As it turns out, we’re getting a new entry in the Silent Hill series of horror video games, with this latest one named Silent Hill f. Just in time for Halloween 2022 (and THS Fright-A-Thon] to boot. How do I know this? Well, mostly because of the new cinematic trailer for it that popped up in today’s Silent Hill event. You can check out said trailer below in all its hauntingly beautiful (yet grotesquely terrifying) glory:

You Can (Not) Escape the Infection

This is practically a 2-minute long horror short film all on its own.

The official Silent Hill YouTube channel just posted this new cinematic trailer for Silent Hill f above. What does the lowercase f stand for? Well, no one seems to know. Certainly, Konami isn’t telling us. However, I’m sure the f will reveal its meaning in due time, and likely in the most horrifying way possible.

According to the video description in that Silent Hill f trailer, this new game will “be a completely new story set in 1960’s Japan featuring a beautiful, yet horrifying world”. It will even feature a story by Ryūkishi07: a Japanese horror writer who’s famous for writing the stories for “Japanese visual novels dealing with murder mysteries, psychological and supernatural horror”. Which visual novels, you might ask? Well, as it turns out, Ryūkishi07 wrote the stories for Higurashi When They Cry and Higanbana no Saku Yoru ni, both of which were very well-received horror visual novels. Indeed, that trailer showcased his skill in writing horror stories in all its horrific glory.

Unfortunately, what the Silent Hill f trailer doesn’t give us is a release date. It seems that’s something Konami want to keep under wraps for now. Tune back in to THS later to find out when we’ll get to dive into this infectious world Ryūkishi07 is crafting for us.

Silent Hill f Trailer: Analysis

"Silent Hill f" trailer screenshot showing the schoolgirl's crying face right before it falls off.
If you think this looks creepy, give it a moment.

The Silent Hill f trailer begins with scenes of empty countryside shrouded in fog. The scene transitions to an equally as deserted old-fashioned Japanese town, seemingly deserted save for an abandoned (and slightly creepy) Japanese doll on a stand. The trailer quickly gives us our protagonist though: a Japanese junior high (middle school) schoolgirl dressed in period-appropriate sailor fuku uniform. At first, she’s only staring at a patch of weird red flowers growing in front of what looks like a decapitated jizo statue. Soon however, she’s fighting for her life (with only a metal pipe to boot) from the rapidly growing red flowers as they engulf the entire town in their crimson tendrils. The Japanese doll, which we would normally assume is the monster here, is instead the victim as the tendrils engulf it as well. Indeed, it seems as though the doll represents our protagonist, as well as her fate.

See, the Silent Hill f trailer then continues with the exhausted schoolgirl trying to escape the rapidly growing tendrils as they reach out and ensnare her. Unfortunately, the last part of the trailer shows her kneeling on a pad of those flowers, floating on a dark body of water. Bodies surround her in the water, sprouting red tendrils that now look suspiciously like Cordyceps fungi. It seems the game is taking a page from The Last of Us here. The last we see of the schoolgirl is the Cordyceps overtaking her body, sprouting into discordantly beautiful flowers. The last shot of her crying face ends with said face falling off, revealing a hollowed head behind it. The fungi clearly having eaten everything behind it already.

Like I said, this trailer is a horror short film in of itself. Note that the trailer doesn’t have any actual gameplay footage in it. However, judging from the cinematics alone, Silent Hill f is shaping up to a disturbingly terrifying horror game already. We’ll be eagerly waiting more of this.

Source: SILENT HILL (Official) YouTube