Despite its relatively brief existence, Team Silent left an undeniably large impact on the horror game genre. Before it was unexpectedly closed in 2007, the Konami subsidiary released a mere four games, most of which were universally acclaimed by both critics and fans. Its last project, however, Silent Hill 4: The Room, was treated like a black sheep within the Silent Hill community. Silent Hill 4 came out on the PlayStation 2, original Xbox, and Windows PC in 2004, just one year after the debut of Team Silent’s previous game, Silent Hill 3. It introduced some major changes to the traditional Silent Hill formula, which not everyone was happy about.
Contrary to its name, Silent Hill 4: The Room is not set in Silent Hill and instead takes place within a haunted, locked-down apartment building in the fictional city of Ashfield. Due to its more restrictive environment, there are no boss fights in the entire game, but there are a bunch of unkillable enemies. Silent Hill 4: The Room‘s gameplay, as a whole, places a greater emphasis on combat over puzzles. While the game does still have a decent number of puzzles, their abundance and complexity have been significantly reduced. Even though these design decisions may rub some fans the wrong way, Silent Hill 4: The Room is still worth checking out on modern hardware, especially now more than ever.
Related
After Silent Hill f, the Shoe Could Be On the Other Foot for Resident Evil 9
Silent Hill f is shaking up the franchise with a big setting change, and Resident Evil 9 rumors could be hinting at a similar turn.
There’s Never Been a Better Time to Check Silent Hill 4 Out on PC
In Terms of Modern Platforms, Silent Hill 4 is Only Available on PC via GoG
Like most of the mainline Silent Hill series, Silent Hill 4: The Room is not playable on any current-gen consoles. The 2004 horror game is neither available on Microsoft’s Xbox backwards compatibility program, nor has it been added to Sony’s PlayStation Plus Classics Catalog. The only modern platform that fans can currently experience the game on is Windows PC. Although Silent Hill 4: The Room isn’t being sold on Steam, it is available for purchase on GoG, CD Projekt Red’s DRM-free storefront. The game has been accessible on the platform since 2020, but due to some oddly missing features, this version of it was inferior to its PS2 and Xbox counterparts at launch. Fortunately, though, this is no longer the case.
Silent HIll 4’s GoG Version Recently Received a Major Update That Restored Missing Content
During the recent Future Games Show Spring Showcase, GoG announced that Silent Hill 4: The Room was being added to its game preservation program and would be receiving a new update as a result. On March 20, the update in question brought several notable features to the game, including full support for Amazon Luna, Google Stadia, and DualSense Edge controllers, improved Windows 10/11 compatibility, and some major bug fixes. Most significantly of all, however, it restored all the hauntings that were initially absent from the PC port of the game.
In the console versions of Silent Hill 4: The Room, players occasionally encountered hauntings in the apartment that the game took place in. These hauntings could damage players’ health if they got too close to them. This gameplay feature was unique for the time, and it was praised by many reviewers. However, for some unknown reason, it was removed entirely from the PC port of Silent Hill 4, which came out a few months after the console versions. According to GoG, the code for the hauntings was always present in the game’s PC port, but it wasn’t enabled by default.
The GoG Version of Silent Hill 4 is Now The Most Definitive Way to Play the Game
Now that the GoG version of Silent Hill 4: The Room contains all the content from the original console versions, in addition to several new features, it is effectively the definitive edition of the game. The best part about this, though, is that the game is not only cheap on GoG, but it can also be played on pretty much every modern PC. Silent Hill 4: The Room‘s system requirements are not demanding in the slightest, so anyone with a Windows PC can play the game at a stable frame rate, even if they don’t have a full-blown gaming rig.
- Released
-
September 7, 2004
- ESRB
-
m
- Developer(s)
-
Team Silent