There was a time around the debacle of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and what happened with Kojima that I could have sworn we were going to see the downfall of Konami, but boy was I wrong, they have been absolutely killing it lately. Bringing back classics like Snake Eater, Silent Hill 2, and then greenlighting Silent Hill f and Darwin’s Paradox!. I have to hand it to them, they are trying very hard and doing well which I love. Now they’re teaming up with Annapurna and Screen Burn to make another unique entry into the Silent Hill universe with Silent Hill: Townfall.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t any hands-on demo’s available, but they were offering a behind the scenes hands-off gameplay demo. As we were ushered into the small theater room where they were going to live play the game for us, fog machines were pumping into the room to set the mood. It was a nice touch I will admit. They explained that the gameplay demo would be going into more of what we saw in the trailer, it was a full unedited section about a couple hours into the game.

What kind of messed up psychological horror are we in for?

The demo starts after you get the CRTV, a portable radio device. As you walk around the town you will pick up signals on the CRTV that you will need to tune it to. Once dialled in, you will get a series of fuzzy images pop up giving you a clue on where to look. Some images showed a fountain landmark, and a side of a building with a specific window. Exploring and finding the location is the first step to unlocking the next objective.

The next part of demo was them just walking through a house discovering things and solving a small puzzle, but what caught my attention was what the presenter was talking about. He goes into the reason they went with first person perspective. They painstakingly did realistic scans of architecture and how people lived and their home setups in Scotland. The goal was to make it feel as real proportionately as possibly and when you do third person, there are certain things you need to enlarge, like door ways, or roof spaces to account for the camera.

You will need to tun the CRTV to fined the signals.

For Silent Hill: Townfall, First person lets them go for a very realistic lived in feel for their world. I know that may turn some folks off, but I love first person games and I will say it did look extremely well detailed. Even down to the way the silverware drawers were less organized. Hallways felt cramped and not overly wide like they said Scotland homes were more built like for that time.

Another thing they noted is that they are trying to have a much less talkative protagonist. First person puts you in the shoes of Simon Ordell, and instead of him constantly talking to himself, they are going to use inner thoughts written out on screen. There will still be dialogue with him expressing certain things, but picking up a picture in a house won’t have him go: “Huh, why do they have a picture of me in their house.” Internal thoughts will be scribbled down for you to also read as an internal thought.

Once tuned you will be given a series of images to give you landmark clues to your next objective.

After they find the next clue to send them to another location we finally run into our first monster. Using the CRTV you can tune into the monster frequency and use the screen to see a silhouette of the monster. This will help keep track of where they are, even through walls. The monsters do not have a set path they follow so their movements can be random. Without third person, there is no cheating around corners with the camera. You will need to use the peeking function to take a look. This increases immersion and tension compared to a third person perspective.

Before the demo ended we got a little example of some combat with the classic 2×4 piece of wood. Melee combat looks pretty simple, block, dodge, attack back. If you did get killed there is a second chance mechanic in the form of the IV bag that is attached to your hand. If you still have liquid in it you can use some to cheat death and continue the fight. They didn’t go into how rare that liquid will be to find, but I hope it is not something easily obtainable.

Be careful peeking around those corners!

All in all the demo was fairly short, but it looked fantastic. I loved the Scotland architecture, the hyper detailed homes and areas. I personally love having it in first person for that added tension and immersion. This is looking to be another great entry into the Silent Hill series!

Silent Hill: Townfall is set to release February 24th, 2026 on PC (Steam/Epic Games Store), and PlayStation 5.