Silent Hill: Townfall is out — critics love it, Steam players don't
Silent Hill: Townfall launched September 24 on PS5 and PC (Steam and Epic Games) at $49.99 standard and $59.99 deluxe, making it one of the pricier indie-adjacent horror releases of the year. Critics have given it a solid 81–82% on Metacritic aggregate. Steam players are considerably less enthusiastic, sitting at 71% positive — the widest critic-to-user gap in the current Silent Hill revival.
The game
Townfall is developed by Screen Burn, a Scottish studio formed from the team behind the well-regarded indie horrors Observation and Stories Untold (formerly No Code). Konami and Annapurna Interactive co-publish. The game is set on a fictional Scottish island called St. Amelia in 1996 — the third consecutive Silent Hill title under producer Motoi Okamoto's revival strategy to move the franchise outside the US. It is also the first mainline entry to go full first-person.
The Townfall review roundup paints a familiar split: critics at PC Gamer and GamesRadar celebrate the Scottish atmosphere and call it the first Silent Hill where the UK genuinely feels like home, not a borrowed backdrop. Puzzles, story, and dread are praised. Combat and stealth are not.
Silent Hill: Townfall — the fictional Scottish island of St. Amelia, set in 1996.
The complaint
Player reviews on Steam echo what critics flagged but weigh differently. The stealth sections — which bulk out the runtime between puzzles and story beats — are described as repetitive and underdeveloped. One widely upvoted review puts it plainly: Konami is selling another indie horror under a famous brand. Optimization complaints compound the frustration.
The $49.99 price is a recurring sticking point. Most users who liked the game still call it overpriced when measured against Silent Hill 2 Remake's value — a full-scale, content-dense remake that set a high bar for what the franchise can deliver.
What's next
Townfall stays a PS5 console exclusive for six months — Xbox and Nintendo Switch 2 versions follow after March 2027. If you're on PC, it's available now. If you're on Xbox, you have time to watch the user score settle. Meanwhile, Silent Hill f — which took the Japan Horror Game Awards 2026 Grand Prize — shows how strong Konami's current output can be when execution matches atmosphere. Townfall has the atmosphere. The execution is the debate.
