The Silent Hill franchise has evolved with its most recent entries, expanding into settings that go beyond the eponymous foggy American town. In Silent Hill: Townfall, it also taps into a new way to terrify players, shifting from a traditionally third-person perspective to first-person. The series has previously offered glimpses of first-person gameplay, including Silent Hill 4: The Room (PS2, 2004) and Silent Hill: The Short Message (PS5, 2024). However, Silent Hill: Townfall is the first time you’ll face all the horrors of a full Silent Hill experience through the eyes of its protagonist.
Here are nine ways Silent Hill: Downfall uses its first-person perspective to create a more intimate horror experience and amp up its scares.
A claustrophobic perspective
Silent Hill: Townfall puts you in the shoes, and viewpoint, of its protagonist character, Simon Ordell, which means you can’t see as much of the world around you as you might in a third-person Silent Hill game. You must be on your guard for threats coming from the side or behind you. The game also uses a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, making the screen wider at the sides but shorter vertically, creating a cinematic presentation — but one that also makes your vision feel realistically restricted. That change in presentation forces you to pay close attention to your surroundings and to listen for enemies you might not be able to see right away.
A CRTV to see through the fog
Characters in Silent Hill games often carry radios that can give them hints about when enemies are nearing them in the fog — when the radio emits static, danger is close. Townfall takes a more visual approach to this idea with its CRTV, a handheld device you can tune to different frequencies to see the positions of nearby enemies. L1 lets you hold the CRTV up in front of you as you move around, so you can see both what it displays and the world around you. The device also gives a helpful haptic pulse in your DualSense controller to let you know when a new enemy is near.
Melee combat
It’s a staple of Silent Hill games to battle twisted horrors using everyday objects like pieces of wood. But in Townfall, combat gets harrowing, as monsters throw themselves at your face and your only defense is to hold up a flimsy object to block them. You’ll need to react quickly to stop counterattacks and get some blows in if you want to stay alive.
Stealth for survival
Combat isn’t always an option in Townfall, and often you’ll have to sneak past enemies to survive. Ducking behind objects like fences, signs, and parked cars with Circle allows you to slip by many enemies unnoticed. You can also hold R1 and use the right analog stick to lean around corners or peek over the top of cover to see where enemies are so you can better avoid them — or scare yourself when you realize just how close they are.
Running and hiding
No matter how sneaky you are, sometimes, you just have to run for it. You can sometimes lose an enemy just by rounding a corner or ducking behind something, breaking their line of sight. You can also slip inside cabinets, closets, and lockers to hide, where you can watch them through a crack in the door or on the CRTV. But be careful: If an enemy sees you slip into a hiding place, they’ll chase you down and pull you out.
Aiming weapons with motion control
Motion control is one of Townfall’s useful features, which you can enable in its settings menu. This lets you tilt the DualSense controller to aim when using a firearm or throwing an object. Motion control makes it easier to dial in attacks on enemies with extra precision. But it also makes combat more frightening, since it’s tough to hold your controller perfectly still when your hands are shaking in fear.
Dividing your attention
The new first-person gameplay means you’re always worrying about what could be just out of view. When you open a door, you’ll need to quickly check what’s on the other side or risk stumbling into an enemy. Actions as innocuous as rifling through drawers or reading emails on a computer become eerie, since you’re vulnerable to monsters that may be shuffling around you. Even using your map (by hitting Triangle) causes you to hold it up in front of your face, robbing you of the ability to see what’s sneaking up on you.
Searching your environment for clues
Townfall’s first-person view makes puzzles more engaging but also more dangerous. With a more intimate perspective, you can search the environments around you for clues like notes left on desks or diagrams hidden in drawers. But that also means you often need to scour rooms and buildings for the information, and with creatures often stalking around in search of Simon, you’ll have to watch your back.
Getting a glimpse of Simon’s inner life
The first-person perspective isn’t all about scares. It also gives you a deeper look into Simon’s psyche at certain points. Rather than Simon speaking his thoughts aloud, you’ll sometimes see text appear over the screen to give you a sense of his inner monologue, bringing you a little closer to the character and giving you a sense of how he’s affected by what he’s seeing. For example, he might think “I feel sick…” when seeing something unsettling.
With Silent Hill’s first big foray into first-person, Townfall provides plenty of scares as you make your way through the frightening fog of St. Amelia. You can feel the fear for yourself when Silent Hill: Townfall launches on September 24 on PlayStation 5.
