Silent Hill: Townfall reviews: what critics said

Silent Hill: Townfall, developed by the Scottish studio Screen Burn, moves the series to first-person play and to St. Amelia, a fog-bound town in Scotland. OpenCritic lists its release as September 23, 2026, and Metacritic as September 24. This roundup summarises, in our own words, what published reviews said, with a link to each. We have not reviewed the game ourselves and give no score of our own.

The scores

Measure	Figure	Notes
OpenCritic Top Critic Average	81	83rd percentile of games on OpenCritic; 96 critic reviews listed
OpenCritic Critics Recommend	79%	Reviews with a verdict
Metacritic Metascore	81	Generally Favorable; 63 positive and 18 mixed reviews, none negative, on the main platform page
Metacritic User Score	7.2	Mixed or Average, from 437 user ratings

By OpenCritic’s percentile bands, an 83rd-percentile average falls in the Strong tier. Figures are as the sites showed them on September 30, 2026.

What critics praised

Atmosphere, above all. This is the point nearly every review agrees on. Tom’s Guide went furthest, calling Townfall the series at its best in 25 years and singling out the atmosphere, visuals and sound. PC Gamer, at 89 out of 100, judged it a good balance of old and new: classic psychological horror and grotesque monsters, plus a new tool.

The CRTV and the puzzles. That new tool, the CRTV device, is used both to solve puzzles and to track creatures, and several reviews name it as the game’s best idea. Use a Potion called the puzzles expertly designed.

A different kind of Silent Hill that still feels like one. Eurogamer, at 4 out of 5, saw the series’ revival continuing, with Screen Burn combining stealth, detailed world design and some social realism. IGN, at 8 out of 10, described it as a welcome boost for the series, and GameSpot, also at 8, placed it alongside Silent Hill f as part of a successful comeback. TheSixthAxis, at 9 out of 10, addressed fans who object that the game is not set in the town of Silent Hill, arguing that the series has always been about a state of mind rather than a place.

What critics criticised

The stealth. This is the most common complaint. Even positive reviews, such as Use a Potion’s, found the stealth hit-and-miss and at times frustrating. The German site Cerealkillerz found it increasingly tedious, and the Turkish site Tourens argued that repetitive stealth and AI problems stretch a game that could have ended in 6 to 7 hours to 14 to 15. The Czech site JsemGamer, which liked the game a great deal, still listed frustrating enemy AI and limited monster variety among its faults.

A weaker second half. PCMag Middle East summed up a view shared by a number of reviews: an ambitious game that understands what makes Silent Hill special, with an excellent first half that gives way to repetitive exploration and a less satisfying ending, and ideas that are stronger than its characters.

Technical rough edges. JsemGamer mentions occasional crashes and the Turkish site Atarita, one of the least positive, points to optimisation problems. These do not come up in the verdicts of the larger outlets quoted above.

How to read it

Critics and players differ: the critic averages sit at 81, while Metacritic’s User Score is 7.2 and labelled Mixed or Average. Among the reviews summarised here, the split is less about quality than about taste: those who value atmosphere and puzzles rated it highly, while those who dislike long stealth sequences marked it down. If stealth is a sticking point for you, the PCMag Middle East review and the stealth sections of the more positive reviews are the ones to read first.

For how these aggregate scores are calculated, see our guide to how Metacritic and OpenCritic scores work.