Why You Should Play: Silent Hill f

The latest entry in the Konami horror franchise really snuck up on me, and I don’t mean in a jump scare way. In fact, I wouldn’t describe Silent Hill f as overtly scary as much as I would describe it as thoughtfully horrific. Like its predecessors, Silent Hill f is less about making you run away from something terrifying (which it does do that, too) as much as it is about making you face something scary and stare at it, unblinking, while you consider what you did or didn’t do to make it happen.

As the year comes to a close, we’re highlighting some personal favorite games from our team that we feel you shouldn’t miss. If you’re still looking for the right game to carry you into 2026, and you’ve already hit up our Top 10 Best, we’re hoping one of these recommendations will hit the mark.

It takes some time for Silent Hill f protagonist Shimizu Hinako to enter the more thoughtful side of her journey, because the game starts out with monsters and chase scenes through a 1960s Japanese town as your friends remain just out of reach. The action is all very spooky and pretty, but it’s not until you start exploring deeper into Hinako’s mind with the aid of a mysterious man in a fox mask that its hooks started to really sink into me.

Silent Hill f has monsters and fog and it never overtly spells out its larger themes, but the deeper you go, the stronger it gestures toward what Hinako is experiencing internally and how it is affecting her. I admit I never fully understood exactly what was happening (which is what makes it a Silent Hill game, frankly), but understanding her flawed relationship with her parents and how it affects her feelings about the potential of marriage is fascinating. And the abstraction that she willingly puts herself through as a metaphor for marriage is one of the most disturbing sequences I have not only played in a Silent Hill game, but maybe even the wider horror video game genre.

And if that wasn’t enough, the ending I received (which I imagine would be everyone’s first ending) so expertly puts the player in a position of regret that I immediately felt terrible for everything not only Hinako has been through, but also what I had put her through. If you don’t have it in you to play the game, which I would understand, the primary health item you use throughout to heal Hinako is an addictive pill that you have been unwillingly forcing her to abuse, and it has made her violent against her peers and family. It’s the kind of storytelling that only a video game can pull you off: your actions directly created the conflict and you didn’t even realize it.

It’s for all these reasons that Silent Hill f is one of my favorites of the year and handily my second favorite Silent Hill game after Silent Hill 2. Konami has been in a strange place since it jettisoned Hideo Kojima into independent development, but Silent Hill f is a strong reminder that the storied publisher still knows what it is doing. I hope it is ready to tackle Castlevania again next.