The upcoming Silent Hill: Townfall, developed by Glasgow-based studio Screen Burn and published by Konami, aims to immerse players in the chilling atmosphere of the fictional Scottish seaside town of St. Amelia. Writer-director Jon McKellan and series producer Motoi Okamoto recently offered a glimpse into the creative process behind crafting the game's detailed environments, focusing on authenticity and unsettling familiarity.
St. Amelia draws inspiration from real-world locations in Scotland. McKellan noted that the port town's appearance was influenced by St. Monan's, while the broader sense of isolation was informed by Shetland, a North Sea island community. The development team conducted extensive research, often traveling the North Coast 500 route and meticulously documenting details through photography and LiDAR scanning. This dedication aimed to capture the unique cultural nuances shaped by coastal living, such as the accelerated rusting of materials due to salt air and specific building surface treatments suited to the local weather.
"It must have been hundreds of times that we'd stop off, get out, start taking photographs, start LiDAR scanning areas, and have the locals wonder what the hell we're doing because we're taking a hundred pictures of an ashtray," McKellan explained. "We were really trying to nail exactly what makes these towns personal, so that St. Amelia could have a personality that's unique."
This granular attention to detail extends to the game's interior spaces. McKellan shared anecdotes where the scale of authentically small, older British homes surprised some partners. The first-person perspective adopted for Townfall allows the team to place players directly within these often cramped and idiosyncratically designed spaces, a departure from the third-person views of previous Silent Hill titles. This perspective enables the accurate representation of elements like low cabinetry, precisely measured drawer depths, and the unsettling ambient sounds characteristic of older buildings.
"With first-person, we don't need to make anything bigger to fit the camera over their shoulder. We can be right there in the center of the action. So we would measure the depths of drawers. We would make sure the kitchen counters are the right height," McKellan said. "With a lot of these Scottish homes, like, they just sound like that. There's always just weird noises and pipes creaking, and you're constantly looking around. Like, is this normal?"
A specific gameplay example highlighting this grounded approach is an early puzzle involving restoring power to a house. Instead of a typical video game mechanic, players must locate prepaid cards to top up an electricity meter in a crawl space. This process, while ordinary for many in the UK, grounds the experience in a relatable, albeit outdated, chore. The developers see this as an opportunity to evoke nostalgia for some players while presenting something novel and intriguing to others.
"Our key thing is making that feel grounded and believable. That should feel nostalgic for us, but interesting for people who didn't grow up with that stuff, it's like something really new for them," McKellan stated regarding the power meter sequence. "We grew up with that stuff and then other people are going, ‘You really had that? Like, that's a thing?’ So you get a lot of interest out there as well, so you know, without it feeling too much like a gimmick."
Silent Hill: Townfall is scheduled for release on PlayStation 5 and Windows PC on September 24.
