00:09I just finished up watching 15 minutes of Silent Hill Townfall, and I think it's safe to say
00:14that this is probably the scariest Silent Hill game ever.
00:18What are you doing here?
00:22This is the first Silent Hill game that is entirely in first-person perspective.
00:26For those of you who have been waiting for the return of P.T., this is the closest we've ever
00:31come,
00:31and because of that, it does feel very intimate and intense and frightening.
00:35The parts that I saw weren't necessarily as scary as I can tell based on the trailers as it's going
00:41to get,
00:42but there was still this eeriness even in the early stages of the game.
00:46The game is set in Scotland, which the developers told me was because it's already full of fog and monsters,
00:52and follows a character named Simon, who is far more timid and reserved, I think,
00:56than a lot of other Silent Hill protagonists.
00:58In fact, he is so reserved, we don't really get a lot of kind of the chatter that you might
01:03normally get in those games,
01:04where they're like, you know, oh, what's this doing here?
01:07Instead, that's relegated to text that pops up on the left-hand side of the screen
01:10that kind of represents his internal monologue.
01:12I liked it because it didn't really detract away from the suspense.
01:16It didn't take you out of it by having this character who's supposed to be hiding from this bondaged-up,
01:23fleshy, demon-type thing, but is somehow saying like,
01:26woo, that was a close one.
01:28For those of you who love Silent Hill's puzzles, it looks like there will still be plenty of them,
01:32so don't you worry.
01:33In this particular section of the game, we had to restore power to someone named Zoe's house.
01:38She's a character who we saw in the trailers,
01:39though I'm not entirely sure how she plays into things yet, but that's Silent Hill for you.
01:44But in order to do that, you had to go to a local news store to buy a timed card
01:49for a subscription to electricity,
01:51which is apparently a throwback to how Scotland's power actually worked back in the 80s and 90s.
01:57It was something that some of the Scottish members of the team had to explain,
02:00because it sounds baffling, but that's kind of the level of attention to detail that they're bringing to this game.
02:06In fact, because it is in that first-person perspective,
02:08they actually went through and scanned all of these various Scottish homes
02:12and imported them one-to-one into this game in order to create something that feels really, really authentic.
02:18It's probably not surprising to say that the game is absolutely gorgeous.
02:21Grotesque, yes, but gorgeous.
02:23And though I only saw one of the creatures that awaits us in this sleepy seaside town,
02:27it was pretty disturbing.
02:29It was, you know, fleshy.
02:31It was covered in what looked like leather ropes.
02:34And when it got a hold of Simon, I think more so than any Silent Hill game before it,
02:40they're aggressive.
02:41They are aggressive.
02:42They are fast.
02:43The developers described this as not a stealth game, but an evasion game.
02:47That is the focus of it.
02:49It's not so much being more clever than what's around you.
02:51It is just getting away from it before they get you.
02:54In Silent Hill Townfall, the main gameplay gimmick is you have control of this little CRTV.
02:59And as you walk around the town, you can hone in on different frequencies.
03:03One of these frequencies in the demo I saw was kind of leading our character to where the mystery was
03:09unfolding,
03:10like where the action was, what the next objective was.
03:13However, when you start to see enemies, those will also have their own unique frequency.
03:17You can then tune into those to kind of monitor their positions.
03:21And you can do that through walls.
03:22So, you know, if you know that there is something lurking around a corner without your CRTV,
03:28tune into that frequency and you'll be able to monitor them without putting yourself right out in the open.
03:32And speaking of not putting yourself right out in the open,
03:35they have a really intuitive peak system, for lack of a better term,
03:39in which once you are crouching behind a wall, it's not just your normal, like lean a little bit to
03:44the side.
03:44You gain control of both sticks and can peak out.
03:48Like you have full control over how much you are peaking out.
03:51You can choose just to do a little bit.
03:52You can choose to kind of crouch as you do.
03:54You can choose to stand up a little bit more on your tiptoes.
03:56And that's important because these enemies are a little bit smarter, I think, than previous Silent Hill enemies.
04:02Like if you are sticking out and they would have line of sight, they're going to come after you.
04:07For more.
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