Silent Hill f Review

What the fog did I just play?

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Title: Silent Hill F

Release: September 25, 2025

Platform: PS5 PC Xbox

Developer: NeoBards Entertainment Ltd.

Publisher: KONAMI

Genre: Psychological Horror

ESRB: M

Reviewed on: PC

Time Played: 12 Hours

There’s something unsettling about a story that seems like it’s trying to tell you something profound but refuses to explain what it is. Silent Hill F is that kind of game. It immerses you in mystery, dread, and confusion until you’re unsure whether you’re discovering the truth or just falling deeper into madness. Maybe that’s the point—but if it is, does that make it brilliant or just frustrating?

Where it starts

Shimizu Hinako lives a simple life in a small mountain town in Japan during the 1960s. One day, after her father has had a little too much to drink, she decides to go into town to meet some friends. However, that day, her world falls apart as a mysterious fog engulfs the town, wiping out all life and replacing it with terrifying monsters. Hinako must find a way to survive and restore her life.

Fighting Monsters

Surviving the fog requires fighting off grotesque monsters. Scattered throughout the game, you can find weapons like kitchen knives, bats, and crowbars. You’ll swing these about while dodging attacks to defeat the beasts. Each weapon has limited durability and will break after enough hits, so you’ll need to find multiple weapons, and can only carry three at a time. During combat, you have several options, such as heavy and light attacks, a dodge and counter system, and managing your sanity levels. If your sanity drops too low, you start to take constant damage until it’s restored.

Item Management

Throughout the game, there are many useful items to collect and store for later use. These include items for restoring health or sanity, repairing weapons, and items used only for offering at shrines. You can only carry a limited number of items at once, so unless you use them quickly, you will end up discarding some to make room for more important ones. You can find some items that increase your bag capacity, but the increase isn’t much. To use an item, you’ll need to assign it to your hotkeys; otherwise, it just remains in the bag, taking up valuable space.

Hokora Shrines

Every so often, you’ll come across a Hokora shrine, a small sanctuary where you can save your progress, pray, and restore sanity. You can also give offerings for faith. Some items are used solely for offerings, while others can be used to heal or to gain faith. Faith can then be spent to upgrade stats with a prayer or to draw Omamori, special items that can be equipped for passive effects that aid in surviving the game. After each faith purchase, the cost will rise, requiring more and more faith as you progress further in the game.

Puzzles to Progress

You will find a lot of puzzles blocking your way forward. Before starting the game you can choose how difficult you want them to be. No matter the difficulty, there are clues to be found in notes and other things as you explore. Every clue found will be placed in your journal, organized within the different puzzles you find, making it very easy to locate and help solve your current objective.

Constant Mind F…

The way the story is told in this game is very vague and confusing. While reading notes and watching cut scenes, it sometimes feels straightforward and easy to understand, only to throw strange things your way and keep you scratching your head. Throughout, you can theorize and guess, maybe even feel like you understand the reality of the situation, only to be thrown off again and again.

Can the kids watch (check settings)

This game contains many dark and morbid elements, some of which are only hinted at through notes, so they might be easy to miss. The most disturbing aspects for kids would be the visual content, including graphic mutilation, frightening monsters, and blood everywhere. The visual nature of this game is not suitable for the faint of heart. I’m not going to tell you what to do, but my kids cannot watch this one.

Final Thoughts

I would love to hear any thoughts or questions you have about the game or my review, so leave me a message in the comments below. While you do that, let’s move on to my final thoughts and ratings.

This is the second Silent Hill game I’ve played, and all I can say is, I don’t see the appeal. I know many people have loved the series since they were young, and this one didn’t get the best reviews from long-time fans, but I didn’t particularly enjoy the remake of 2 either. Silent Hill F tries to be spooky or thoughtful with psychological attacks on the main character through twisted visuals and letters, but most of the time it felt like art I don’t understand or want to figure out. Having beaten the game and seeing the different possibilities I understand the overall message, but I don’t care for how it’s presented.

The best part of the game was the visuals, though they could be a bit smoother. The monsters were creepy, with too many body parts or awkward movements, creating some intense moments. In comparison, the main characters and environments felt a little lacking. Most of the playable areas were very dark or shrouded in fog, but they mostly consisted of what could be called hallways. Using the in-game map and walking around, it was hard to get lost since there were hardly any paths off the main routes to explore.

The overall story contains some strong emotions. But I only realized that after actually beating the game. The journey there was full of bizarre moments that almost seem like they start to make sense, only to twist my brain and drop kick it down a bumpy ravine, then get mauled by a fox and tossed in a river. I was determined to see the story all the way through, but I didn’t understand most of it. It’s the kind of game that would make more sense with multiple playthroughs, offering some replayability, but the gameplay makes that task feel like a chore.

I enjoyed most of the puzzles in the game. Hunting for clues and figuring out the solution was a lot of fun. There was only one puzzle that really confused me with the clues provided, but thankfully it was easy enough to brute-force the answer when things got tough. The combat in this game felt very janky; it was too much for a horror game but not quite enough for an action game. A few fights had to be played through for the story, but most of the time I could run past enemies without having to deal with them. There was no reward system for fighting; the only reason to engage was to clear the area so I could think or move forward. A few times I ran out of weapons, but it seemed to have a system in place, putting a random weapon on the ground near where I was fighting—so I never got soft-locked because of broken weapons, which I was very pleased with. Most of my combat experiences involved heavy swings until my foes stopped moving, with occasional dodging. There were some additional mechanics, like focusing attacks and countering monsters, but they weren’t necessary to complete the game. Overall, combat was difficult because of its mechanics, not the enemies.

With that, I want to put these thoughts into numbers for some ratings, who knows, you may be surprised with the final verdict.

The visuals were good, the monsters were very well done, but most characters and environments were bland in comparison, I’m giving it a 3

The story was a story, I didn’t understand most of it until the end, and even then I had some questions. Meaningful story, but terrible execution. It’s getting a 2.

The gameplay was slow and tedious, the best part being the puzzles. If the combat wasn’t so frequent it may be a better experience. That’s another 2

Some replayability due to the fact that there are multiple endings after beating it once, however, fighting through everything again is very unappealing. That’s a 2.

I didn’t have a lot of fun getting through the game. The combat was to janky to want to figure out, and the abstract story didn’t help. I’m handing out a 1.

Earning Silent Hill F an average score of 2 out of 5. Placing it on my Bottom Shelf. I wouldn’t recommend playing the game. If you must know the story I’m sure there are plenty of places you can check it out. I enjoy a good scary game, but this one didn’t have it. Unless the psychological horror was not understand what the hell I was going through, than perhaps this game was spot on.