Review: Silent Hill f Makes Many Mistakes, but Is an Important Return to Form
October 30, 2025
The Silent Hill 2 remake promised to bring the highly esteemed Silent Hill franchise back into public relevance, and it has very much succeeded in that regard. Silent Hill f was, by all means, seen as a major release in 2025, with much fervor and excitement behind it. There’s an actual belief that the franchise is back where it belongs.
The Silent Hill series can only go so far as its games allow it to, however. The future of the franchise depends entirely on its new releases. Silent Hill f has had to carry that burden, in particular. The first original full-length game in over a decade, Silent Hill f needed to set the tone with its fresh take on the series formula.
Silent Hill f is most certainly a big success, but, ultimately, it serves more as just a demonstration of what the series is capable of. The impressive visuals and deep narrative are noteworthy, but there are some areas that clearly need improvement. Overall, Silent Hill f is an important return to form, but the series can — and should — strive for better.
Enjoyability: 8/12 — Hypnotizing, but Torturous
It’s honestly tough to explain how I feel about Silent Hill f. Despite its shortcomings, there’s something uniquely satisfying about it that you just can’t get anywhere else. One specific quality that I can point to is the way that Silent Hill f leverages its horror appeal. While the game may get incredibly frustrating at times, it also understands how to feel inviting. There is a freshness to every new area that just demands your attention. Silent Hill f is hypnotizing, in a way.
Unfortunately, Silent Hill f is a tale of two stories. I don’t mean that literally. The experience just feels completely different once you reach a certain point in the game. While the first half of Silent Hill f is genuinely riveting, the latter half really struggles to maintain its charm. The game design gets in the way of having fun.
Dread is a powerful feeling to invoke, but Silent Hill f puts way too much emphasis on stressing players out. The enemy monsters eventually start to feel overused. Though the game still has much of intrigue to offer, you get the sense that the second half of Silent Hill f would be more entertaining to watch than to actually play through. A game should never feel like that.
Gameplay: 9/12 — Fundamentally Sound, Poorly Used
Where Silent Hill f is at its most divisive is probably its combat. Compared to Silent Hill 2 (2024), Silent Hill f puts a lot more stake into its gameplay. The combat and its related mechanics are much more integral to the player experience. All that being said, the new style of gameplay is a step back for the franchise. Whereas Silent Hill 2 feels like an actual survival horror game, Silent Hill f tries to be more of an action title.
Honestly, the action in Silent Hill f just doesn’t feel appropriate. For how often the game throws enemies at the player, the combat is way too clunky to actually deal with all of them. The mechanics are designed for one-on-one fights in outside spaces. So when the game starts forcing you into tight, enclosed areas with multiple enemies, the game’s balance is completely lost. Hinako’s attacks getting interrupted by wall collisions and unexpected enemy strikes make the gameplay lose its luster quick.
Overall, however, I would say that the gameplay, from the fighting to the puzzle-solving, isn’t that much of a weak point. Most of the problems with the gameplay experience actually come from poor design decisions. Silent Hill f also holds itself back from fully committing to its new style of action, which doesn’t help in winning people over.
Atmosphere: 11/12 — Realistically Uncanny
Silent Hill f made a bold choice in sidestepping the series’ usual setting, the town of Silent Hill. Ebisugaoka fits the traditional vibes perfectly, though, adding its own unique flavor to the ambience. Ebisugaoka’s environment is based on the real-world urban design of the Japanese town of Kanayama, which genuinely makes the world feel more alive than ever. The mundane is perfectly captured. The realistically uncanny nature of its out of the way locations is extra effective.
Of course, what matters most in Silent Hill f is how it uses its environments to enhance the horror. The game does an incredible job there. Whether you’re inside or outside, there’s an unnerving feeling that comes from just walking forward. The over-the-top effects and sequences really sell the game, but Silent Hill f has no trouble building up tension with its music and settings alone. Even well after you’re done with the game, Silent Hill f’s distinct atmosphere will stick with you.
Design: 8/12 — Action, Action, More Action
What holds back Silent Hill f the most is the poor structure of its chapters. There’s little room for the game’s generated tension to actually thrive, because Silent Hill f depends way too heavily on its combat. While it may be unnerving to walk through Ebisugaoka and the Dark Shrine during the first few hours of the game, that feeling is gradually lost. Silent Hill f simply never evolves its design, instead opting to double down on the action. Almost everything is solved with fighting, which gets old quick.
A lot of the puzzles in Silent Hill f are just glorified fetch quests. That’s not to say that exploration is boring — it actually often feels properly rewarding — but Silent Hill f takes an unoriginal approach whenever these moments pop up. You know you’re going to have confront some enemies, and that builds up the wrong kind of dread.
Weapon durability being a mechanic in Silent Hill f is actually partially to blame for the negative reaction to so much action. The game actively disincentivizes players from using their weapons, while, at the same time, throwing more enemies at them than they can actually deal with. It almost seems like the developers took for granted how these decisions would all interact with each other.
Direction: 10/12 — Just a Little Heavy-Handed
The one area where fans expected greatness was in Silent Hill f’s narrative. The game certainly doesn’t disappoint in that area. Silent Hill f is thematically rich. Almost every single little detail in the world has thematic value. While the story might be a bit hard to follow at times, the purpose of all the different plot points makes more and more sense as you approach the end.
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I really don’t want to spoil much of anything about the story or its deeper meanings, so I’m going to refrain from getting into any specifics. I do want to say, though, that I am not particularly fond of the approach that was taken to fully explain the story. To fully explore Hinako’s mindset and the importance of certain characters and symbols, Silent Hill f requires you to play the game multiple times. It’s the only way to actually get unique endings. This is far from an attractive option and is a disservice to anyone intrigued by the main plot.
Silent Hill f is a game that understood the effectivity of Silent Hill 2’s narrative. You can see the ways in which f tries to emulate that same structure, but it doesn’t quite find the same success. Silent Hill f is just a little too ambitious. The game throws a surprise at you, but then has more that it wants to say. This doesn’t leave as strong of an impression. It doesn’t help that the story feels incomplete after your first run. It’s easy to appreciate what’s there, but it’s unfortunate that you have to work so hard to get everything out of Silent Hill f.
