Silent Hill f has shipped over 1 million units in just one day after launch, becoming the fastest-selling title in Konami’s psychological horror series. Critical reception has been just as strong, with the title earning a review score on par with last year’s Silent Hill 2 remake. Amidst the game’s success, series producer Motoi Okamoto recently commented on what players can expect from future entries.
Talking to IGN Japan at TGS 2025, Okamoto says (starting from the 3:01:00 mark) that given the game’s numerous “challenging” elements, he’d thought that reactions to Silent Hill f would be far more divided, but reception ended up being positive beyond his expectations. On the other hand, he notes, “Of course, that doesn’t mean every future Silent Hill will be like Silent Hill f. Each one will have its own distinct flavor. We want to keep experimenting and be ambitious, both in terms of gameplay design and storytelling, so please look forward to the next Silent Hill as well.”
Okamoto followed up on this statement via X, adding that he’d like to be bold with the series and offer a different kind of gameplay with each installment. On the other hand, he stresses that some Silent Hill traditions aren’t meant to be broken – namely, the quality of the storytelling. “I believe psychological stories are essential to what makes Silent Hill feel like ‘Silent Hill,’ and we’ll continue to place great importance on that in future works as well.”
Although it introduced a completely new setting and gameplay system, Silent Hill f connects with the rest of the series through psychological horror. “The spiritual journey of the protagonist, as she faces heris trauma and inner turmoil, is what ultimately makes it Silent Hill-like,” Okamoto told IGN Japan. It seems future entries will explore with different approaches to gameplay while maintaining this foundation.
Silent Hill f is out now on PC (Steam), PS5 and Xbox Series X❘S.
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So, it’s now just an anthology series with no real relevance to its title. Yes, yes, I know, “but Resident Evil has games not in an evil residence!” That’s not the same. The characters, storyline, organizations, etc are all still basically all tie together in RE. Now Silent Hill is just about anyone anywhere having psychological problems. Nothing to do with the cult that started everything.
Twin peaks: Return was almost entirely outside of the town. Let alone what they did to the main character. A story is not defined by one place if there are many aspects that contribute. The place in Silent hill was designed symbolically anyway. In that way, no difference.
None of this completely writes off them from making a Silent Hill game based on established lore, all they said was that they were “experimenting”. There’s nothing stopping them from making a game about the cult, though I personally enjoy the psychological aspect much more. If they ever leaned heavily on the cult it would have to be really well thought out and not silly fan fiction like SH:Origins.
I was very dissapointed when SH2 came out, and the main character wasn’t Harry Mason, nor did we get a continuation or any mention of Alessa’s story. When SH1 was the only SH game, it could be assumed that Alessa was the sole trigger for why the town is the way it is. SH2 turned that notion on its head and proved that Alessa was simply a cog in an already-oiled nightmare machine.
I still prefer sequels that continue a story, like SH3, rather than stand-alones, but I’m open to new protagonists, and even new settings. I feel like you could take The Order out of the picture, so long as we’re dealing with the exact same phenomenon.
Other than that, however different this is, I just hope that this shares just enough DNA with the classic games to be an SH game, rather than just being a good horror with the name slapped on.
What they need to do imo is find a formula and improve it with every new game. Changing the formula every game means we will probably never get a silent hill with good combat.
Considering what ties Silent Hill f to every other game in the franchise, yes, even 2 as the cult was referenced in documents in the Historical Society. SH2 Remake adds more elements from the original game to help tie it into the series even more and even had the cult’s symbol on a wall in a hotel room. White Claudia, the plant that was used in the original to create the drug PTV, was also added to the remake to further establish the cult’s presence in Silent Hill during James’ ill fated final visit.
Silent Hill f has ties to the Team Silent games. It’s not just a random story of someone experiencing similar types of events on the other side of the world. It’s a minor connection, but lore wise, it’s a very important piece of Silent Hill lore.