SILENT HILL F: Everything We Know About Konami's Mysterious Game (2025)

Back in 2022, developing giants Konami released an exciting update on their long-dormantSilent 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 ofSilent HilltoSilent 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‘sSilent Hill: Downpour.

At the time of writing, most projects announced on that night are more or less accounted for. Bloober Team's Silent Hill 2 remake was a huge success,Silent Hill: Ascension much less so, Silent Hill: The Short Message blessed the fandom with a terrifying new monster, andChristophe Gans' Return to Silent Hill has received a smattering of first-look images. But two of the announced projects of the Silent Hill Transmission remain silent –Silent Hill: Townfall andSilent Hill: f. Of the pair,SilentHillfpiqued the interest most fervently of both series fans and casual horror gamers alike. So, two years later with not a peep, we have to ask – where the f is Silent Hill f?

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 andDevil 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'sSilent Hill 2 remake. Okamoto's handling of the project bodes exceedingly well, asSilent Hill 2 remake made short work of the doubters by becoming one of 2024's best-selling and most beloved games.

It's unknown whetherSilent Hill‘s legendary composer Akira Yamaoka will be returning for soundtrack duties on Silent Hill f as he did for the Silent Hill 2 remake, butSilent Hill creature designer and art director Masahiro Ito has confirmed he has nothing to do with the project. Instead, delivering the visual frights ofSilent 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 thatSilent 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 novelŌkami 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 effectiveSilent Hill games sinceSilent Hill 2.

Art and Design in theSilent Hill f Trailer

At the time of writing, the only real video evidence ofSilent Hill f even existing is the aforementioned trailer that played during Konami'sSilent Hill Transmission event. Of course, as hungry horror fans are wont to do, the trailer has been analyzed, dissected and gone over with a fine tooth comb by bloggers, writers and YouTubers since the day of its release.

The Silent 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,

While plot details are still few and far between, the trailer actually may give more of a hint to whatSilent Hill f is about than initially thought. One popular theory is that, due to the time of its setting and various hints in the trailer, Silent Hill fwill examine the physical, mental and cultural traumas left behind after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II:

The teaser features plenty of references to traditional Japanese religious and spiritual practices, including the vision of atorii 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 ashiganbana 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. IfSilent 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.

Plot and Character Details

Plot details forSilent Hill f remain scarce, with all we know so far is that the story follows a schoolgirl living in 1960s rural Japan instead of the titular town of Silent Hill, which is canonically North American. While it may seem strange for aSilent 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 fourSilent 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, asSilent Hill: The Short Message takes place in Germany.Leaning into the Japanese setting would setSilent 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 andSiren (which was created by original Silent Hill director Keiichiro Toyama).

Not much is known about the game's protagonist, presumably the schoolgirl seen in the trailer. Previous protagonists of Silent Hill games, such as Silent Hill 2‘s mourning everyman James Sunderland or Silent Hill 3‘s scrappy teen Heather Mason, are called back to the town, now inhabited by monsters representing their deepest fears, to confront some kind of truth from their past. We can safely assume from her uniform that she's a high schooler, and is based off of Kera's design drawings. Fittingly, high school girls are often the subject of popular J-horror movies, and many traditional Japanese ghost stories and urban legends like Hanako-san orAka Manto often stem from the whisperings of high schoolers.

Modeling supervisor Ogura Taiga and the Shirogumi team used these drawings to create the painstaking detail of the girl'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. The nameless place in the trailer 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”.

Then there's the teaser's grisly climax; the sloughing of a face clean off its flower-crowned owner. Silent Hill has never been a franchise famous for gore, preferring subtle scares and building atmosphere to shedding buckets of blood, but this scene could teaseSilent Hill f is not holding back when it comes to stomach-churning imagery.

Expectations and Speculations

Aside from the Silent Hill 2 remake,Silent Hill fwas by far the most buzzed about title coming out of Konami's Transmission, proving that fans are chomping at the bit for a freshSilent Hill story. Movie the story out of America and into Japan is a hugely wise decision, and immediately setsSilent Hill fapart 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 thatSilent 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.

Musically inclined fans have noticed that the f in Silent Hill f is stylized in the same format as ‘forte', which in sheet music refers to a moment in the piece when the instrument should be played loudly and with strength. This could, again, be a reference to the horrors of a nuclear blast, or it could be a simple font choice, with the f perhaps referring to the floral theme running throughout the game.

Silent Hill f Release Date and Platforms

Understandably, fans are getting nervous waiting for updates on Silent Hill f. Considering what happened with Hideo Kojima's ill-fated Silent Hills,and the terrifying playable trailer that never amounted to anything more, Konami doesn't exactly have the greatest reputation for treating their legacy with the respect it deserves. However, as we've already covered, everyone was also wary about Konami's involvement in the Silent Hill 2 remake – and look how that turned out.

At the time of writing,Silent Hill f does not have a set release date, or even a vague arrival window. It should come as a surprise to nobody that video games, especially ones of the size and scale of a Silent Hill game, take years to make. It's highly likely that, at the time of announcement, nothing existed ofSilent Hill f outside of the trailer. After all, the trailer explicitly states that the images depicted are not actual gameplay. There's also the possibility that Konami are waiting for the Silent Hill 2 remake to have its day in the sun before announcing an update on a whole new game.

As for platforms it will be available to play on, Silent Hill f will probably be available for PC, PlayStation 4 and 5 gamers. Unfortunately, Xbox gamers will probably have to wait even longer, due to Konami's exclusivity deal with Sony forSilent Hill games.

Whatever the case withSilent Hill f, we'll bring you all the news as soon as it rolls in, so keep your eyes (and face) peeled for updates.