Silent Hill F Didn't Just Give Us A Superb Sh Game In The Year Of...

In addition to our main Game of the Year Awards 2025, each member of the PC Gamer team is shining a spotlight on a game they loved this year. We'll post new personal picks each day throughout the rest of the month. You can find them all here.

I try to never get my hopes too high before a game release. I know that may seem odd, seeing how enthusiastic I am about all things all the time. I've burnt myself before on the flame of anticipation, and I swore never to do it again., Well, sort of, because even I couldn't hide my excitement for Silent Hill f.

I had played Silent Hill 2's remake the year before, and while it was nice to be in a higher-res version of the foggy mountain town, it didn't quench my thirst for a new Silent Hill experience. I'd seen it all before. I wanted new horrors, a new twisty story, and a new protagonist to guide through the chaos. But if I had known then what I know now, I wouldn't have been so quick to dismiss the future of Silent Hill—the experience I craved was just on the horizon.

Silent Hill f doesn't repeat old traits with a new protagonist—it somehow manages to reimagine its formula, bringing it up to speed with modern narratives while also being distinctly Silent Hill. Not sure what that means? Well, an integral theme of Silent Hill has always been erotic subtext, whether that be James Sunderland's repressed desire or the fear of pregnancy haunting Heather Mason's every step.

Both Heather and James' stories are still very interesting to play today, but they're also quite dated. So instead of the devs foregoing this theme entirely, the NeoBards decided to take a different approach.

There is still plenty of erotic subtext in Silent Hill f, what with the themes of womanhood, marriage, and all the naked female mannequins hiding behind every corner, but it's much less predatory. The character of Hinako Shimizu is far deeper and more interesting than her fears of becoming her mother.

One of the best surprises of 2025 was just how much I loved Hinako. I should've known, really, one of the best horror writers of our generation, Ryukishi07, was the main writer responsible for not only creating Hinako's personality but fleshing it out with a worthy narrative.

It's easy to write Hinako off at the beginning as some simple teenager worried about the stereotypical stressors of a 17-year-old girl: a bad relationship with her parents, predominantly her father, and navigating the awkward tension of adolescent feelings. But you very qui

Source: PC Gamer