Silent Hill: Townfall hands-on: atmospheric yet aimless in 90 minutes in St. Amelia

TechRadar says the game comes from Glasgow-based developer Screen Burn Interactive, previously known as No Code and best known for Stories Untold and Observation. The outlet describes it as the first full-length first-person Silent Hill experience promised by the canceled Silent Hills project intended for Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro. The setting of St. Amelia fits the franchise's fog fixation because that kind of mist routinely rolls across the Scottish east coast, but the studio has opted not to give its main cast Scottish-sounding voices, unlike Still Wakes The Deep.

The protagonist, Simon Ordell, is played by British-American actor Jovan Adepo. TechRadar describes him as an outsider summoned to St. Amelia by a mysterious voice to "make it right." The session opens with Simon emerging from harbor water, wearing a red wristband with personal details and tubes attached as though he has escaped from a hospital. The town itself is abandoned, full of empty shops and "house for sale" signs.

A ringing public telephone becomes an early focus. Once picked up, it goes dead; dialing 100 delivers the instruction "save yourself" and functions as the game's save point. Later, Simon encounters an upright man being fed fluid from a tube seemingly attached to the sky. That man's voice later repeats the call to "make it right." When the player returns to the square, protest banners and placards have appeared, alluding to a possible crime tied to a company abbreviated as CEG.

TechRadar says the eerie, enigmatic opening "also feels a bit aimless." Several locked doors prevented progress, sprinting had not yet been unlocked, and the writer missed key phone numbers. The outlet suggests Screen Burn is content to let players become "literally lost in its world," even if that makes for a slower experience.

To orient players, small markers indicate which signal players should tune toward. Video clips uncovered by the portable CRT television often have to be studied over multiple loops to determine the next location. One clue tells the player to find a white house, a difficult instruction when most houses in St. Amelia are white. The first-person perspective enables close inspection of noticeboard flyers and props such as a double-sided map players hold and flip manually. The CRT television can also be tuned to detect enemies through walls, showing their outlines in static.