Silent Hill f and Townfall Must Evade the Franchise’s Worst Crutch

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home December 1, 2024 10 Views 7 Min Read
Silent Hill f and Townfall Must Evade the Franchise’s Worst Crutch



Because the One Ring, Gollum, and Gandalf have been inseparably hogtied to the Lord of the Rings IP as pieces of iconography, it’s terrific to see Tales of the Shire commit to its hobbit-holes and seemingly refuse to permeate the cozy life sim with anything that would otherwise be there solely for the sake of nostalgia or familiarity. Not every game can say that of the looming franchise IP it belongs to, though, and that’s certainly true of the Silent Hill games that had to somehow follow Team Silent’s astonishing psychological horror titles.




Silent Hill has a perpetually endearing and alluring premise and, with countless protagonists, characters, and settings it could feature, there is no reason why its creativity or imagination should ever be stifled. Like Silent Hill 2, no story or character needs to explicitly connect to another to have the lore remain intact, and as an anthology there should never be any excuse for iconography to be repeated if it isn’t necessary. Pyramid Head manifested with a specific tether to James Sunderland, for example, and upcoming Silent Hill games like f or Townfall need to abandon the trope wholeheartedly.

silent-hill-2-remake-maria-eddie-angela-cutscene

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Silent Hill 2 Remake DLC Would Have the Lion’s Share of Potential

While one piece of new content would be a predictable addition to the Silent Hill 2 remake in the future, there are far more possibilities at hand.

How Silent Hill Games Have Regurgitated Pyramid Head and the Executioner/Bogeyman Trope


Silent Hill 2’s Pyramid Head is a phenomenal antagonist and expression of James Sunderland’s guilt. But, in the years following Pyramid Head’s debut and the influence he’d have on the franchise, the notion of a threatening figure that looms as a dark reflection of a protagonist has since been diminished and bastardized:

  • Silent Hill: Origins’ Butcher as a reflection of Travis Grady.
  • Pyramid Head himself briefly, needlessly, and inexplicably appears in Silent Hill: Homecoming.
  • Silent Hill: Downpour’s Bogeyman as a reflection of Murphy Pendleton.

Silent Hill: Homecoming’s Pyramid Head isn’t necessarily a reflection of Alex Shepherd as much as he’s simply an aimless executioner/bogeyman, though regardless of whatever in-game explanation is alluded to this example is the most obvious demonstration of the trope being regurgitated and exploited as a means of reproducing iconic imagery. Origins’ Butcher and Downpour’s Bogeyman aren’t awful depictions of what they’re attempting to represent, but because they’re designed to be similar to Pyramid Head they lack the originality that basically any other monster or boss design has in the Silent Hill series.


Many of the Western Silent Hill games are incredibly unsubtle and lack the storytelling nuance that Silent Hill 2 alone had, making it even worse that Origins, Homecoming, and Downpour all have a thematically identical and mute antagonist figure meant to represent or reflect the protagonist in one way or another. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories presents its story through a unique perspective that makes for a startling conclusion, but it too relies on an established story and characters.

The simple answer as to why the executioner/bogeyman trend continues is because Pyramid Head is iconic in
Silent Hill 2
and it makes for easy fan service to replicate that—literally and unapologetically in
Homecoming
, no less.

Future Silent Hill Games Should Be Held to a Creative Standard

If f and Townfall are going to be respected as brand-new entries, they will hopefully not cling to superficial imagery. Now, Silent Hill imagery will be impossible to circumvent completely if fog or the town itself is featured but to have a character or enemy appear without anything to justify them being there would be a huge mistake.


Part of the fun of

Silent Hill
’s lore
is knowing or at least believing that some enemies are only meant for one protagonist to experience, which then allows that protagonist’s experience in Silent Hill novel and unlike anyone else’s.

Homecoming would’ve still leaned too much on the 2006 movie’s imagery even if it hadn’t featured Pyramid Head, but the cursed town of Shepherd’s Glen and the lore behind its four founding families are interesting. There was no need for Homecoming to triple down on extraneous iconography and its reputation suffers to this day for it.

Rather, Silent Hill: The Short Message went in the opposite direction and bears almost no similarity at all to Silent Hill. This might’ve been agreeable if the game itself was not a free, two-hour walking simulator more akin to an early Bloober game, and it is hopefully more along the lines of what future Silent Hill games will consider in their approach to crafting lore and imagery. That said, players shouldn’t hold their breath because Silent Hill 2’s remake was released recently and the pattern will probably renew itself with even more inspiration drawn from Pyramid Head for bogeyman figures in future Silent Hill games.


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