Silent Hill: Townfall review: Scottish

Silent Hill: Townfall, developed by Glasgow studio Screen Burn, is released on 24 September for £44.99. The game shifts the series' iconic psychological horror to the fictional Scottish coastal town of St Amelia, based on the fishing communities of Fife's East Neuk.

You spend much of the game cowering. Simon, the nerdy protagonist, peers around corners at demonic entities before shrinking back with a push of the analogue stick. The setting is steeped in a specific, local terror involving absent landlords, island poverty, and an oil corporation. Classic series fog suffuses the village, where most residents have vanished after a mass tragedy.

A Grotesque Scottish Postcard

Visually, the game employs bold juxtapositions. The town is sometimes bathed in blood-red moonlight; pitch-black interiors are cut by harsh torchlight. This arresting style recalls found-footage horror films. Simon soon finds a portable television with strange power, receiving elliptical messages from a nurse named Zoe and tracking nearby monsters on its scratchy screen.

The action is a slow, absorbing burn. Simon hides from depraved monsters and occasionally bludgeons them with a pipe. To enter some buildings, he makes an incision with a scalpel in a fleshy door as thick blood oozes out. His reason for visiting becomes clear: guilt. He is not alone. Zoe, voiced by Kezia Burrows, has her own hangups. The third playable character is Richard, the CEO of an energy company that promised the island prosperity.

Diegetic Dread

Every element pulls you deeper. The design adheres to diegetic principles, conveying information within the game world. To view the map, Simon physically pulls it out-the action never pauses. To save progress, you must find a telephone, manually pick up the receiver, and dial a number.

Puzzles function with a similar grounded logic. You snoop through emails, install floppy disks, and pocket bits of paper to gain key codes. These puzzles follow a serendipitous dream logic, making even getting stuck feel coherent within the game's uncanny claustrophobia. The Guardian's reviewer noted one exception: "Close to the game’s conclusion, one esoteric puzzle about deciphering industrial symbols killed my progress."

A Portrait of Collective Shame

Townfall is a taut, smart tale less about psychosexual terror than psychosocial dread. Surprisingly, the game's sympathies lie not with Simon, Zoe, or Richard, but with the people of St Amelia. Their memorial in the town centre is one of the game's clearest images, unobscured by fog. The exact events leading to their deaths remain shrouded. Townfall seems to understand some things should remain mysterious, allowing the fate of St Amelia to fester in the player's imagination. How very Silent Hill.