Konami Wants a New Silent Hill Every Year, and Townfall Is Just the Beginning

Silent Hill spent years almost completely disappearing. Now Konami wants the exact opposite. The publisher says its goal is to release a new Silent Hill game every year, with multiple unannounced projects already in development. Next up is Silent Hill: Townfall, a first-person nightmare set on a fog-covered Scottish island in 1996, and its latest gameplay makes the franchise's new direction look seriously promising.

There was a time when being a Silent Hill fan mostly involved wondering whether Konami remembered Silent Hill existed. That era appears to be very over.

Series producer Motoi Okamoto told press at Gamescom that Konami's aim is to have an annual release of new Silent Hill games. Even more interestingly, he says there are already many projects being explored and developed that have not been announced yet.

The schedule is already starting to look suspiciously annual. Silent Hill 2 returned in 2024, Silent Hill f followed in 2025, and Silent Hill: Townfall launches on September 24, 2026.

Three years. Three Silent Hills.

Apparently the fog machine is now permanently switched on.

Townfall Is Taking Silent Hill Somewhere Very Different

Instead of returning to another abandoned American town, Townfall takes place in Scotland in 1996, on the isolated island of St. Amelia.

You play as Simon Ordell, a man mysteriously called back to the island to "put things right." Unfortunately, St. Amelia appears to have dealt with his arrival by becoming almost completely abandoned, drowning itself in fog and filling the streets with things that absolutely do not look interested in discussing local history.

The entire game is played in first person, a major departure for a full-length Silent Hill game. Simon can fight, hide, escape and explore using limited equipment, but one of the most interesting tools is something called the CRTV.

It is basically a pocket television.

Because apparently carrying a normal radio into Silent Hill was not stressful enough.

The CRTV picks up unstable analogue signals scattered around the environment. Tuning into them can reveal threats, story fragments and clues to puzzles. Sometimes voices come through the static. Sometimes the screen shows things you probably would have preferred not to see.

It feels wonderfully 1996.

The 19-Minute Gameplay Video Is Much Scarier Than the Trailers

Konami recently released almost 19 minutes of uninterrupted Townfall gameplay, and this is the video worth watching if you actually want to understand the game.

It starts quietly. Simon walks through empty streets and abandoned homes while using the CRTV to search for clues. Then he explores Zoe's house. Then the monsters arrive.

Then Silent Hill does what Silent Hill does.

At around the halfway point, Simon enters the Otherworld with a pistol in his hand. The environments become darker, wetter and considerably less welcoming, while combat shifts from uncomfortable exploration into desperate close-range encounters.

The important part is that Townfall does not suddenly look like an action shooter. Ammunition and equipment are limited, enemies can be avoided, and stealth is a legitimate option. Players can hide, track enemy positions and use sound to pull creatures away from where they need to go.

Sometimes the smartest strategy is still the traditional Silent Hill technique:

See horrifying creature. Turn around. Leave.

The Cast Is Surprisingly Serious

Gamescom also revealed the main English cast.

Jovan Adepo, known for 3 Body Problem, IT: Welcome to Derry and The Odyssey, plays Simon. Terry O'Quinn, best known to many people as John Locke from Lost, plays Richard, the mysterious man responsible for calling Simon back to St. Amelia. Kezia Burrows, who previously worked with developer Screen Burn on Observation, plays nurse Zoe.

Richard seems particularly important. He communicates with Simon through the CRTV and clearly knows more about St. Amelia than he is willing to explain.

Which is reassuring.

Nothing has ever gone wrong after following instructions from a mysterious man speaking through a haunted television.

The Gamescom trailer also briefly shows some of Townfall's creatures, including one enormous shape that immediately sent the Silent Hill community into detective mode. One of the most upvoted reactions to the trailer was simply:

"WHAT THE F*CK IS THAT"

A perfectly reasonable piece of horror criticism.

The Bigger News Is What Comes After Townfall

Konami's annual-release plan is more interesting than simply producing sequels faster.

Okamoto says the company deliberately wants different developers to take Silent Hill into different countries, cultures and styles of horror. His argument is that constantly returning to the same American setting would eventually limit the stories developers can tell.

That is already happening.

Silent Hill moved the series to 1960s Japan.

Townfall moves it to 1996 Scotland.

And Konami says many more projects are still unannounced.

The franchise has also become commercially important again. Konami says the Silent Hill series had passed 17.1 million copies sold worldwide by the end of March 2026, giving the company an obvious reason to keep investing in it.

There is a risk here. Psychological horror depends on atmosphere, writing and mystery, and releasing games every year could easily turn something special into another content schedule that needs filling.

Konami seems aware of that problem. Instead of asking one studio to make the same game repeatedly, it is spreading Silent Hill across different developers and settings.

If that works, "annual Silent Hill" does not necessarily mean twelve months until another Pyramid Head appearance.

It could mean twelve months until somebody else gets permission to make Silent Hill weird again.

And Townfall is a pretty convincing test.

A Scottish island. First-person exploration. Haunted analogue television. Limited weapons. Multiple endings. Terry O'Quinn whispering mysterious instructions through static.

Silent Hill: Townfall launches September 24, 2026 on PlayStation 5, Steam and Epic Games Store.

For a franchise that once looked almost dead, Silent Hill suddenly has the opposite problem.

There may be a lot of it coming.