Silent Hill: Townfall will rebalance The Weight

A week after its 24 September launch, Silent Hill: Townfall is getting its first fixes, along with a promise plenty of players have been waiting for. Patch 1.3.1, released on PC on 30 September, tackles the stutter that was spoiling the game on Steam. On the same day, developer Screen Burn admitted that the stealth sequences against The Weight were a problem and said a rebalance is on the way. There’s no date for that second fix yet. Still, the message is clear enough: the complaints have reached the people making the game.

At a glance

Silent Hill: Townfall fixes its PC stutter first

The Steam version of Silent Hill: Townfall got off to a rocky technical start. Konami acknowledged as much on 24 September, in a notice on the game’s Steam page saying an update was being prepared to deal with performance issues specific to PC. It arrived six days later.

According to the patch notes posted on Steam, patch 1.3.1 reduces in-game stutter caused by shader precompilation, the small programs that handle rendering and that the game was preparing at the wrong moment. Konami asks players to check that the version number in the bottom right of the main menu reads v1.4.153829. The studio says the fix also covers the Epic Games Store version.

The Weight, the monster players have had enough of

The second issue goes to the heart of the game. The Weight is a large, hunched creature that looks as if it’s carrying something heavy on its back. It patrols several areas and chases you down as soon as it spots you. It can’t be killed, and if it catches you, it’s instant death, sending you back to your last save point.

The trouble lies in how it moves. Several reviews, including the one from VGC, noted that the creature sticks to whichever area the player is in rather than roaming its whole section. These sequences often take place in the dark, by torchlight, and quickly turn into trial and error. Our own Silent Hill: Townfall review already listed stealth against this near-invulnerable creature among the game’s main weaknesses.

Game Rant goes as far as calling it the most annoying enemy in Silent Hill: Townfall. It turns up in two major sequences of the story, which is enough to stall a lot of players.

Screen Burn promises a rebalance “asap”

The response came from Screen Burn’s X account on 30 September, in the same post that announced the PC patch. The studio wrote: “Also, we’ve heard you on struggles with The Weight – gameplay balancing on it’s way asap.” It’s the first time the developers have publicly admitted these sequences are a problem.

The post is short and gives nothing away about the next Silent Hill: Townfall patch. Screen Burn hasn’t said whether the creature will be slower, take longer to spot you or follow a different route. Nor has it said whether every platform will get the fix at the same time, although Push Square is already talking about a future PS5 patch.

What this means if you’re on the fence

For PC players, Silent Hill: Townfall is a smoother experience from today, as long as you’re on the latest version. If The Weight sequences stopped you in your tracks, waiting for the rebalance may well be worth it, now that the studio has publicly committed to reworking them.

Silent Hill: Townfall still holds plenty of appeal for fans of the series. It was the 17th most-watched category on Twitch over the past seven days, with an average of 21,418 viewers according to TwitchTracker on 1 October. The press reviews we rounded up at launch, in our piece on the first Silent Hill: Townfall reviews, mostly praised the atmosphere of St. Amelia, its fog and its sound design.