The Silent Hill f Trailer: Deep Journalistic Analysis

So Konami had another Silent Hill Transmission recently, this one focusing on the mysterious Silent Hill f. It was pretty boring, mostly consisting of some producers, the script writer and Akira Yamaoka talking about “essence” and explaining why the game is set in Japan for forty minutes, but they did show a pretty sick trailer. Today, I want to analyse that trailer for the benefit of my many fans, who I know are all just as obsessed with Silent Hill as I am.

But first, watch the trailer for yourselves below. Don’t form any opinions about it, that’s what I’m here to do. Your opinions will probably be wrong.

Overall impressions: pretty good! While it’s not clear if any of that was gameplay—I think a few shots might have been, just with the camera angles adjusted—most of it seemed to be in-engine, and the graphics look pretty good to my eye. There was some trepidation among the fanbase over the development being handled by Neobards, a work-for-hire studio whose most notable recent game was a terrible Resident Evil multiplayer spin-off, but apparently they’re known for being technically competent, and this trailer seems to bear that out. (Also, said Resident Evil game seemed to be what Capcom wanted them to make, so it’s not clear if Neobards themselves can be blamed for how it turned out).

There has been a bit of consternation—more from the general gaming public than the Silent Hill fanbase—about the game being set in 1960s Japan rather than Silent Hill itself. I personally don’t care about this; as I’ve said before, Konami themselves were starting to realise the limitations of the setting as far back as the third game in the series, and I’ve always been firmly of the mind that anchoring the franchise to a single small town is a mistake. Silent Hill to me is more about evoking a specific kind of horror than about having a game take place in Silent Hill, and I’m honestly pretty pleased that modern-day Konami agrees with me. Fans have cooked up various theories about how this game could tie into the wider lore, mostly involving White Claudia, but I’d be perfectly fine with it if the game has no story connections to the previous games at all.

But having said that, does this trailer evoke Silent Hill-esque horror? Let’s find out.

The opening shot is of our new protagonist, Shimizu Hinako. According to people who are more familiar than me with Japanese school uniforms from the 1960s, she’s in junior high/middle school and is thus at most fifteen years old. If true, this would make her Silent Hill’s youngest protagonist so far, behind even Heather. “What if a child got Silent Hilled” has been a perennial question among fans ever since the first game (Laura doesn’t count, she can’t see the monsters); maybe Konami is going to come closer than ever to answering that question with Silent Hill f.

Looking at this specific scene through the lens of “but is it Silent Hill”, I personally feel that there’s something deeply Hillpilled about this shot. The framing of Hanako in the middle of the scene, the fleshy red…things all over the ground, and especially the weirdly rectangular section of missing fabric on the back of Hanako’s uniform, are all extremely Silent Hill-coded to me. Maybe that wasn’t intentional on the part of the developers, but if it was, it’s a neat demonstration of the ways you can make something feel like Silent Hill even if it doesn’t have rusty metal or any of the other features people tend to associate with the franchise.

The next few shots of the trailer show off the game’s setting, a small town named Ebisugaoka. Apparently Ebisu is the name of a deity associated with good luck, while “gaoka” means “hill”. So we’re not in Silent Hill anymore, instead we’re in Ebisu Hill. In the Transmission they said it’s heavily based on a real Japanese town, just altered to fit the 1960s setting.

Looking at the glimpses of the setting we get in this trailer, it seems to be a Japanese parallel to what Silent Hill was in American terms, in that it’s got some small-town charm but also seems to be a bit shabby and decaying, with some industrial rot around the edges. It also looks to be noticeably more compact than Silent Hill, which depending on the specific game has been portrayed as a decent-sized resort town or a small city. The trailer includes some shots of the kinds of rural areas we never really got to visit in Silent Hill, so rice fields and forests might be destinations in this game.

It is also noticeably foggy in this trailer, but more in a “hey it’s kind of foggy today” way and not the “it’s eerily foggy, something is wrong” way that the games have classically used. I think it’s probably a good idea not to just import that visual shorthand into what’s meant to be a brand new setting, but it’s nice to see the homage anyway.

There’s an interesting bit here where Hinako gets distracted by something in the fog before we see a blue glitch effect and she snaps back to reality. This could just be an early warning sign that Hinako is about to get Silent Hilled, but I suspect there might be more to it than that. The script writer for this game, ryukishi07, is best known for writing the Higurashi series of visual novels, which take place in a small mountain town and heavily feature time loops as a plot device. Given that this “glitch” effect is seen several times in the trailer, could something similar be happening here?

Also of note in this scene: Other people! Hanging out and talking normally! The Silent Hill series has famously always avoided showing players the real, populated version of the town that exists separate from the fog world and the otherworld; maybe that’s not going to be the case, and we’ll get to see what Ebisugaoka really looks like before everyone disappears and the monsters show up.

This school sure seems like a good location for Hinako to explore, doesn’t it? Bet there’s nothing creepy in there!

Hinako wandering the misty streets—in a distinctly “where did everyone go all of a sudden” way—gets interrupted when she steps on a wingy thing on the ground. This could just be a dead birb that got absolutely wrecked by a cat or something, but it looks just a bit too red and fleshy. A preview of a potential enemy type, perhaps?

Speaking of enemies, this is definitely one of those. It’s pretty creepy! We’ve got mannequin vibes, bloody malformed flesh, lots of familiar Silent Hill stuff, but also some of that Yurei-style long black hair. It also makes an absolutely terrifying screaming sound while it’s chasing Hinako, which I approve of.

Kera, the concept artist designing the monsters, has drawn some gnarly shit in the past, but her previous horror work is a lot more ghost-oriented and doesn’t really remind me of Silent Hill much. For this project she seems to be intentionally taking cues from classic Silent Hill monsters, while at the same time not just copying Masahiro Ito. Weak monster designs have been a problem with all of the post-Team Silent games, even the good ones, and I’m hopeful this game might finally break that trend.

While attempting to flee, Hinako gets cut off by a sudden bloom of red spider lily flowers. These things were all over the initial reveal trailer as well. In Japan, red spider lilies are associated strongly with death and the afterlife.

The flowers force Hinako to squeeze into a narrow alley, but her escape is cut off from that direction by the red stringy things that we also saw in the reveal trailer. These flower/tentacle(?) elements show up frequently in this trailer, seemingly associated with the presence of monsters, and as we see here, they’re capable of impeding Hinako’s movement. Is this just for cinematic purposes, or do they have a gameplay function? Could they maybe be used to force the player to fight monsters instead of running away from them?

There’s a brief little shot of this spooky-ass face. As many people on the internet have pointed out, it bears some resemblance to depictions of the “slit-mouthed woman”, a well-known urban legend/folkloric figure. There’s lots of references in this trailer to traditional Japanese creatures and spirits, which is encouraging because a lot of those things are off-the-chain weird and it would be fun to see them reimagined as Silent Hill creatures.

This seems to be the aftermath of Hinako’s encounter with the long-haired monster—you can see it lying on the ground behind her—which I’m betting is also the game’s first combat scenario. Hinako collapse to the ground clutching her head, which is something we’ve seen in past Silent Hill games, most notably when Heather is moving into the Otherworld.

Also of note is that the entire street seems to be dissipating into smoke or fog, including a crumbling effect for the foreground scenery that’s very reminiscent of the Silent Hill movie “peeling” thing that Homecoming and Downpour repurposed. I don’t love that—I prefer the Otherworld transitions to be more low-key, and the red glow here looks like something out of a Legend of Zelda game—but I can put up with it if it’s not over-used.

Why do I think this is an Otherworld transition? Well, immediately after we get our first look at…

In the Transmission, it was confirmed that this is Silent Hill f’s version of the Otherworld. Called the “Dark Shrine”, it eschews the rust-and-metal motif entirely in favour of traditional Japanese religious/castle architecture.

I’m kind of in two minds about this. On one hand, it’s much cleaner and more “normal” than any prior version of the Otherworld. Nothing apart from the huge scale of this location seems like it couldn’t exist in reality, whereas even poorly-designed Otherworlds from previous games have an innate sense of “wrongness” that’s captivating. This is also a type of location design that’s very common in Japanese games, both horror and otherwise, so it feels a little mundane at first glance.

On the other hand, I have been saying for years that I want to see Otherworld designs that break completely from the whole rusty metal thing, so it would be hypocritical of me to come down on this decision too hard. Also, we only get a relatively brief look at the Dark Shrine in this trailer, all of which could be from a single early scene for all we know. Maybe as we explore this location, it will get weirder and scarier.

Also of note: in this scene Hinako is wielding a metal pipe, which has shown up as a melee weapon in multiple previous games. The game’s ESRB rating page lists several other weapons that we’ll apparently get to use, but no guns, which makes sense for the setting.

There’s lots of interesting little details to be spotted in the Dark Shrine footage, so I’m going to comment on them now even though it will be a bit out of order.

People in the Otherworld? Not quite a series first, but it is notable that Hinako encounters some (relatively) normal-looking people in the Dark Shrine who seem to speak semi-coherently. Encountering members of a religious order in the Otherworld who know more about what’s going on than the protagonist has historically worked out great for Silent Hill main characters, so Hinako should definitely trust these people.

Note the fox masks that the shrine maidens are wearing. Foxes are important in Shintoism, representing a kami named Inari. Based on my (very) limited understanding, the fox in Shintoism isn’t always portrayed as a benevolent figure due to its association with death and the fact that foxes have traditionally been seen as dangers to agriculture like in the west, and therefore it’s not uncommon for fox statues in shrines to be snarling or otherwise posed aggressively. Even still, I’m not sure if a real Shinto shrine would have a fox that looks quite as creepy as the masks we see here.

In the older games, the various Silent Hill cults had a habit of making use of traditional religious iconography, which at first glance could be mistaken for an off-shoot of Christianity or neo-Paganism, even though the cult’s actual beliefs and object of veneration were very different. I wonder if something similar is happening here? Are these people using the trappings of Shintoism to disguise themselves?

It’s difficult to make out in the screenshot, but the fox masks have these small red strings or fibers coming out of them, implying that either the people wearing them don’t look human, or the masks themselves are actually living entities with veins. Or… well, I’ll save my third idea for the end of this analysis.

More creepy-ass foxes, this time in statue form. The front row are snarling in aggression, whereas the second row all wear a malevolent smile. One interesting detail I noticed is that the statues in the second row seem to get more monstrous with each iteration—the one furthest away is far less sinister, then with each successive statue the fox becomes more monstrous, with exaggerated facial expressions and teeth. Not sure what that’s about.

Tell me this isn’t going to show up as a boss at some point.

The long-necked woman in this painting is a Rokurokubi, a type of Yokai which is apparently somewhat unique in that they’re depicted as being human women afflicted with a curse or transformation rather than beings of pure spirit. A lot of tales of Rokurokubi involve women who have either committed some sort of crime or sin, or whose spirits have somehow detached from their bodies; the idea of the Rokurokubi as a suspicious figure who hides their true nature from the world is also common.

At one point in the trailer we see what appears to be photos of Hinako’s family (with creepy blanked-out faces), and her mother has an unusually long neck.

The Rokurokubi in this painting is helping three Oni kill a monstrous-looking fox. That would seem to cast her in a heroic light, except that the religious order of the Dark Shrine apparently worships monstrous foxes. Or do they? Is the shrine meant to contain or placate something represented by the fox? If Hinako’s mother is the Rokurokubi, what does that mean as far as the cult’s view of Hinako?

Food for thought.

People in the fandom are drawing parallels between this three-clover symbol and the Halo of the Sun that the Silent Hill cult uses. Personally I think that’s a bit of a stretch, especially since this type of “thing inside a circle” motif is very common in Japan, but I guess it’s possible. What isn’t in dispute is that this three-leafed clover thing is the emblem of this religious group, as the fox-masked shrine maidens have it on their clothes.

Interestingly, Hinako’s school uniform has a very similar symbol, but with a fourth leaf that’s disconnected from the rest. What does that mean? No idea.

It’s a bit hard to make out in the screenshot, but this dude also has a metal pipe. The Japanese youths yearn for cylinder.

He’s got a belligerent look on his face here, so I wonder if he’s going to play the “person the protagonist keeps bumping into who acts hostile and rude” role.

Back when the first trailer came out, I pointed out a scarecrow-looking thing wearing a school uniform and speculated that it could be an enemy. It appears I was correct, as I always am.

It kind of reminds me of the doll enemy from Downpour, except actually creepy and not stupid.

At one point Hinako turns around and sees… whatever the fuck this thing is. It appears to be a mass of doll parts on a pair of human legs. That concept screams “Silent Hill monster”, but the way it’s just standing there doesn’t seem very hostile. And look, one of the heads is smiling! Perhaps friend?

Again, this is hard to see in screenshot form, but just before the cut to black you can see the legs of some sort of large stompy boi appear in the foreground. It looks similar to the long-haired mannequin thing from earlier, but a lot bigger. Maybe a boss?

Once again, the red spider lilies are showing up in conjunction with a monster. We also see the “glitch” effect show up again, and Hinako once more has a headache (same, girl). I mentioned earlier that ryukishi07 has written stories about time loops before, and the earlier scene where Hinako “warps” back to her friends makes me wonder if something similar might be happening here.

Hinako’s clothes seem to get progressively fucked up. At one point, seemingly early in the game, she loses a sleeve, then a rectangular patch on the back of her shirt, and now both the front of her shirt and her skirt are partially shredded. If you told me a week ago that the next Silent Hill game would star a teenage schoolgirl whose uniform gets torn up while fighting monsters I would have been quite trepidatious, but at least based on this trailer it doesn’t look like this element of the game is going into pervy territory.

I’m assuming this has to be something that happens as the story progresses, similar to how James in the Silent Hill 2 remake got more haggard and how characters in recent Resident Evil games get dirtier over the course of the game.

Being stuck in a psychological occult hellworld is no reason to skip meals! Why not take a break and enjoy some delicious rotting-flesh ribcage with extra eyeball?

This reminds me strongly of the infamous “cooked dog” scene from Silent Hill 3. Actually a lot about this game reminds me of Silent Hill 3, in that it’s about an ordinary teenage girl who suddenly gets pulled into the fog world for no apparent reason and is (apparently) being targeted by a sinister religious order.

A shadow on the wall implies that someone or something is transforming or changing into a pointy monster. Wouldn’t it be wild if this was Hinako?

The profusion of red plants here makes me wonder if they’ll gradually take over the town as the game goes on.

Konami are being a bit cheeky here, in that this bit with Hinako screaming and charging with her pipe clearly transitions into a combat scene, but the trailer fades to white right before we get to see any of it. Note that once again the planty-fleshy things are surrounding Hinako and her opponent, bolstering my theory that they can form temporary “arenas” for fights to take place in.

I’ve deliberately not been commenting on any of the dialogue in the trailer because it’s all highly cryptic and impossible to parse without context, but it’s notable that Hinako, who normally seems to have quite a flat demeanour, is screaming, apparently at the monster, that it “took everything from her.” If my interpretation of her uniform damage is correct then this is a late-game scene, which is interesting.

One of the shrine maidens approaches Hinako with a knife. Hinako doesn’t seem thrilled about this but is also not resisting or trying to run away, which makes it seem like she’s willingly agreed to whatever is happening here. Notably, the game’s box art depicts Hinako with a large cut on her left cheek, exactly where the knife is aiming in this scene.

More importantly, what is that creepy fucking face with the glowing eyes behind her?

And finally, we get a close-up of Hinako’s face falling off, something that also happened in the initial reveal trailer and which is depicted on the game’s steelbook case. The editing makes it seem like this happens right after the knife-face scene, but Hinako is clearly in her bedroom or somewhere instead of the Dark Shrine.

So remember earlier, when I pointed out that the fox masks worn by the shrine maidens have these vein/thread things attaching them to their wearers? Well, maybe this is why.

I think we can all agree that that trailer was perfectly clear and answered all of our questions about the plot, but just to make sure, let’s see what the official website says.

“In 1960s Japan, teenager Shimizu Hinako lives in the small, remote town of Ebisugaoka, nestled in a mountain pass.
An average teen, she passes the time with nothing particularly special about her life.
Until, that is, a deep fog descends on Ebisugaoka, and everything Hinako knows crumbles as she finds her once-familiar home infested with spreading danger, the town empty except for the horrors teeming in the fog.
Now, as she navigates the twisting paths of Ebisugaoka, Hinako must solve puzzles and fight for her life in her struggle to survive.
Her struggle to reach the inevitable decision that must be made.
And her struggle to put an end to that which must be slain.
Will she choose to embrace elegance and beauty?
Or will her path lead her to madness and horror...
A story of impossible decisions, of the beauty in terror, and terror from beauty.
”

Hmm. No, that doesn’t really clear things up. What if we combine it with the game’s content warning?

“This game contains depictions of gender discrimination, child abuse, bullying, drug-induced hallucinations, torture, and graphic violence.
Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. Howe about Hinako’s character description?
The game’s main character.
A teenage girl struggling under the pressure of expectations from her friends, family, and society.
Cheerful and energetic as a child, she’s grown to become much more restrained, and now hardly smiles.”

Gender discrimination, Hinako struggling under the expectations of society, “Will she choose to embrace elegance and beauty”… you can start to form a fuzzy outline of the sort of thing that might be going on here. Apparently arranged marriages were still happening in rural areas of Japan in the 1960s; could Hinako be getting pressured into a marriage with someone she doesn’t want to be married to? Could that marriage secretly be a ritual carried out by a hidden religious organization, one which, by breaking, Hinako accidentally causes supernatural forces to be unleashed on the town?

Or could I be completely wrong about all of this? Very likely!

There is one more source of information on the game’s content, in the form of the ESRB rating description. I’m not going to go into it because it technically constitutes story spoilers, but some of the stuff in there is buck wild. This is the first game in the franchise to get an 18+ rating in Japa, apparently with good reason.

The fact that the game has a detailed age rating already implies that it might be releasing sooner than anyone expected. I hope that’s the case, because if it wasn’t already obvious, I’m pretty excited about Silent Hill f. My hope is that it achieves something I’ve been wanting since Team Silent disbanded, which is a game that feels like it really “gets” Silent Hill, but at the same time breaks away from the accumulated tropes and visual motifs that have become played out. We’ve had good Silent Hill games that broke completely from formula but didn’t really feel like Silent Hill, we’ve had decent recreations of the series’ past that didn’t do anything new; can we finally get a game that does both?