Silent Hill f: How To Purify The Sacred Sword

Getting the Sacred Sword isn’t enough in Silent Hill f. To unlock the True Ending you must also purify the sword — that requires solving a puzzle in an area that’s only available in NG+. If you’re trying to purify the cursed sword, here’s exactly what you need to do.

How To Purify The Sacred Sword

The Sacred Sword is a secret NG+ weapon — it’s also cursed by default and must be purified to unlock the true ending or prevent a different ending that requires the cursed sword. To purify the sword, you must complete a puzzle at the Main Hall area of the Dark Shrine / Nightmare. This is the area where Hanuko goes through a terrible transformation.

• Reach Main Hall – 1st Floor on NG+. You’ll enter this area with all three upgrades already unlocked.
• In the central large room full of doors and walls, go to the lower-right (southeast) door. It leads to a hallway. Go through the first door on the left to reach the attic area upstairs.
• The attic is a large room with a broken floor. Use Focus to remove the blood-spattered wall, then open the door with the Oinari Brooch. You’ll have this item in NG+.

The door leads to a large exterior room. There are bells with symbols all over the area, and a small building up the stairs. Go upstairs and collect the key item Hotei-Sama Sitting Cross-Legged. This is required to purify the sword. Collecting it will unlock the Treasured Belonging achievement / trophy.

Now that the key item is in your possession, you’ll need to solve this strange puzzle room.

How To Solve The Water Garden Puzzle

There are bells all over the room and writing on a large stone. The writing has clues for which bells you need to ring in a specific order. There are three bells you need to ring, but more than three total — some need to be ignored.

• Ring the bells in the order of symbols: water, wood, stone.

• The water symbol is hanging from the tree near the stone tablet.

• The wood symbol is by the bridge in the center of the area.

• The stone symbol is the mountain-shaped image on the bell inside the small building.

Ring the three bells in order — remember, the order is water, wood, stone. You’re not timed despite what the instructions say, but you may want to ring the bells one after another. Do all three and the water in the garden will turn blood red and lower. If the room is red, then you’ve completed this step of the purification process.

NOTE: After solving this puzzle, it will be permanently solved for all future playthroughs on NG+. You will be able to purify (or not purify) the sword on all runs.

Purifying The Sword | Last Step

Leaving the Main Hall, you’ll exit Shu’s House and head toward the Shimizu Residence. You should now be able to obtain the Sacred Sword (if you don’t have it already) and complete the purification process.

• Go to the shrine to the east of Shu’s House, located BEFORE reaching Ebisugaoka. In the north of the area past Shu’s House, there’s a road leading to an old burned shrine.

• The basin of the shrine is now a crimson color. Hold interact to choose to place the sword in the water and purify it.

Purifying the sword will change it for the remainder of the run. It no longer regenerates durability so it must be fixed normally. Doing this is required for Ending #2 and ESPECIALLY for Ending #4, the true ending to the story.