I Played Silent Hill: Townfall For 3 Hours & Here's Everything You Need To Know

0:01Spawn on Me is the premier podcast spotlighting people of color. Every week we talk news, what we've been playing, and tell you who's invited to the cookout. Our show is all about talking about gaming through a prism of blackness because we are the culture. Welcome to Bricago, y 'all. Yo, what's good everybody in Bricago? This is Kahlief here. This is the Spawn on Me podcast with Kahlief Adams. And let me tell you, I had a blast the past couple of weeks. I got a chance to go check out Silent Hill Townfall at a preview event down in LA. And it is definitely one of my already most anticipated games.

0:39I've been talking and wondering about this game for a long time. Got a chance to see a little bit of it in our previews that we saw in Summer Games Fest. So if you hadn't seen some of the context around this conversation, go check out some of our videos on our YouTube channel so you can get a little bit more flavor of why and what. But I got a chance to go check out the game for about three hours. They had this really dope, really cool setup for us down in LA in one of these really beautiful kind of super ornate hotels. And they had it decorated like we were in the town that is kind of located in Scotland where this new Silent Hill game is going to be held and kind of where the setting is.

1:19I got a chance to also hang out and do a QA session with John McLennan, who is the writer and director from Screen Burn, who is one of the folks who are helping to bring this Silent Hill game together, and Akimoto-san, who is a series producer over at Konami. And it was one of those things where, you know, you walk into a game like this with some expectations and you have some understandings of what you want to see and kind of hopefully what you'll be able to kind of see. And a lot of those things were really nailed and kind of was like, oh man, I was wondering about gameplay. I was wondering about atmosphere.

1:52I was wondering about, like, does this feel like a Silent Hill game in some of the kind of usual ways that we think of? And I think this particular game is actually very different in a lot of cool ways. And I think this is going to be a very special kind of Silent Hill title because of, you know, you have a dope Black protagonist. They have this man in Scotland now hanging out and trying to see what's going on in this world. There's this kind of ominous understanding that something is kind of special about you already because you have this IV that is already in your arm and you can kind of see those things in the mix.

2:30So it winds up being something where, you know, a lot of the mystery that you kind of come to expect in a game like this already from the jump is kind of given to you and putting you in a strange place with strange happenings. And you're trying to figure out what this game is going to wind up being. so we had about again three hours of gameplay to to go through um it is one of the most stunning games i've ever seen i think this is a a testament to you know what the playstation 5 pro can be and can do in terms of graphic fidelity and you know the intricacies of what a game like this will look like um we got a chance to play just on the pro which was cool um and there were some small things that were some details that I think were very important.

3:17So this game is all in first person. That is a departure from the usual Silent Hill games. It was very apparent that this was a big decision for the team for lots of different reasons. One, because they wanted to kind of bring scale into the world in a way that felt natural, felt like, you know, when you're kind of moving through spaces, that you are really feeling your way through moments in the world. I thought that that was a really profound change for them. And when we talked to them about it, they said, you know, we wanted to do this from the beginning. We said we wanted to, again, not only envelop you in the world and kind of give you a new space to think about, you know, spatial awareness, you know, how you're thinking about puzzles, which I'll talk about in a second.

4:05And, you know, how are you kind of engaging with mechanics in the world? One of the biggest and newest mechanics is the CRTV, which if you're familiar with any of the Silent Hill series, one of the biggest parts of the game mechanics is you kind of fumbling through the radio and sourcing through all of that staticky sound to find clues and to find issues and to find things that were in the world. and this one does it a little bit different and I like this version a lot better because it adds a level of immersion and it adds something where, you know, for instance, you're looking for the home of one of the people that you're trying to track down.

4:49On your CRTV, you bring it up on the screen, it kind of shows up in the lower left-hand corner as if you were holding it in your hand and while you're dialing through the static, you'll see these kind of pips on the timeline. Once you land on one of those, it kind of tunes into a memory, an idea, something else that's happening in the world. It's also used for finding where enemies are and geolocating where they are in front of you and around you. Again, that first person perspective adds to that in a big way. But you're actually seeing the places that you're trying to go to. So you're like, oh, that visage of a house is there.

5:29let me go towards where that direction is by looking around me and saying oh well that looks exactly like the the picture that i saw in the cr tv it's cool for so many other reasons again the puzzle factor is is one layer of it there's even a puzzle that towards a puzzle mechanic in in the demo that we got a chance to check out where you're using all the gyroscopic parts of the controller the dual sense to kind of like match the colors of where they they want you to kind of engage with this kind of almost RGB puzzle. So you're trying to gyroscope the things to line up and then move them around.

6:06It's super, super cool. One of the other things I thought was kind of cool from a presentation perspective is they said that they were using, you know, usually when you have the black bars on your screen, it is in a very specific ratio, in an anamorphic ratio. They have a 235 by one cinema scope aspect ratio in this game. And I think it's a small thing, but it adds a layer of feeling like you're in a movie. And I think, you know, for games like this in a horror genre, it is super cool to see people think about design and think about how players are going to kind of be engaging with not only just the world around you and what those black bars kind of cut off.

6:53for you and you can turn it off you can disable it if you don't like it but it adds this layer of tension in the way that you kind of see the world and in in you know are through that escapism that you're kind of being in that world in and this game is full of that tension is a huge part of this game tension in terms of the soundscape in terms of the the visual stylings the fog is back and better than ever. You know, the way that the monsters in this game move and the way that, you know, you're using your sound and you're ducking behind covers because there's a peek mechanic in the game to give you all of those things of, you know, you are looking through your own eyes and moving around the space, which is super cool.

7:39I'm really digging the pieces that they have thought about from all of those very small pieces that make up a game. One of the things that we did here in terms of scope was that this game has five different endings and some of them are secret endings, which I think is going to be cool. You know, any game that has a bunch of different endings in it means you adds to replayability. It adds to you trying to figure out, you know, how are you piecing together the story? You know, why are you this character? What is your purpose here? So having those pieces of that be shared with us of saying, oh, there's going to be a lot of things you can do in this game to kind of get to those spaces is really dope.

8:20I love that that's going to be a part of it. You know, one of the things that we talked about in the Q &A session is there are moments in this game because it's set in the mid 90s. So it's set around like 95, 96. So you have some older technology that is a big part of the game. So like when you're trying to save your game, you usually go to a phone, a landline phone, and you have to dial in a number to spark or to pop up the ability to save. So if you're outside in the world, you're not in a home, you'll go to a payphone and go do it. Or you can do it inside a home. And then a lot of times when you're getting these messages, there's a physical answering machine that is connected to.

9:01And you're like, oh, I remember, you know, well, depending upon how old you are, do you remember what it was like to, you know, pick up a phone and go and get your messages from an answering machine? And I was talking to John. I was asking him, I was like, what does this feel like in terms of, you know, your studio is made up of various ages of lots of different people. Like, did the younger folks even understand the technology in any way? And he was like, no, but, you know, we wanted to use some of that older tech to add tension because, one, like you can be attacked while in the middle if you're outside and using a payphone.

9:37You can be attacked by an enemy while you're trying to save. But also there's a layer of this analog feeling in the CRTV where they talked about, you know, using almost VCR-esque kind of visuals to bring home the kind of timeliness of the visuals that you were seeing. but also it was one of those things where, you know, when you are thinking about the analogs of what we have now in terms of technology, having a cell phone in your hand now makes a game a lot less scary because you can basically do it. Anything you want on a cell phone right now, you couldn't do any of that on a, on a, on a landline phone.

10:16So it changes the level of just tension in the world. You having to kind of pay attention to the world around you and, and trying to figure out smart ways to balance all of those things out. The enemies in this game are very scary. They're gross. They're grotesque. They look weird in the ways that most Silent Hill games do. The thing that makes them different in this game is, you know, they usually have that kind of like beat up shambling that they do. They kind of stumble towards you when you try to fight them and things like that. These bad boys are fast. like these new ones are quick they are nimble they are faster than i expected and the ones that we saw in the game at least in my time in the demo because i didn't finish the demo um were much faster and much more dangerous than the previous games that i had played it felt like if you messed up you were and it did because i doubt a lot as soon as they they come running at you you have to figure out an escape route you have to run running is the smartest option in this version of a Silent Hill game because they will just come after you and they don't stop coming after you.

11:26You can lose them if you run far enough and fast enough out of their view. But for the most part, they are still going to be coming after you. And it literally takes like one or two hits to kill you. It was profound once you get a weapon because you can block, you can then, of course, you know, hit them and try to kill them. but your weapons degrade really, really quickly. It is a game in which you are really using your senses to stay out of combat as opposed to fighting. You do get a gun a little bit later in the demo from what I got a chance to check out. And that felt good and it felt like the damage on it was very, very good.

12:12You were able to take out enemies pretty quickly and dispatch of them in the ways that you would think, but it didn't feel like, you know, you weren't going to do, you know, Resident Evil style. Oh, I have a full clip of a whole bunch of bullets. Like you have a revolver that has six bullets. Maybe if you miss, you are screwed. You know, you're going to have to try to figure out how to balance all those things out in a real way. And it's, and it's hard. Like it's, it's cool that they made the difficulty feel again, like you are in constant danger and you're trying to figure out smart ways to to get out of these scenarios in these situations i like the where they're going in terms of the storytelling already i think you know uh having this game kind of come together now uh feels smart it feels like it's a good time for the ip to come back in in this way um i did love the fact that um the music is already banging and already really really cool i I love the fact that they had some gyroscopic elements in some of the game.

13:18And you can turn that on or off as well. I love the way that they do puzzles and environmental puzzle stuff. Like they do some really smart things. Again, it goes back to that CRTV use where you're getting these videos of elements of the puzzle and you're trying to figure like, okay, I saw this thing in the video. There was a number here. Oh, I saw this thing in the video. It was telling me to kind of look at this particular part of a poster in the building that I'm in or a building that I need to go to, which I thought was cool. You know, at higher levels, usually you have this big map of the world and it has those moments where you can kind of see the squiggly lines where you're like, oh, I tried to go here and this is blocked off in Silent Hill fashion or, oh, I'm supposed to be going here.

14:03In higher difficulty levels, you can't see where you are on the map. So there's usually like a little pointer diamond kind of thing where you are on the map. that's like you are here in higher difficulty levels. That is not an option in there, which I also like. I think that adds to the, again, the environmental storytelling and bringing you back to those spaces. And back to the Q &A session, I did want to go back and talk a little bit about, you know, some of the things that we discussed in the game. And one of my big questions, of course, was around Simon Ordell, who is the main protagonist in the game, of course, is the first Black character, Black protagonist in the Silent Hill game.

14:37And I asked, as John, I said, you know, what was the kind of reasoning for bringing, you know, a Black character into Silent Hill? Did this feel like a moment that was special? Did it feel like this was something that was discussed across the team to say, we want to do this for a very specific purpose? And he said, you know, one of the things we wanted to do with this character was like, this was not a, you know, an idea that came up secondarily. Like we wanted him to be this American black character who is traveling to this place in Scotland, the town of St. Amelia. And we wanted to give the flip, you know, give a new spin on on the Silent Hill story.

15:21And we felt like this character and who he is and what he's kind of there for, you know, and more things you'll learn throughout the story really brought something special to the series in a way that was something that we're really looking forward to fans kind of getting a chance to check out. one of the other questions I did ask was this is a game that is being brought to the world through a combination of publishing and development from Screen Burn, Konami and a publisher in Annapurna which doesn't really do horror games like this, they have a couple in the mix but this is probably their biggest one to date and what was it like kind of finding them and saying this is something that we want to do together as a whole, because Konami can do kind of what it wants with the name and cache that they have.

16:09And they said, you know, we understood that when we went to Annapurna, we had a couple of meetings with them and looking at their portfolio, looking at the way that they think about games, the games that they make and the ones that they pull into their portfolio through the publishing layer. We knew that they were going to be the ones that we wanted to do this with because they have a great understanding in storytelling, which we want to do really well. And they have this understanding of just like really fun and interesting projects they are willing to take on and be you know full-throated about how they want to be connected to those worlds and I was like that's awesome because I love the stuff that Annapurna does and feel like they have one of the smartest portfolios in in gaming so I was really surprised and excited to hear that that was a part of the way that they talked about it it was a blast man like I think you know again to wrap this up uh and you can also check out more thoughts that i had with danny pena who also put out a video that we did around around our time playing the game let's go check out gamertag radio stuff um again the the reasons i am excited for this game are evident i think i want to play this thing on pc because it's going to look beautiful if you're going to play this thing on uh playstation uh definitely get it on the pro if you have a pro it is the most it's probably one of the prettiest games i've seen uh you know on a console in a very long time um and i and you know again the bits and pieces that i saw from the three or four hours that i got a chance to check out really did keep me excited it had the pacing of a really um profound and interesting story.

17:48And it felt like this was a return to Konami Silent Hill grace, Silent Hill perfection is what I meant to say in a way that I didn't necessarily feel with Silent Hill F. And feeling like this game is gonna be exactly the kind of Silent Hill story game and weird and funky goofiness that you're gonna get a chance to check out that I know and love as a horror fan. So we're going to get about it here for this episode in this preview of Silent Hill Townfall. Make sure you're going to check out all the stuff that we have on our YouTube channel, TikTok channels, Spotify, especially. We're trying to get to 2000 hours a month in terms of listenership there so we can start to monetize our work over there as well.

18:33And please make sure you're checking out all my appearances. I have stuff that's coming up very soon. I'll be in New York Games for Change this week. next week after that, I'll be at the National Urban League doing a talk around creators and all of that good stuff there in Nashville. So if you're at any of those events, come say hello and say what's up. And we're going to get about it here for this episode of Spawn on Me. Thank you so much for watching. Thank you so much for checking out the work and we'll see you all very soon. Much love. Peace.