Silent Hill F Review and Release Date | Heet Gaming

Developers at NeoBards Entertainment literally meant it when they said they want players to find “beauty in terror”. Silent Hill F delivers a jaw-dropping, one-of-a-kind, psychological horror experience that leaves players in awe while they take in the grotesque beauty of its intoxicating world and hauntingly gripping story.

In this quick Silent Hill F review, I share my honest opinions on the game without giving away any major spoilers.

Silent Hill F Release Date

But first, let’s talk about the Silent Hill F release date.

• On PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC (via the Xbox storefront), Silent Hill F will launch at 12:00 a.m. local time on Sept. 25, 2025.
• On PC (via the Steam and Epic Games Store), Silent Hill F will launch at 12:00 a.m. EDT on Sept. 25, 2025.

Those who cannot wait for the launch can get the Silent Hill F deluxe version. Why? Because the deluxe versions grant a Silent Hill F early access two days before launch.

Game Setting

Silent Hill F drops you into a fictional town of Ebisugaoka in rural Japan in the 1960s, and it’s unlike anything we’ve seen before in the franchise. The game trades the typical foggy, industrial backdrop of classic Silent Hill entries for something more disturbingly elegant.

In that, Ebisugaoka is a decaying countryside overrun by a mysterious, grotesque floral infestation that slowly consumes everything, including the people. It’s hauntingly quiet, almost serene at times, which makes the horror hit even harder when it does.

In the game, you play as Hinako Shimizu, a high-school girl whose hometown begins to twist around her… streets she knew, but now invaded by grotesque creatures, overgrowths, and chilling shrines.

As such, you embark on a chilling journey of survival and trauma, as Hinako struggles with more than just the physical threats around her. The crimson curse seems to mirror her own inner wounds of grief, shame, and repressed emotions.

The game world frequently alternates between Ebisugaoka’s decaying day-to-day reality and the surreal, nightmarish Dark Realm, forcing you to question what’s real.

Combat System & Gameplay Mechanics

Playing Silent Hill F early access, I found its combat system ambitious, sometimes thrilling, sometimes frustrating, and sometimes simply over-engineered.

Weapons like pipes, bats, and knives can degrade and eventually break after repeated use, and yes, you’ll need toolkits to repair them. This forces you to pick your fights, conserve your best tools, and sometimes run rather than swing.

Heavy attacks have long animations that punish mistimed inputs; multiple enemies at once can swamp you. In horror, I want more fear, not flailing combo animations.

The game also leans into dodging and parrying, a system more reminiscent of soulslike gamers. Yet, it doesn’t fully commit to that formula, making the combat feel caught between tension-building horror and action-based precision.

And then there are charms. In Silent Hill F, charms offer passive buffs that let you tailor your build, such as increasing health or tweaking defense. Puzzle-solving, on the other hand, is incredibly well-crafted: thoughtful, eerie, and tied deeply into the lore.

Game Performance

Despite its stellar storytelling and chilling world-building, Silent Hill F stumbles when it comes to performance.

On the base PS5, the game runs at an internal resolution between 360p - 720p in Performance Mode, targeting 60 FPS. Visual clarity takes a critical hit here. On the PS5 Pro, you get a fixed 720p with PSSR upscaling, which is better than base, but still very low given what the hardware can do.

To Wrap It Up

And this wraps up my quick Silent Hill F review. As someone who played through the Silent Hill F early access, I can confidently say the world setting is the game’s strongest element.

The blend of traditional Japanese aesthetics and grotesque body horror creates a sense of creeping dread that never quite lets go. However, its bland combat system often takes away that immersion.