The first Silent Hill: Townfall reviews went live on Monday morning, three days before the game launches on PS5 and PC. Screen Burn’s take on the series opens with a solid average, and the pattern in the coverage is easy to read. Critics praise the atmosphere and the fog-bound setting, and they are far less united on the stealth sections, the combat and the variety of play. Hitbox Magazine has a review code, and our own review goes up tomorrow, Tuesday 22 September. Until then, here is where the critical consensus stands.
At a glance
Silent Hill: Townfall sits at 81 on Metacritic from 55 PS5 reviews, as of Monday morning.
Atmosphere is the most praised element, while stealth, combat and gameplay variety draw the criticism.
The game launches on Thursday 24 September, Digital Deluxe owners get in 48 hours early, and our review lands tomorrow.
Silent Hill: Townfall opens at 81 on Metacritic
At the time of writing, the Metacritic page for Silent Hill: Townfall shows a Metascore of 81 for the PS5 version, based on 55 critic reviews. That places it in the “Generally Favorable” band, the zone for games that are well received without being hailed as instant classics. There is no user score yet, which makes sense for a game nobody has been able to buy.
The spread between outlets is wide. Noisy Pixel gives it a perfect 100, Slant Magazine 90, Italy’s Uagna 85 and GamersRD 82. The praise is loud, but it is not universal.
Launch-day averages also tend to move over the release week as late reviews arrive, so today’s 81 is best read as a first indication that the coming days will refine.
Watch it too
Silent Hill: Townfall is betting on its own review scores
Where the fog of St. Amelia wins critics over
For context, Konami’s official page for the game describes a strictly first-person entry. You play as Simon Ordell, called back to St. Amelia, a fictional island town off the coast of Scotland that lies quiet beneath heavy fog. Screen Burn develops the game, and Annapurna Interactive co-publishes it with Konami.
On atmosphere, the reviews line up. Metacritic’s summary of the critical response highlights the design of the atmosphere and the puzzles, and one outlet quoted there argues that the first-person view amplifies the confusion and claustrophobia that psychological horror depends on.
The game’s signature tool feeds into that feeling. Konami calls it the CRTV, a pocket television used to tune into unstable signals, and it sits at the heart of a game built around exploration, evasion and survival, with narrative-driven puzzles and a deliberately limited set of weapons and tools. Survival here is mostly a matter of avoiding threats.
Stealth and combat are where Townfall loses points
The sharpest criticism so far comes from Chris Scullion’s review for VGC, headlined “Outstanding horror marred by infuriating stealth”. His verdict is that top-tier atmosphere is let down by some truly frustrating moments, which is a fair summary of the tension running through much of the coverage.
Among the reviews gathered by Metacritic, at least one outlet also describes the combat as clunky, to the point of getting in the way of the experience. Others point to a lack of variety in the gameplay, the kind of complaint that tends to matter more in the second half of a horror game than in its opening hours.
In fairness, none of this is unusual for a studio inheriting a series with rules as established as Silent Hill’s. Respecting the grammar before bending it is the safe route, and the reviews suggest Screen Burn largely took it.
Early access on Tuesday, launch on Thursday
Release day is Thursday 24 September on PS5 and on PC through Steam and the Epic Games Store. Konami sells three editions: a Physical Standard Edition, a Digital Standard Edition and a Digital Deluxe Edition, which unlocks the game 48 hours early, so from Tuesday 22 September. Pre-purchase bonuses include alternate looks for the CRTV and an alternate outfit for Simon.
It is a busy week, with Control Resonant landing on the same day. Both dates, and everything else coming up, are tracked in our video game release calendar.
As for us, Hitbox Magazine has received a code for Silent Hill: Townfall, and our full review will be published tomorrow, Tuesday 22 September. It will be written from our own playthrough rather than from the verdicts quoted above, and it will look closely at the three points the early reviews keep circling: whether the stealth sections frustrate as much as VGC found, whether the combat holds up when it cannot be avoided, and whether the fog and the sound carry the game all the way to its ending.
Is the Digital Deluxe worth it for the early start?
The two-day head start raises a practical question for anyone tempted by the Digital Deluxe Edition. Buying it means committing before most players have touched the game, on the strength of an average that is still settling and of reviews that disagree on precisely the parts of the game that decide whether a horror title stays with you.
If atmosphere is what you come to Silent Hill for, the early coverage is reassuring, because that is the point it praises most consistently. If stealth sections tend to wear your patience thin, VGC’s reservations deserve a careful read before you pay extra to play on Tuesday. Waiting until Thursday only costs you two days.
Our review goes live on Tuesday, the very day the Deluxe early access opens, so it will be there before anyone has to decide on a standard edition.