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The Best Silent Hill Games Of All Time

The Best Silent Hill Games Of All Time




Some of the Silent Hill games sit in pride of place among the finest survival horror experiences of all time. Others don’t attract quite the same praise. It’s true that the franchise’s quality went through peaks and troughs throughout its long history — mainly because Team Silent, the original development team, disbanded shortly after the release of the fourth game.

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Ever since, the series has struggled with its own identity, but things are looking way up with new entries in the works, plus a great remake of Silent Hill 2. A lot of people want to get into the games, but which entries are the best, and what games should you avoid?

Updated on November 2, 2024, by Dominic Allen: Finally, after all this time, Silent Hill is back with the Silent Hill 2 remake. After 2012, Silent Hill seemed dead as a doornail, especially with the Silent Hills cancellation, but Konami has a bunch of stuff planned for this legendary horror franchise. It might be the best time to be a Silent Hill fan right now, and with the new installments, the Short Message, and the Silent Hill 2 remake, it’s the perfect time to update this list.

12

Silent Hill HD Collection

The Use Of Comic Sans Tells The Whole Story

It wouldn’t be fair to mention Hijinx Studios’ Silent Hill HD Collection and the games it was intended to honor in the same sentence. That’s why this 2012 compilation has its own entry, right where it belongs — the bottom. The first bone of contention came with the inclusion of only the second and third games.

Okay, Silent Hill 4: The Room didn’t get the warmest reception, but Konami could have at least included a download code for Silent Hill 1 on the PS3 version. The Metal Gear Solid Legacy Collection did this, so why not here? Those complaints paled in significance when the collection arrived, littered with an embarrassing number of glitches and poorly re-recorded voice work. Sadly, the HD Collection is often regarded as nothing more than a lazy cash grab and a tragic waste of an opportunity.

11

Silent Hill: Book Of Memories

Silent Hill’s Death Note

Dungeon gameplay with Map in Silent Hill: Book of Memories.

The PlayStation Vita, and handhelds in general, probably aren’t the best way to experience the survival horror genre, but that’s okay — whatever Silent Hill: Book of Memories was trying to bring to the table, it certainly wasn’t scares.

An RPG-lite dungeon crawler set in the Silent Hill universe, Book of Memories has players choose from a handful of one-dimensional characters, battle enemies recycled from past entries, and locate key items as they try to escape another bland, cookie-cutter level. Book of Memories is somewhat playable, but it’s also a completely unnecessary and very out-of-place addition to the Silent Hill line-up.

10

Silent Hill: Homecoming

Silent Hill Meets Hostel

Silent Hill: Homecoming was the beginning of the end of the series as we knew it. After a slightly disappointing fourth entry, Homecoming was Konami’s chance to take some criticism on board and use the benefits of next-generation technology to invigorate the aspects of Silent Hill that were becoming stale.

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Instead, we got one of the series’ most boring protagonists, Alex Shepherd, assets from the Silent Hill movie awkwardly shoehorned into the mix, and another contrived cameo from villain-turned-mascot Pyramid Head. No spoilers, but this particular antagonist’s appearance in any game other than Silent Hill 2 is some serious shark-jumping.

9

Silent Hill: Downpour

How Not To Make An Open-World Horror Game

The follow-up to Homecoming improved on its predecessor in many ways, offering a larger, more open world to explore and optional side-quests for the more eagle-eyed players. The storyline and its lead character, escaped convict Murphy Pendleton, also felt like a fresh take on the formula.

Unfortunately, the supporting cast of Downpour leaves a lot to be desired, while many of the monsters are among some of the most poorly designed in the franchise’s history. The annoyingly persistent humanoid enemies encountered throughout the town have a lot in common with Siren’s terrifying and unkillable shibito — but with none of the personality.

8

Silent Hill: The Short Message

The Most Unnecessary Silent Hill Game

The Silent Hill series was dormant for almost a decade, and because of that, Konami felt they needed to release this small free title to show the direction the series was going in. To be frank, they could have just waited for the Silent Hill 2 remake and called it a day.

The Short Message is an okay Silent Hill experience with a decent enough story, but the issue is that when you make a short free Silent Hill title, it’s always going to be compared to PT, and you’re just never going to win that battle. As the title suggests, it is short, so if you have an hour and a half to kill, you can play it. Otherwise, it really isn’t necessary.

7

Silent Hill 4: The Room

The Most Unique Entry

Silent Hill 4: The Room was the last to be made by the original “Team Silent.” Developed alongside the third game, The Room was an attempt to move the series in a new direction. It centers around Henry Townshend, who becomes trapped in his apartment. Soon after, a strange tunnel appears in his bathroom, transporting him to various locations around Silent Hill, where he meets bizarre characters and battles hideous creatures.

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The Room doesn’t hold a candle to the original trilogy. It has its moments, but the combat is clumsy, Henry and Eileen are no James and Maria, and the second half is nothing more than a retread of areas the player has already visited.

6

Silent Hill: Origins

Not Too Bad All Things Considered

Travis Walking Through The Foggy Streets Of Silent Hill in Silent Hill: Origins.

Developed for the PSP and later brought to PlayStation 2, Silent Hill: Origins is set many years before the first game and explores the events that led up to it. It begins with truck driver Travis Grady discovering a house just off the road to Silent Hill, almost totally consumed by a hellish fire.

Hearing a child screaming inside, he rushes into the blaze and discovers the badly burnt but still-living body of seven-year-old Alessa Gillespie — the tortured child behind many of the terrifying occurrences of the original Silent Hill. Fans of the first game will love the backstory and fan service on offer here, but there’s no denying Origins is one of the series’ more average entries.

5

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

One Of The Best Horror Games On The Wii

A reimagining of the first game that first came to the Wii in 2009, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories isn’t half bad. Sure, it’s a little Disneyfied for a more casual audience and does away with combat in favor of motion-control puzzles, exploration, and chase sequences, but its premise is a smart one, making it an interesting spin-off, if nothing else.

Throughout the game, the player is briefly taken out of the action and finds themselves in front of a psychiatrist asking seemingly random questions. This is where Shattered Memories excels — each answer the player gives cleverly affects the world around them, the course of the game’s narrative, and even the appearance of certain characters.

4

Silent Hill 2 Remake

The Best Horror Remake In Years

Silent Hill 2 remake is the best horror remake since Resident Evil 2. Bloober Team delivered the sound design, visuals, and incredible story that SH2 is famous for. They even added new bits to the story, which is a risky move that could upset fans, but most of the new scenes and details fit like a glove into the established world.

The combat’s also improved, but a few things make it inferior. For one, the game’s way too long to the point where it ruins the replay value. Classic SH2 could be beaten in around two hours if you know what you’re doing, and this made getting all the endings really tempting. Not so much in the remake, and Bloober really should have reused the old puzzles because the ones here aren’t even in the same league.

3

Silent Hill 3

Where The Franchise Should Have Ended

There can be no doubt that the original trilogy is the pinnacle of the series in terms of quality, but while the third entry is an excellent game, it is most definitely the weakest of the three. A continuation of the original game’s storyline, Silent Hill 3 stars Heather, a feisty teenager dragged kicking and screaming into a world of freakish demons and religious zealots. It soon becomes clear she has intrinsic, unbreakable ties to the town and its otherworldly rituals.

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There’s plenty here for new players and long-time fans, with lots of fresh content mixed in with a smattering of recognizable locations. However, narrative-wise, this was where the train started to come off the track.

2

Silent Hill 2 Classic

A Game So Scary There’s No Way You Can Just Sit There And Eat Pizza

The second game in the series is a masterpiece and only misses out on the top spot by a knife edge. Mild-mannered James Sunderland helms a cast of compelling yet incredibly damaged characters, slotted beautifully into one of the most twisted storylines ever seen in a video game. Then there’s Pyramid Head, the instantly recognizable, nightmarish villain regarded by many as one of the finest antagonists ever created.

Silent Hill 2 introduces fans to new areas of the town and harnesses the power of the PlayStation 2 to bring it to life in new, exciting ways. The sequel also improves on many of its predecessor’s gameplay flaws, though it still feels oddly clunky.

1

Silent Hill

Lightning In A Bottle

The game that started it all, Silent Hill redefined console-based horror. As opposed to Resident Evil, Silent Hill focused on psychological horror, disturbing imagery, and a fully realized, Lynchian-style story. It’s no secret that the prominent use of thick, cloying fog was devised to hide the original PlayStation’s woeful draw distance, plus Silent Hill was originally a Stephen King’s The Mist game early in development.

The fog only added to the experience, and it wasn’t about what you could see, but rather, what you couldn’t. Many call its sequel the best, but the original Silent Hill is an incredible achievement. It looks extremely dated now, and Harry Mason controls like a tank crossing an ice rink, but for fans of pure, unadulterated horror, it doesn’t get better than this.

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