TLDR; It’s still Silent Hill: you’re knee-deep in psychological trauma, everything wants you dead, every hallway is a threat and you’re solving it all with a rusty pipe. Proof that horror games can still be immersive, tense and genuinely unsettling without cheap tricks. Do yourself a favor and trust the devs, play your first run on Story Mode so you can enjoy the atmosphere and narrative. The combat is tuned for multiple playthroughs and if you start on higher difficulties you’ll only end up frustrated. To get the full story, you need three playthroughs anyway so you can play on higher difficulties later.

Runs shockingly well for a UE5 game, smooth on my very average PC and even on Steam Deck. Already better optimized than half the AAA industry. Super immersive, with solid voice acting and a soundtrack that nails the Silent Hill mood: oppressive, grim, and uncomfortably personal.

Silent Hill combat has never been about being “fun.” It’s about dread. You’re supposed to feel underpowered, waste precious resources on a swing that barely connects, and realize that sometimes running is smarter than fighting. “High risk, no reward”? Exactly. Surviving is the reward. One more hallway, one more save point, one more puzzle. That’s the whole DNA of survival horror. You’re a terrified high school girl who’s never swung a pipe in her life. Of course it’s clunky. It’s supposed to feel desperate, not empowering. But here's the contradiction: the game wants you to avoid fights, meanwhile forcing you into them.

Early on I actually liked the combat. But the further you go, the more it falls apart. Exploration gets punished because you’re better off rushing past enemies. After the school section the game just throws enemies at you nonstop and it's forced combat. Silent Hill should feel hostile and punishing, yes, but here the combat isn’t terrifying, it’s tedious. All you feel is annoyance when you hear enemies. At certain points, your main objective becomes “Destroy the enemies” with what exactly, my patience? The atmosphere, the setting and the story are carrying the experience, while the combat design keeps dragging it down.

Story-wise? The way it blends Silent Hill’s psychological horror with rural Japanese folklore and atmosphere feels genuinely fresh, not like a betrayal. It’s not just fog and gore, it’s rituals, superstition, and horror that feels disturbingly grounded. Ryukishi07 delivered.

That said, finishing the game once isn’t the full picture. There’s NG+ and NG++ where new cutscenes, documents, characters and even bosses get added. These aren’t throwaway extras either, they expand the narrative in ways that are essential to fully grasping the story. Think less “Dark Souls NG+” and more “NieR: Automata” in how it gradually reveals itself. By the time you’re deep into your second or third run, you’ll still be seeing new storytelling beats and character growth that completely reframe earlier parts. Silent Hill has never been about rushing and this entry is no different so take your time, because one playthrough barely scratches the surface.

And here’s the thing: if fans gatekeep every change, this series will die again. Resident Evil has reinvented itself over and over and people welcomed it. Silent Hill can’t just recycle SH2 forever. If you actually want this series to live, you have to let it grow.

Overall? 8/10. The combat and ancient inventory system sucked a lot of the fun out of it but the story and atmosphere are strong enough to make it worth playing.