Silent Hill: Townfall Is Out: First-Person Horror Changes the Formula
Silent Hill: Townfall launched on September 24, 2026 for PlayStation 5, Steam and the Epic Games Store. Developed by Scottish studio Screen Burn Interactive and co-published by Annapurna Interactive and Konami, it is the first full-length entry in the series played entirely in first person. Visibility, sound, the CRTV, stealth and combat were all designed around the protagonist’s restricted perception.
St. Amelia, Scotland, 1996
Simon Ordell is called back to the island of St. Amelia to put things right. The town sits beneath heavy fog, apparently abandoned but far from at rest. The self-contained story takes place in Scotland in 1996. Screen Burn uses familiar landscapes, isolation and analog technology to make the setting believable before its supernatural layers emerge.
First person narrows Simon’s field of view and forces players to check doors, side paths and sounds behind them. The 2.35:1 presentation creates a cinematic frame while reducing visible space. Footsteps, movement and static can reveal threats that are still outside the picture.
The CRTV reinvents Silent Hill’s radio
The series’ static-filled radio becomes the CRTV, a pocket television that tunes into unstable frequencies. Simon uses it to locate enemies, interpret signals and connect fragments of the story. It feeds into puzzles and stealth, while the DualSense produces a haptic pulse when a new presence is nearby.
Puzzles were written alongside the story. Notes, diagrams, objects and transmissions do more than unlock routes; they reveal Simon, St. Amelia and the relationship between past and present. Searching remains risky because reading a map or inspecting an item closely reduces awareness of the surrounding space.
Stealth, combat and escape
Townfall mixes close combat, firearms and encounters where fighting is not an option. Simon can crouch behind cars and fences, lean around corners, break line of sight and hide. If a creature watches him enter a hiding place, it can drag him back out. Improvised weapons are fragile, so blocking and counterattacking require careful timing.
DualSense features and multiple endings
On PS5, adaptive triggers communicate weapon weight, haptic feedback conveys approaching footsteps and gyro controls can be used for aiming, handling the map and tilting the CRTV. 3D Audio matters because danger can approach from beyond the deliberately limited view.
The endings are not determined by one decision near the finale. Actions across the full playthrough lead to one of three main endings, all available on a first run, while an additional ending becomes accessible after completing the game. Konami lists €49.99 for the Standard Edition and €59.99 for the digital Deluxe Edition.
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Commercial content from Smart GFX. This editorial article is independent of the developers, publishers and platforms mentioned.
Official sources
Konami launch announcement, September 24: https://www.konami.com/games/eu/en/topics/19323/ — PlayStation Blog: https://blog.playstation.com/2026/09/21/silent-hill-townfall-9-ways-first-person-changes-the-iconic-horror-formula/ — PlayStation: https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/silent-hill-townfall/
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