that. Ebisugaoka seems to have been taken over by some kind of sentient red vine that leaves trypophobic holes in the flesh of all those it touches. Take this with a grain of salt, but, the web-translated CG World interview with Shirogumi mentions that the plants' “erosion effect [is] caused by mysterious creatures”.
Expectations and Speculations
Aside from the Silent Hill 2 remake, Silent Hill f was by far the most buzzed about title coming out of Konami's Transmission, proving that fans are chomping at the bit for a fresh Silent Hill story. Movie the story out of America and into Japan is a hugely wise decision, and immediately sets Silent Hill f apart from its predecessors.
A good portion of the post-Silent Hill 2 franchise follows troubled protagonists coming to terms with the death of a loved one, a loved one whose death, and their potential involvement in it, they have yet to come to terms with. Given the themes of death and decay we can already see in the trailer, it's not too much of a stretch of the imagination to suggest that Silent Hill f will tread a similar path. However, as GameRant correctly point out, there are certain pitfalls that Silent Hill f should try to avoid to keep things fresh, namely rolling out a stale Pyramid Head clone who slots neatly into the role of executioner.
A running theme through the Silent Hill f trailers so far seems to be Hinako struggling with the outcome of a choice she has made, one that has branded her a “traitor”. There also seems to be some cultish activity going on in the town, leading some fans to theorize that Silent Hill f could be a predecessor to the story of Alessa Gillespie and The Order in 1999's Silent Hill.
Silent Hill f Release Date and Platforms
Silent Hill f releases on September 25, and will be available on PlayStation 5,Windows and Xbox Series X/S, and can be added to Wishlist via Steam. UK fans can also pre-order a grisly SteelBook exclusive right here.
