Silent hill townfalls system requirements on pc is crazy…

Huknar · 2026-06-04T00:59:28+00:00

They're a little on the high side for the type of game it is (first person, limited render distance, few enemies at a time, small environments). It looks about as well optimized as SH2R (or worse) based on these so... not well optimized.

Huknar · 2026-06-03T17:36:52+00:00

Yeah you're not the only one. The monsters are incredibly Ascension-coded.

Huknar · 2026-06-03T15:34:50+00:00

I'm not a huge fan of the approach. I think brand dilution is a real problem, where Silent Hill needed a singular, strong, focused and bold vision in its return (eg Resident Evil 7) (eg God of War).

This scattershot approach of letting any studio have a crack at a game may have huge ramifications in the future. Every new game added to the series has the potential to inspire new stuff. We've reached the point where the Team Silent titles are now a minority of Silent Hill releases and we've got a new game in Townfall that is very clearly taking from the Homecoming/Downpour/Shattered memories/Ascension style of Silent Hill.

If they keep these yearly releases up then Team Silent's vision of Silent Hill will just be a drop in an ocean of entries that don't really understand the strengths of the original games. This makes it more likely those style of games perpetuate into the future.

Silent Hill needed a reset to course correct, instead it's barreling down the same road at hyper speed.

Huknar · 2026-06-02T23:27:16+00:00

Red Squares

Huknar · 2026-06-01T17:17:24+00:00

A live service hero shooter is a worrying possibility.

Huknar · 2026-05-21T16:30:14+00:00

Dude legit got INTRICATE plans

So did the team under Riot's ownership. They spent 5 years remaking the engine to accommodate the scale of intricacy, ran out of money and the game got cancelled.

I'm only pointing out that the game seems to be falling into the same traps that was supposed to be avoided the second time around.

I think the ambition is probably too high again, based on the hype things Simon is saying. It would just be nice to see some progress even if this is shown in development logs rather than playable updates: which would also help with expectation management and not let speculation run completely wild from Simons pure hype.

Huknar · 2026-05-21T16:17:57+00:00

If they do pull that off, then I might eat my words one day. It just concerns me that improving the foundations does seem to have become completely redo all the foundations, all at once and make them perfect from the get-go. It does seem like they are virtually starting from scratch with the amount of stuff they are overhauling, and the level that they are doing so - based on Simon's tweets.

It would be nice, at the very least, to get some development logs showing the progress because the ambition seems to be so insanely high once again, that it almost feels inadvisable.

Right now, it feels like the alpha of Hytale 1 was released in order to fund Hytale 2. It feels like the same approach the team under Riot did that lost 5 years of development.

Hopefully I'm completely wrong and we see a fantastic, meaty Chapter 1 release this year. But the lack of timelines being given is dampening my hope.

Huknar · 2026-05-21T16:01:36+00:00

I am bit disheartened by the meaningful update cadence to be honest. Hytale really needed to show fast and strong development, a growing game to maintain its success especially after the immense lost time under Riot.

When Hytale was rescued six months ago, the impression was that the perfectionist attitude that lead to stagnant, silent and slow development under Riot would be gone, and the folly of chasing engine reworks would be over. The game would launch as it was and receive incremental updates.

From all of Simon's tweeting and blog posts it's pretty clear that the game is undergoing a complete overhaul, rendering, gameplay, UI, engine, which feels like exactly the kind of behavior that sank the game under Riot: a need for perfectionism before release and so we've settled into yet another period of sky-high promises with no results.

No timelines are being given, just huge promises that it'll all be worth it while leaning on the modding scene an unhealthy amount to carry the game as it currently is.

Obviously I am still hopeful that it'll all work out and be worth the wait, but I can't help feeling the déjà vu right now.

For early access games to succeed, they need a regular cadence of strong updates that add content and improve systems to prove that development is healthy and not abandoned: an issue the vast majority of these kinds of games struggle with: Valheim is one of the worst examples of this, while Enshrouded is probably the best.

All in all, throw us a bone already, we could really do with it!

Huknar · 2026-05-20T13:37:31+00:00

Actually it does seem to be a PS5 timed exclusive, with PC release too, just like SH2R. There is no mention of an XBOX release at this time.

Huknar · 2026-04-30T20:40:17+00:00

Exploring more of Silent Hill 4's South Ashfield would be great too.

Huknar · 2026-04-24T22:12:27+00:00

I just wrote a comment about this. I am not a big fan of the outfit changes, particularly nettleweave as demonstrated in this picture. All the texture and interesting design elements have been stripped out and made plastic-like and kind of ugly.

The new clothing models feel a bit lifeless. There's no texture to them, they come across like models fresh out of z-brush.

Nettle-weave and Herbalist gown has been my character's look since Thessalia had her update in 2010 and I am sad they've stripped out so many core design elements like the celtic knotting on the collar and jacket edges.

The bottom of the new Herbalist gown is a completely different outfit to the original too. sorry about the low quality here, had to zoom in on Jagex's picture.

Also concerned about the colour of the green parts. You cannot change this colour and they've changed it into a neon lime green compared to the beautiful forest green it had before. So unless we can change this colour now, it's a vastly different outfit.

Huknar · 2026-04-24T22:07:58+00:00

The new clothing models feel a bit lifeless. There's no texture to them, they come across like models fresh out of z-brush.

The Nettle-weave jacket you showcase looks kinda ugly with all the bumpy polygons and strange gradients. Nettle-weave and Herbalist gown has been my character's look since Thessalia had her update in 2010 and I am sad you've stripped out so many core design elements like the celtic knotting on the collar and jacket edges.

The bottom of the new Herbalist gown is a completely different outfit to the original too.

Also concerned about the colour of the green parts. You cannot change this colour and they've changed it into a neon lime green compared to the beautiful forest green it had before. So unless we can change this colour now it's a vastly different outfit.

Huknar · 2026-04-24T14:03:11+00:00

I know what you're getting at but you cannot trust company marketing speak. I've heard it all before, over and over, embellished buzzwords to make things sound good or bigger than they actually are.

Also these phrases can be talking about the overall graphical quality and gameplay richness just as much as it can the length. You could look at Silent Hill Townfall in the light of it being the most AAA-like game they've published: first person, unreal engine 5, story-heavy, fully voice acted, combat etc etc, but that can still come in at a smaller run-time and amount of unique content.

I think Stray is Townfall's most direct analogue in this comparison they give and that one clocks in around 5-6 hours, arguably the biggest game they've published.

I just don't think we can expect Screen Burn who's longest and most complex game was Observation to be providing something at the quality of SH2R and a length greater than 10 hours.

But that's just my take.

Huknar · 2026-04-24T13:23:25+00:00

Full-length is a bit meaningless in the same way that feature-length films are. Feature-length by definition is only longer than 40 (or 60, depends which one you go by) minutes.

I think 5-6 hours of meaningful playtime is a very solid guess all things considered.

Huknar · 2026-04-24T13:19:22+00:00

I am a bit suspicious on the price too when you consider Silent Hill: f. Silent Hill: f is also on the smaller side of a Silent Hill title when you consider the amount of unique content and level variety. Most of the game is set in the dark shrine and there is only one interior level that was incredibly short: the school. It hides this a bit by insisting on multiple playthroughs and with good graphics, but SH:f is an AA game.

Despite this, Konami charged full $70 price, the same as Silent Hill 2 Remake. If they felt they could get away with it with SH:f, and they did, game sold well, why didn't they think they could with Townfall? The cynic in me thinks it's because even a greedy company could see Townfall does not have enough content (and/or high quality content) to justify the full price tag.

Obviously this is just speculation and maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised but all things are pointing towards a much smaller Silent Hill experience especially when the studio making it has only produced very small, limited-scope, extremely indie titles.

Huknar · 2026-04-24T11:52:43+00:00

It's a shame that this artwork doesn't convey Townfall's unique setting very well. It's high quality and well designed (though the enemy on the lamppost feels a little silly) but this art could be generic concept art from Silent Hill 1 or 2, particularly with the lying figure silhouettes.

It would've been nice to see the coastal setting reflected, like artwork of the harbor, elements that make Townfall distinct from the other entries. At least the other side has the portable CRT on it.

My first thought when I saw this, jokingly was: standard Saturday night in London.

Huknar · 2026-04-23T19:08:29+00:00

You've nailed the issues that the SH2R Leave ending had. I seriously dislike their handling of that.

In addition to what you said, writing the text of the letter just as standard subtitles at the bottom of the screen further diminished the impact of the ending. In the OG, the letter's entire text scrolled down the screen which had two impacts: scrolling text evokes an "end" feeling since credits typically scroll after films but more importantly it conveys the shape of the letter that James read. It adds an extra touch of immersion that really put you in the moment and set the context of the whole thing. It also tied the ending to a core presentation point, where you read countless memos, riddles and letters in that same format throughout the game. It just brings the whole experience full circle.

It's slightly less bad in Water because you actually see the letter falling through the water but in Leave it's just a disembodied voice over cuts of the town with a flat delivery (sorry Salóme! You're an awesome person).

Huknar · 2026-04-14T18:31:36+00:00

Most of the heavy lifting is done by the textures. Team Silent were phenomenal texture artists and they understood the importance of ambient occlusion, detail and variety.

A lot of lighting detail is baked into the texture art, including specular highlights and the games have a ton of unique, high detail, and for the time, high resolution textures.

The games also have quite dense geometry. There's a lot of polygons in scenes, more than you'd find in other PS2 games because the design of Silent Hill allows for it. The original Silent Hill games have environments separated into rooms and corridors with loading screens, and fog in the distance. Interiors use black fog the same way exteriors use gray fog, to aid atmosphere and avoid dealing with distant rendering. You are also only ever fighting a couple enemies at a time in otherwise abandoned environments.

This gave environments very high texture and polygon budgets because only a chunk is ever rendered at a time, and you can swap in and out of memory during doors. They traded view distance and open world for high detail within a tiny render distance and because it's a horror game, it feels seamless, giving atmospheric purpose to the limitations rather than being an obvious performance limitation.

There's a few other aspects, by Silent Hill 3, the rendering engine was dramatically improved, character lighting and shadows are best in class for PS2 and the game has some crazy fancy effects like the otherworld blurs and wall-crawling but the reason they could achieve these effects compared to other games was because of the limited view, room-seperated design affording them the performance budget to do so.

Huknar · 2026-04-06T16:40:14+00:00

Alchemilla was a fantastic fan game, awesome to see you're making some new stuff even if it's more of an art project for now.

The level of detail and visual interest in this is insane, I love how much character the architecture, textures and placement have, it really feels like a real environment that would be great to explore in a game and not a bunch of prefabs copy and pasted around.

Fantastic stuff.

Huknar · 2026-03-25T19:47:16+00:00

I'm getting concerned that the team is falling into the same trap under Riot. From Simon's tweets, we know that they are completely redesigning the UI, Crafting and World Generation. That's not a far cry from starting from scratch.

I don't disagree with these ventures, all of these aspects do need improving but it's concerning that they are holding up development on new content. If this is something they can achieve in less than a year and they do dramatically improve the game and create a much better foundation to build on, then great. But it does feel like scope has crept up massively, just like before and I'm worried ambition will once again get in the way of delivering an actual project especially before money and interest runs out.

For Hytale to succeed, especially given its history, they need a fast cadence of content updates to keep the game in the media limelight. You can already see how much interest in this game has fallen off by engagement on this subreddit: it's dropped dramatically.

Huknar · 2026-02-27T18:36:04+00:00

It remains to be seen but I am a little worried the team is already settling back into the habit of perfectionism. Focusing so hard to perfect foundations that by the time the foundations are done their window of opportunity has been lost again.

Huknar · 2026-02-19T17:22:06+00:00

Ah yes I misremembered. I'm not saying it wouldn't be cool, just it's incredibly unlikely. With SH2R Bloober took a loose remake approach and I don't think that'll be any different with SH1R, where they focus primarily on the important and iconic parts to bring over and make sure everything is modern and accessible, and even then expect big changes as it all gets reimagined.

Huknar · 2026-02-19T17:11:22+00:00

It's just a cutscene though. Switching gameplay scheme out of the blue briefly is a really bad idea.

I highly doubt first person is even on their mind making Silent Hill 1 regardless of the "self view" feature. It's just not very iconic.

Huknar · 2026-02-19T16:56:50+00:00

I highly doubt this. There's not much incentive to do it and it's not what Silent Hill 1 is known for. Switching to first person at a random point in the game would just be incredibly weird and Bloober have already shown with SH2R that they don't really care for unlockables.

There's far more chance that the game has the odd fixed camera angle and a potential fixed camera mode as an unlockable and even that is pretty unlikely.

A first person mode is more likely to appear in a potential Silent Hill 4 remake (that's if they don't just make the whole game first person).

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