Silent Hill: Townfall brings horror series to Scotland – with this real coastal village inspiring St. Amelia

Developed by Glasgow-based game studio Screen Burn, formerly known as No Code, the highly anticipated upcoming title stole the show during Sony's February State of Play broadcast.

This was then followed by a separate live broadcast from Konami which revealed further details about Townfall, including the fact that it is set in the fictional Scottish fishing village of St. Amelia.

Inspired by fishing villages along the east coast of Scotland, the setting is in part down to the atmosphere of these locations. A key aspect of the Silent Hill franchise, we see its impact as the trailer opens with a crackling radio which is picked up by our protagonist Simon Ordell. A woman’s voice on the radio urges him to return to her, with Simon then awakening in the fog - or more accurately, haar - shrouded village. Determined to “put things right”, he is wearing a medical wristband and an IV bag, and carries with him a pocket television.

Glasgow studio Screen Burn behind Silent Hill: Townfall

Made by the small Scottish studio behind games such as Stories Untold and Observation, Silent Hill: Townfall was written and directed by Jon McKellan, with his brother Graeme McKellan serving as lead game designer.

In the Silent Hill Transmission from February 12, director McKellan said it was a “huge honour” to be trusted with the franchise.

“Our main objectives were to make a game that could feel specific to the team who made it, to bring something new to the series in terms of setting and to really think about what Silent Hill, both in concept and gameplay, could look like through a ‘Screen Burn Lens’.”

He added that Konami “loved” their pitch: “ It was like: This is exactly what we need, this is what we want to do, and we want you to go for it.”

Silent Hill: Townfall will be the first full-length first-person game in the franchise, but it will retain core elements such as combat and story-driven puzzles. However, Screen Burn have been sure to add in their own signature mystery to the game, as well as a new take on the iconic Silent Hill radio tool.

While radios in Silent Hill are often passive, the CRTV serves a narrative purpose as well as a practical one. It will alert players to nearby enemies, allow Simon to scan his environment, locate threats and clues, and also assist in other challenges.

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Silent Hill: Townfall’s St. Amelia is based on the real Scottish village of St Monans

Silent Hill: Townfall is set in Scotland, with the main action taking place in 1996 on the “cold, isolated” island of St. Amelia. While it is fictional, the team at Screen Burn based the village on St Monans in the East Neuk of Fife, as well as several other coastal locations.

Speaking about the setting, game director McKellan said: “For a long time, this game, we felt might just be Northern Europe and not lock it down to Scotland.

“There was a drive to create something that felt authentic to us, and it kind of felt natural to bring it home.”

The writer and director said that he and his brother had visited the east coast of Scotland many times over the year, and that he would frequently take the team on trips around the region.

In the livestream, they can be seen driving from Glasgow and through various towns including Grangemouth as they described the importance of recreating “the vibe” of the locations which inspired them.

Their explorations led them to various piers during foggy conditions, with some of the pictures taken during these trips directly referenced in the game.

McKellan said: “We have this fog that rolls in on the east coast of Scotland called a haar. I got pretty obsessed chasing the haar. I wasn’t painting images, I wasn’t trying to imagine what the fog would look like.

“I could go to a town that looks like St. Amelia and find a fog that looks like Silent Hill and come back and show the team, here’s what the game needs to look like.

“And I would drag other people on my trips with me, and be like, ‘you’ve got to come too’. And they’re like, ‘really? It’s 4am’, so that when we come back to the studio, we can try and recreate what we felt, not just what we saw.”

Linda Stenback, the QA lead for Townfall alongside art director Paul Abbott and the McKellan brothers, all visited St Monans together for a segment in the reveal livestream.

Stenback said that she had played “probably 3,000 hours” of the game, but unlike the others had yet to visit any of the real towns.

Of her experience there, she said: “It’s surreal. I think it’s because a lot of stuff are so similar to in-game. Even the slanted walls, the colours. Wherever the benches are placed is exactly the same as in-game.”

St Monans, while not the only east coast inspiration, has the distinct honour of being the first place built for the game.

Reimagined as St. Amelia, clips comparing the two side by side show many of the same buildings and landmarks in the virtual landscape as in real life.

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Art director Abbott described being able to recreate all the different textures present to the naked eye in the game, with the purpose of immersing players in the environment.

He said: “It’s just like layers upon layers upon layers of life and history. You’re mimicking several hundred years worth of life. That’s what we aim to do.

“And a lot of the time, the player will just sort of walk around and absorb it and they won’t know why it feels like a real place, but the effort that we’ve put in will make them feel like it’s a real place, and it will give them that sense of history.”

Like with many Scottish fishing villages, it is tightly packed with many small streets and alleys.

McKellan said: “These alleyways kind of snake through the entire town. They’re really fun to walk up and down in real life, but when you’ve got a monster chasing you, it’s just not a nice place to be.”

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Fans joke that Silent Hill: Townfall ‘average day’ for those in the UK

Excited by the announcement after years of silence on the future of Silent Hill: Townfall, fans have been sharing their opinions far and wide.

There are many fans excited for the upcoming release, with one commenter writing: “Jon McKellan who worked on Alien Isolation is on this project? Let’s go.”

Another said: “The setting being a coastal fishing town has me excited.”

One added: “I really love the world building that comes into the recent games, especially in [Silent Hill]ƒ where they explore their own cultural roots. I cant wait to see what they do in Townfall. I almost can’t tell the switch between ingame footage and irl. Iz crazy.”

However, the excitement has also lead to many jokes from fans. One comment reads: “Scotland simulator.”

Another wrote: “This game is just going to be an average day in the life of a British person.”

Finally, one fan who commented on the official reveal trailer wrote that they used to live in St Monans. They said: “I can't quite overstate how strange and exciting it is to see my hometown used as inspiration, and to know that other people were seeing it through exactly the same eyes as I was. It's such an unbelievably gorgeous part of the world; I hope more people come to see it the same way I did.”

There has been no word so far on when Silent Hill: Townfall will be released, however fans can now wishlist the game on PlayStation and PC, via Steam and the Epic Games Store.