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A Japanese horror franchise is finally moving to Japan

- CALUM MARSH

The first image unveiled from Silent Hill f showed a schoolgirl wearing a blue sailor uniform and traditional sandals, surrounded by pale pink cherry blossoms.

It was unmistakably Japanese, and it sent a clear message to fans of the survival horror franchise — prepare for a significant departure from the typical Silent Hill game.

The original Silent Hill, released in 1999, was a typical American horror story that unfolded in a fictitious seaside town in Maine shrouded in a thick blanket of ominous fog. Team Silent, a Tokyo studio within Konami, spent two weeks in Chicago and also drew inspiration from Stephen King and David Lynch, whose depictions of nightmarish Americana helped inform the game's eerie, dreamlike atmosphere.

Silent Hill f, which will be released on Sept 25 for the Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and PC, is instead an unabashed work of J-horror, the subgenre popularised by turn-of-the-century films like Ju-On: The Grudge and Ringu.

Konami declined to comment about the new setting and its influences, pointing to previous statements by the game’s creators. During a preview of Silent Hill f, series producer Motoi Okamoto said that while the series had always “fused the essence of Western horror and Japanese horror’ its upcoming game was an attempt to lean fully into Japanese motifs.

Trailers for the game show environments steeped in Japanese culture and heritage, including torii, the traditional gates at the entrance to shrines, and spider lilies, which are associated with the fall equinox; indoor settings are divided by latticed screens and decorated with traditional hanging scrolls. A Shinto deity worshipped by village residents is prominently featured, and in addition to the franchise's traditional steel pipes and crowbars, players can also wield more Japanese-specific items such as a polearm, known as a naginata.