Hello, my name is Luke Patrick, and welcome back to my series on the top 10 upcoming games in 2026. This week’s instalment will be focusing on Silent Hill: Townfall.
Autumn 2026 will mark a new instalment in the Silent Hill game franchise with the spin-off Silent Hill: Townfall. The game will be released on September 24th on PlayStation and Windows.
The game will be published in collaboration with Konami Games and AnnaPurna Interactive, with Screen Burn developing the game in Glasgow, Scotland. Screen Burn has developed a number of other game titles, including Super Arc Light in 2016, Stories Untold in 2017 and Observation in 2019.
The Silent Hill games will have players explore mysterious, deserted towns, fight terrifying creatures, and confront the protagonist’s darkest fears. Darker themes such as guilt, shame, and regret are prevalent in this franchise and are always reflected in the fictional town of Silent Hill.
Silent Hill: Townfall will follow the same format as previous instalments, but with one major change. Silent Hill: Townfall will be played entirely from a first-person perspective for the first time. Shrinking the player’s field of vision during the transition from third- to first-person will increase the game’s scare factor.
Graeme McKellan is the Lead Game Designer at Screen Burn. He said, “Very early, we agreed that we wanted to present this game in first-person. More limited field of view. Things are happening off-screen that you may not always be aware of. In horror games, what happens off-screen is sometimes scarier than when it happens right in front of you.”
Screen Burn has moulded the game around this change, introducing new combat, evasion, and puzzle mechanics. This gives players different options on how they want to play the game. They can run straight towards danger, utilising returning weapons such as planks of wood, pipes and pistols to deal with enemies, or they can use a new peek mechanic to see around cover, to keep an eye on enemies, and the evasion mechanics to sneak by undetected.
The first-person will also create other differences, for example, how players use the radio, which was used to alert players to nearby enemies in previous games. The radio is multipurpose, as it now serves as a CRTV. It has a small screen that the player can tune manually to detect enemies, and all of this is visible in first-person perspective and doesn’t rely on HUD icons.
Jon McKellan is the Writer and Director at Screen Burn. He said, “What can we do with the radio that’s not been done before? What can we do that gives a new function, a new aesthetic, but still feels Silent Hill?”
Graeme McKellan said, “Players can go through the frequencies to find narrative content and also be able to use it as a tool to see where enemies are.”
Screen Burn, a Glasgow, Scotland-based game studio, has put its own mark on this instalment of the Silent Hill franchise by adopting a first-person perspective. They have also done that with the Townfall setting.
While previous games have taken place in the fictional town of Silent Hill in Maine, Townfall will take place in the fictional Scottish town of St Amelia in 1966, which the trailers portray as dark, foggy and mysterious.
St Amelia is based on the real location of St Monans in Scotland. The development team at Screen Burn visited to ensure that the portrayal in the game was as accurate and realistic as possible. Some features were even recreated one-to-one in the game.
Screen Burn has worked extremely hard to create something that closely reflects their own experiences in Scotland.
Paul Abbott is the Art Director at Screen Burn games, and he said, “The foggy environment, that felt like my walk to school.”
Silent Hill: Townfall will follow the protagonist Simon Ordell, after he received a mysterious phone call telling him he had to come to St Amelia to put things right and put things to rest. This follows the franchise theme of trauma, guilt, and regret. Players will immediately be put on edge by one line in the trailer: “I woke up in the water again.” From here, the game and the horror begin.
Players can pre-order Silent Hill: Townfall now. Players who pre-order the game will receive bonuses, including: a rusted style for the CRTV and PlayStation 5 players will receive a beach style for the CRTV too. The deluxe edition of the game will also include an alternative outfit for Simon, a digital art book, and a digital soundtrack. If players pre-order the deluxe version, they will receive all of the bonuses mentioned previously and 48-hour early access to the game.
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