Silent Hill f Takes the Series Into a New Era, and Its Developers Know It
One step forward.
Silent Hill f is one of the most fascinating survival horror games we’ve seen this last decade — effortlessly pushing the dormant franchise in a new direction while still managing to nail the spirit of a Silent Hill game. But perhaps most interesting of all is how it reframes the series’ focus on interpersonal trauma, filtering that theme through the eyes of a high school girl named Hinako, living in 1960s Japan. Silent Hill f is a game about the horror of losing your individuality, of a life being forced on you that you never wanted — heavily steeped in the women’s rights movement of Japan. This gives Hinako’s tale a grounded and relatable element — but in my review, I also talked about how Silent Hill f seemingly is simultaneously trying to come to grips with how the series has portrayed women. And it turns out that was intentional.
Note: This article will contain minor spoilers for the game.
“What lies at the core of Silent Hill as a series is its stories of psychological horror. The narrative experience unique to Silent Hill exposes players to the main character’s psychological journey, in which they are faced with the internal struggles of the protagonist and eventually come to one’s own conclusions,” the Silent Hill f developers tell Inverse, “ Previous entries featured many women placed in dire circumstances, so we decided to write a story about a female character who tries to fight against her predicament.”
In good old Silent Hill fashion, many of the creatures you face represent Hinako’s inner fears or insecurities.
While Hinako’s story may have different elements from the likes of James Sunderland or Harry Mason, it’s still integrally a journey of self-confrontation and discovery — where the horrors that you face are just as much Hinako’s intrinsic fears as horrifying creatures.
It’s a big swing for a studio like the Taiwan-based Neobards Entertainment, tackling a brand-new entry in the prolific franchise. Neobards has assisted in development on major games like Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, and Onimusha: Warlords — but Silent Hill f is a massive project for the studio to lead. To that end, it was a massive effort that the team took to work with Konami’s team in Japan, even in terms of getting the historical setting right.
“The development team at Taiwan and the Japanese team at Konami worked closely to conduct historical research for furniture and designs from the 1960s,” the Neobards team says, “We referred to dozens of publications for reference and, thanks to the support of Gero City Hall, the municipal office for Kanayama, Gero in Gifu Prefecture, the location which the game is based off, were able to obtain photographs from the past.”
The development team referenced a wealth of materials, including historical photos, to recreate Showa Era Japan.
From early on in the project, there was a real intent to bring the Silent Hill series to Japan — essentially bridging a gap.
“Our approach was that from previous games, it leaned a little bit too heavily on the Western influence. Our plan was to bring it back to a Japanese influence, because Silent Hill has always had that mix between Japanese and Western,” Silent Hill f North American brand manager Donell Tucker tells Inverse, “We wanted to even it out with this one. And with Japanese horror, it’s a very slow burn, like with the beautiful artwork that’s still unsettling. So it wasn’t difficult for us to consider the essence of Silent Hill being that you feel it’s just uncomfortable.”
The historical context also plays into the uncomfortability of Hinako’s story, as the societal expectations of the time are intrinsically tied to her personal story. Silent Hill f, largely explores the idea of marriage, specifically, arranged marriages in that Showa Era Japan. From the first moment of the game, we see Hinako’s shattered home life, a drunken, belligerent father, and a mother all too happy to bend over backward to make him happy. Crucially, both Hinako’s mother and father have given her a warped view of what marriage and “love” are supposed to be — she only knows love when it goes hand-in-hand with abuse. It’s unsurprising, then, that she would view marriage as a way of constricting someone’s free will — essentially an end to the boundless opportunities someone’s life may have.
While we’re seeing that theme through Hinako’s eyes, it’s a message that anyone and everyone can identify with. We all fear the unknown, and our free will being taken away. It’s also vital to note that Silent Hill f’s message decisively is not “anti-marriage,” but more about the removal of someone’s will to choose what they want. There’s a good reason the game’s “true ending” has a message of hope, where both Hinako and the supernatural fox god she’s being forced to marry regain their free will — and in that moment, they both choose to pursue separate lives that will make them more fulfilled as people.
While Hinako takes the spotlight, each one of Silent Hill f’s characters portrays a different aspect of the game’s commentary on societal gender roles.
This kind of universal theme is what’s always made Silent Hill such a strong series — whether it’s James Sunderland’s struggle with punishment and repressing his desires, or Heather Mason’s desire to forge something new out of a shattered past.
Silent Hill f is about as much of a Silent Hill game as you can get, because of how it uses trauma and grief to explore subtle elements of horror that affect even our real lives.
“The Silent Hill series focuses on portraying human struggles that require more serious situations, which ultimately lead to tackling heavy social themes,” says the Neobards team, “The issues and agendas that come with the complexities of modern society are what add depth to the stories psychological horror, and the Silent Hill production team is constantly exploring themes befitting the modern age.”
But what’s especially interesting about how Silent Hill f tackles its themes is how it warps the series’ tradition of multiple endings, which the team said they used to “fully realize Ryukishi07’s narrative vision.” The creator of the cult-classic Higurashi series, Ryukishi, crafted one of the defining narrative experiences of the year with Silent Hill f, with each subsequent playthrough adding new layers to the story in terms of extra scenes, notes, changed dialogue, and more. The Neobards team says that every ending that had originally been planned made its way into the game, with nothing cut, adding, “Since we have defined that achieving all possible endings is a critical part of the experience, there is a stronger focus on replay factors compared to previous endings.”
Multiple playthroughs of Silent Hill f aren’t just encouraged, but intended. Especially if you want to truly understand the complexity of the narrative.
Each ending does explore a different facet of Hinako’s story and inner turmoil, from the horrifyingly bleak first endings to the bizarrely wacky Alien ending. But the crux is that this is another integral factor that has defined the series, and Neobards found a way to innovate on and twist it with surprises.
That alone might be the biggest revelation that Silent Hill f delivers — how bringing fresh talent and ideas to the series can make it flourish again. Both this new game and Bloober Team’s Silent Hill 2 remake are breathing new life into a dormant franchise. And maybe other long-running franchises could take some cues from how new generations of creators can bring something back to life. Hopefully, it’s a lesson that Konami itself can take to heart — as it finally feels safe to claim that Silent Hill has made its true comeback.
“Our focal point is to find talented developers, writers, storytellers, and people who have a great idea of what psychological horror is in terms of story and gameplay,” Tucker says, “So we look and find which studio or person would be best for what we’re trying to do with our series. That’s our main focus right now, to continue making great gains by partnering with talented people.”
