The Silent Hill franchise is one of the more curious horror series in the gaming space, and for a basic reason. When the series hits, it’s often some of the best in the genre. However, it misses a lot more than it hits, which is why the franchise is on the verge of another “reboot.” So I’m going to look at the past titles that have released and see how they all stack up. We’re not doing every game the series has done, and these are just my personal rankings. You might view these games completely different and that’s completely fine. With that said, here is out how I rank the Silent Hill games.
#12 Silent Hill: Ascension
Technically, yes, Silent Hill: Ascension isn’t a video game but an “interactive horror TV series” that follows a family who must navigate from one horror to the next in an attempt to survive…and it only gets weirder and worse from there for both the characters and the players.
If you go to certain Reddit threads, people blast this “show” for being everything from poorly animated, written, and bad in all senses of the word. They even say that the team who made this should NEVER touch Silent Hill again. That says a lot, don’t you think?
#11 Silent Hill: Book of Memories
When a franchise tries to change its genre, the results are going to be divisive. But when Silent Hill Book of Memories came out, and it was an attempt by the team at Wayforward to make Silent Hill into a dungeon crawler series, that’s where many fans “drew the line” and thought the series was done for. Even I’ll admit that going from a horror-style action game to a dungeon crawler is a BIG jump.
Sure enough, while elements of the game were clever, including the titular “Book of Memories,” many thought both the plot and gameplay were bad, and I don’t blame them for that.
#10 Silent Hill: The Short Message
Another part of the “Silent Hill Reboot,” Silent Hill: The Short Message was a free game that Konami released this year to try and spur back interest in the franchise. On the one hand, a free game is great! On the other hand…we kind of need more than what it gave.
While some praised the visuals of the title, many weren’t amused by the story, especially with how they handled themes of suicide and the effects of bullying in the modern world. It didn’t help that the character of Anita was pretty basic and didn’t have much depth.
#9 Silent Hill Homecoming
Silent Hill Homecoming was an important entry in the franchise, even if it turned out to be incredibly divisive overall. The big reason for this statement is that this was one of the first games in the franchise to be handled by a Western team instead of one from Japan. At times, that can lead to new ideas and perspectives. Or, it can just lead to retreads of the past and a loss of what came before.
Not unlike other entries, Silent Hill Homecoming didn’t take place in Silent Hill but in Sheperd’s Glen, a town that “welcomed back” a returning soldier with a horror-filled experience.
On the positive side, the game looked good, especially in how the town was rendered. However, many criticized the story, gameplay elements, and even said the game might have been better if the name Silent Hill wasn’t attached.
#8 Silent Hill Downpour
A great sin that many video games have is doing “half the game right” and the other half wrong. In the case of Silent Hill Downpour, the game does have a decent story and atmosphere and reverts to many of the original titles’ best elements. However, it also has terrible monsters compared to past gameplay from previous entries, wonky combat, and had so many technical issues.
The game has you playing a prisoner named Murphy, who ends up in Silent Hill and has to work his way through various events to unlock his memories and learn the truth about what happened to him. The game had a mixed response for a reason, and things didn’t get much better after this as I’ve already talked about.
#7 Silent Hill Origins
It’s always tricky doing an origins-style game if you don’t know how to make it both stand out and feel meaningful. In the case of Silent Hill Origins from 2009, the point was to make a prequel story to the original series entry and see what would happen. There was a lot of problems with this game with fans of the franchise.
If you look at critical reception to the game, they found it okay, but that it leaned into what past entries had done too much and didn’t come up with anything new. Also there were several areas that contradicted elements from the original Silent Hill game.
#6 Silent Hill Shattered Memories
Whether you liked Silent Hill Shattered Memories depends not just on the experiences you had, but the version you got. Believe it or not, the game was initially made for the Nintendo Wii and then was ported over to the PlayStation 2 and PSP when the sales of the title weren’t that great. Just as ironic, the Wii version was the best-rated version of the set, no doubt due to the Wiimote motion controls that you could use.
The game was a true follow-up to Silent Hill Origins as it completely remade the original game but threw out the original story and did something both familiar and different. Just as important was that they changed many gameplay aspects, including getting rid of combat. Instead, they just put monsters everywhere for you to try and avoid.
The phrase “good enough” comes to mind when it comes to Silent Hill Shattered Memories. It wasn’t as bad as other entries…but that doesn’t mean it stood out, either.
#5 P.T.
Yes, I’m fully aware that many of you like P.T. and wish it got fully made as intended. This just goes to prove, as I’ll reiterate later, that Konami is in its “right mind” with certain things and doesn’t know when it has a golden goose. P.T. wasn’t just a “playable teaser,” it was made by the one and only Hideo Kojima alongside his friend and fellow horror junkie Guillermo Del Toro.
The goal was to create an interactive horror experience that would lead to the creation of what was being called “Silent Hills.” It is a game that would not only be made by the creators above but also star Norman Reedus.
The reason the teaser was so great was that it was simple, truly interactive, and thought-provoking, and it gave gamers reasons to keep playing it. You were an unnamed protagonist who was trapped in a haunted house. You couldn’t fight, you couldn’t flee, and the only player actions you had was walking and zooming in the camera.
You had to be clever and find out what was going on in the house and solve things on multiple loops in order to escape. When Kojima had split from Konami, P.T. was removed, and Silent Hills was canceled. If you’re curious, the reason I’m ranking it lower than others on this list is because…it’s a teaser! A great teaser, but a teaser nonetheless.
#4 Silent Hill 4
Given that a certain other horror franchise had one of its “defining games” with its 4th mainline entry, you might have expected Silent Hill 4 to be the same way and “break the mold” in a new and exciting way. Well, you’d be wrong. For many, Silent Hill 4 is the tipping point for the franchise.
Arguably, the first huge flaw in Silent Hill 4 is that…it doesn’t take place in Silent Hill. In fact, it’s not even a twist that “you were in Silent Hill all along!” Instead, you’re set in an entirely new city with a new protagonist who doesn’t have any connections to the previous three entries in the series.
Now, on the one hand, that could’ve led to some unique gameplay and story elements, and some people did like the attempts made with “The Room,” but it wasn’t enough in the end. On the one hand, the use of a locked down apartment, an undead serial killer, and the various “hauntings” that went on were something that made the game incredibly dark and interesting. While it might not be our personal favorite installment for the franchise, it’s still one worth checking out.
#3 Silent Hill 3
It’s never easy to try and follow up on one of the greatest video games ever made, but Silent Hill 3 did its best with mostly positive results. One of the key things to note about this title is that, unlike its predecessor, it’s a direct sequel to the original game, which is why there are some familiar story elements, such as the town’s infamous cult. However, there were other things that made it feel different, including the game’s protagonist, Heather, and certain gameplay elements that were allowed because it was on the much more powerful PS2.
One of the key factors of gameplay here wasn’t just combat but puzzle-solving. To the extent that if you upped the difficulty, you would need to have serious real-world knowledge, including knowledge of Shakespearean plays, to figure it out on your own. So, how smart are you? Another factor was the “shifting” between the “real world’ and “Otherworld,” which led to different puzzles and combat scenarios for the protagonist.
The game is dark, and some of the endings are pretty brutal, but there’s also an ending where you see UFOs blow up Silent Hill, so I think it all balances out in the end, don’t you?
#2 Silent Hill
Yep, I’m going all the way back to the beginning with this one! The original Silent Hill was made in 1999 on the original PlayStation. That was the generation when everything was going from 2D to 3D, and developers had to try and figure out how to make their grand visions work with the limitations that the graphics and hardware still had. For example, when “Team Silent” made this 3rd-person horror game, they didn’t necessarily put in fog and create dark areas to freak the players out…they did it so they could hide the graphics popping in at times. But hey, it helped set the mood, so it was a win-win!
Another thing that set Silent Hill from games like Resident Evil, which released its first game in 1996, was that you played a guy who was simply a father looking for his daughter versus a soldier trying to take on zombies.
As Harry Mason, you attempted to find your daughter within Silent Hill and stop a cult from reviving a dark god. Obviously, there are key twists that define the story, including different endings.
The game was good, critically acclaimed, and sold well. It helped set a tone for what was to come, and that’s how you make a franchise.
#1 Silent Hill 2
If seeing Silent Hill 2 on the top of my list surprises you, then you’re really not paying attention to what great games have come out in the past or the remakes of them that are dropping later this year! Silent Hill 2 was the game that truly put this franchise on the map, and it hasn’t been topped since. In fact, one could easily point to this being the greatest horror game ever.
You play as James, a man who receives a mysterious letter from his dead wife. It notes that she’s in Silent Hill, waiting for him, and he goes to find her. However, the moment he arrives, things take a turn for the weird and the monstrous. He meets a Mary lookalike named Maria, and he’s constantly being attacked by beings from the town.
While I won’t spoil the game’s twists, I will say that they still hold up today, and it makes it all the more curious what the upcoming PS5 remake will do with those twists. Regardless, this was the pinnacle of the Silent Hill series, and they’ve both tried and failed to capture what made this game great. Could they top it in the future? It’s possible…but Konami doesn’t have the best track record anymore…
