Silent Hill: Townfall's new 19-minute gameplay trailer dives into St. Amelia's Otherworld, Simon's CRTV device, and fans in the comments are already comparing it to Alien: Isolation and Shattered Memories.
St. Amelia's Fog, a Deadlier Otherworld, and a CRTV Everyone's Talking About
The Trailer Walks Through Two Full Sections of Simon's Return to St. Amelia
The Silent Hill: Townfall 19-minute gameplay trailer just dropped on their official YouTube channel, and it opens with protagonist Simon Ordell being told he needs to return to the island of St. Amelia to "make things right," setting up a story about someone drawn back to a place he clearly left behind for a reason. From there, the trailer splits into two extended sections. The first follows Simon exploring St. Amelia's abandoned Shorefront region, using his CRTV, a handheld CRT-style device, to pick up on environmental clues as he tracks down the apartment of Zoe Ellis, his partner and a nurse at the island's family clinic, whose voice reaches him through the CRTV's static, asking him to come home.
Once inside, he works through several physical puzzles, including a fuse box that needs a prepaid power card and a combination-locked organ donor box, while also finding a photo of himself with no memory of why Zoe would have it. That section ends with Simon's first monster encounter, where the CRTV lets him see the threat's location through walls to sneak past it, though the attempt fails and forces him into a scrappy melee fight using a plank of wood as his only weapon.
The second half of the trailer jumps into St. Amelia's Otherworld, this time with Simon carrying a pistol as he moves through a red-tinged, nightmarish building crawling with monsters. Here, the CRTV's utility expands: beyond spotting enemies through walls, Simon can deliberately trigger radios to make noise and pull monster attention elsewhere, buying space to slip past unnoticed. When stealth isn't an option, the trailer shows combat falling back on the pistol, with headshots appearing to put enemies down faster, a detail that matters given how sparse ammo looks throughout the sequence.
The CRTV, Not the Monsters, Is What's Getting Fans' Attention
Of everything shown, the CRTV is the system doing the most work, both mechanically and in how the trailer is being received. In a developer Q&A published on the PlayStation Blog, writer and director Jon McKellan explained that the entire game was built in first-person specifically because the CRTV demanded it, stating plainly that "the CRTV couldn't work from any other perspective." That showcases the developers’ commitment to the game’s unique design: Townfall is the first mainline Silent Hill title to run entirely in first-person, and per the same interview, series producer Motoi Okamoto confirmed that decision wasn't influenced by Silent Hill: The Short Message's own first-person format, since the two games were developed on completely separate timelines without any technical overlap.
Fans watching the trailer have picked up on that same throughline. In the comments beneath the gameplay video, several viewers specifically praised how the CRTV's static, tuning, and distortion effects behave, with more than one comment comparing the searching-and-tuning gameplay loop favorably to Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, an older entry in the series built around a similar hide-and-seek dynamic with its own tracking device. Others drew comparisons to Alien: Isolation, pointing out that director McKellan himself previously worked on that game, a connection several commenters treated as reassurance that the studio understands how to build tension around a tool that reveals danger without letting players fight back immediately.
Fan Reaction Is Split Between Genuine Hype and First-Person Skepticism
Reaction in the trailer's comment section skews heavily positive, particularly toward the game's atmosphere and score, with multiple commenters singling out the music specifically as a highlight even before addressing the gameplay itself. Several longtime fans also praised small environmental details, like a red British phone box and fire exit signage, for feeling authentically Scottish rather than generic, tying back to the developer's stated use of the real coastal village of St. Monans as a reference point for St. Amelia.
Not every reaction was as enthusiastic. A recurring complaint in the comments is the first-person perspective itself, with a number of longtime fans saying it doesn't feel like a "real" Silent Hill game without a third-person camera option, and others specifically criticizing the Otherworld sequence for looking like little more than a red color filter rather than a meaningfully transformed space. A smaller but vocal group also raised concerns about the game's PS5 timed exclusivity, and about pre-order editions apparently lacking a disc-based release option. Some viewers also flagged rougher edges in the footage itself, including stiff monster death animations and combat that reminded a few commenters more of another survival horror title, The Evil Within, than Silent Hill specifically.
Silent Hill: Townfall Releases September 24 on PS5 and PC
Silent Hill: Townfall is set to release September 24 on PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store. As of this writing, Xbox platforms are absent from the game's official website and from Konami's own Silent Hill social channels, which have only listed PS5, Steam, and Epic Games Store across recent posts. Konami hasn't announced a timed exclusivity arrangement outright, but the studio has precedent here: the Silent Hill 2 remake launched as a PS5 timed exclusive before reaching Xbox roughly 13 months later, a pattern several commenters referenced directly when speculating about Townfall's own Xbox prospects.
The game is developed by Screen Burn Interactive, a Glasgow-based studio previously known as No Code before rebranding in 2025, a change the studio has said was meant to reflect "the imperfect feel of old technology and the lasting impact of a story," a fitting theme given the CRTV's role throughout the new trailer. Screen Burn previously developed the narrative-driven titles Observation and Stories Untold and has worked on Townfall since 2020, with Annapurna Interactive co-publishing alongside Konami.
Sources:
SILENT HILL: Townfall - Gameplay Trailer (Silent Hill Official YouTube)
Silent Hill: Townfall Gameplay Trailer (Screen Burn)
Silent Hill: Townfall Gameplay Trailer Announcement (Official Silent Hill )
Silent Hill: Townfall (Konami)
Silent Hill: Townfall (Epic Games Store)
