Every Silent Hill game ranked from worst to best – from 1999 to 2025

Silent Hill has definitely had its ups and downs as a franchise (Metro/Konami)

To accompany the launch of Silent Hill f, GameCentral looks back at Silent Hill’s eclectic history to see how many of its games were actually any good.

Despite starting out as one of Konami’s premiere franchises, Silent Hill faded like its trademark fog during the 2010s, seemingly becoming a (un-)dead franchise.

Cut to the 2020s, though, and suddenly Konami’s incredibly eager to bring Silent Hill back into the spotlight, with multiple new games and even a new live action movie… despite the last two being awful.

The comeback started out badly but has been saved by the Silent Hill 2 remake and, most recently, Silent Hill f. So we’ve taken a look back at Silent Hill’s history to figure out where these new entries stand against the series’ best… which emphasises just how many bad Silent Hill games there are.

13. Silent Hill: Ascension (2023)

The first new entry in Konami’s Silent Hill revival set a worrying precedent for what might follow. No doubt influenced by the success of Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch and Twitch Plays Pokémon, Silent Hill Ascension is an online choose your own adventure game, where the online audience can vote on how the story progresses. Or rather it was, since it concluded in April last year.

Even if you find the idea novel, the execution was horrendous. Aside from its confusing presentation, nonsensical story, and gross microtransactions, its tone was nothing like the better Silent Hill games. It came across as a cheap Hellraiser knock-off, rather than than something influenced by the works of Stephen King and David Lynch – which have been two key inspirations for Silent Hill since the very first game.

12. Silent Hill: Book Of Memories (2012)

The last Silent Hill game to come out before its 10+ year hiatus, Book Of Memories is a strange little spin-off from Shantae developer WayForward, made exclusively for the PS Vita; one that transforms the series into a top-down dungeon crawler.

Some would argue that this is a bad Silent Hill game but a good dungeon crawler, but we don’t think it manages even that. Between boring combat and dull level design, Book Of Memories is just an all round bad video game. The only nice thing to say about it is that it’s thankfully no longer the final or worst Silent Hill game.

11. Silent Hill: The Short Message (2024)

A free download that dropped on PlayStation 5 last year, The Short Message does at least try to be a Silent Hill game. It comes close to the tone and atmosphere of the series, and the design of the one monster it has – Sakura Head – is really good.

Unfortunately, its sincere attempts at tackling difficult subject matter are let down by clumsy, unsubtle writing and a thoroughly unconvincing German setting. Plus, its chase sections through various mazes range from boringly easy to controller-smashingly difficult, leaving you more annoyed than scared.

10. Silent Hill: Downpour (2012)

By the time Silent Hill: Downpour came out, it was glaringly obvious that the series was running on fumes. Czech developer Vatra Games tried its best and, to its credit, escaped prisoner Murphy Pendleton proved a surprisingly sympathetic protagonist. And while it wasn’t all that scary, an attempt was made at making the Otherworld sections creepy and in keeping with Silent Hill’s best traditions.

However, it is desperately lacking in new ideas, even re-using old set pieces from previous games. Plus, it has extra emphasis on combat, which has never been what Silent Hill is about; although it’d be more forgivable if said combat was any good. Most criminally of all, though, it didn’t have series composer Akira Yamaoka handling the soundtrack.

9. Silent Hill: Homecoming (2009)

Silent Hill: Homecoming was the first entry to be handled by an American studio (specifically Double Helix games, which later revived Killer Instinct for Microsoft) and it shows in its premise about a soldier returning from war to find his missing brother.

Homecoming is a competent crack at Silent Hill, and at least tries to offer some psychological depth to its scares. It’s just not particularly original and it’s hard to be scared when protagonist Alex Shepherd has so many firearms to defend himself with.

8. Silent Hill: Origins (2007)

A PlayStation Portable (and later PlayStation 2) prequel from British studio Climax Games, Silent Hill: Origins was a deliberate attempt to bring the series back to its roots by replicating everything that worked with the very first Silent Hill game.

On one hand, it succeeded, very much capturing the atmosphere of Silent Hill 1. But it did too good a job and, as a result, felt less of an homage and more like a derivative copycat, lacking any new ideas to call its own and feeling no more modern than the original 1999 game.

7. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (2009)

Konami must’ve been pleased with how Silent Hill: Origins turned out because it enlisted Climax Games for a second Silent Hill project. Subtitled Shattered Memories, this was initially a Nintendo Wii exclusive, of all things, and a retelling of Silent Hill 1.

We’ve always respected Shattered Memories for realising nobody plays Silent Hill for the combat and ditching it entirely, forcing you to constantly flee from pursuing monsters in heart-pumping chase sequences. It still wasn’t that scary but it look good, had some effective voice-acting, and featured a neat twist on Silent Hill 1’s plot.

Fun fact: Sam Barlow worked on both this and Origins as lead designer and writer. If the name rings a bell, he’s best known nowadays for his work on horror games like Her Story and the excellent Immortality. That’s most obvious in the psychiatrist sequences, where you answer questions as the player, which are surprisingly reminiscent of his later games.

6. Silent Hill 4: The Room (2004)

If any Silent Hill game needs a remake the most, it’s not the first one but Silent Hill 4: The Room. Whereas the first game still holds up despite its age, The Room is a great concept, with even more Jacob’s Ladder influences than usual, held back by poor gameplay and puzzles.

Instead of a whole town, The Room, as the name suggests, sees you trapped in a locked apartment, with strange holes leading you to the Otherworld. It’s an undeniably tense experience since your apartment houses the only save point in the game and some of the monsters can’t be killed.

5. Silent Hill 3 (2003)

A direct continuation of the first game’s storyline, many consider Silent Hill 3 the last ‘good’ entry before the Silent Hill 2 remake. At the same time it’s clear this is where the downward trend began, with a number of good sequences interspersed by a kind of Silent Hill-by-numbers approach. Think of it as the Return of the Jedi of the original trilogy of games.

That’s not to say Silent Hill 3 is bad, though. It wouldn’t be this high in the ranking if it was. Lead character Heather Mason is a very likeable protagonist, the soundtrack is one of Akira Yamaoka’s best, and most importantly, it’s genuinely frightening. The final stretch of the game, in particular, remains the scariest the series has ever been.

4. Silent Hill f (2025)

Of all the new Silent Hill projects Konami announced in 2022, Silent Hill f was always the most intriguing, right from the first trailer. Even so, we didn’t expect it to become one of our new favourite entries, especially given the quality of the other newcomers.

Its not quite as frightening as past games (for starters, the Otherworld is far too clean looking) but conversely it has some of the most gruesome sequences in all gaming, at least in terms of implied gore.

It’s story and characters are excellent too, and second only to Silent Hill 2, with a thoughtful examination of the experiences and expectations of young women in 1960s Japan. If it had a bit less combat and a few more scares it’d be even further up this list.

3. Silent Hill (1999)

The original Silent Hill remains the standard for all subsequent games to aim for, even if most never get there. Resident Evil was already a thing by the time Silent Hill came out, but whereas the former was the equivalent of a schlocky zombie thriller, this was a more psychological horror – influenced by Jacob’s Ladder rather than The Return of the Living Dead.

Even now, its cloying atmosphere remains horribly, impressive oppressive and its chunky PS1 graphics do a good job at making its environments look decayed and dirty; something the first two sequels successfully retained even as graphics improved. Here’s hoping Bloober Team nails that remake.

2. P.T. (2014)

P.T. may have only been a tech demo, and thus more of a promise of a new Silent Hill (or Silent Hills as it was meant to be called) than a full-fledged entry, but it gets on this list for being one of the scariest things we have ever played.

It was a nightmare from start to finish, and we mean that as a compliment, complete with a return to the obscure puzzle-solving not seen since the first Silent Hill. It left everyone optimistic and excited for what a Silent Hill game from Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro could look like and we’ll forever be baffled by Konami’s decision to delist P.T. and cancel the entire project.

Despite being so short it continues to find new fans today, with homages in many newer games and even a direct remake on PC. The latter is necessary given the game is now unavailable by any official means, with PlayStation consoles that have it installed going for a pretty penny on eBay.

1. Silent Hill 2 (2001/2024)

While we still have a soft spot for the first game, there’s little argument thatSilent Hill 2 is the overall best entry in the series, and one of the best survival horror games ever made. It offers a far more thoughtful and nuanced story compared to its predecessor, or indeed any other game in the genre.

It also marked the debut of the iconic Pyramid Head monster, which is at its most effective and relevant here, although the other monsters born of protagonist James’ Sunderland’s psyche are also terrifying and oozing in thoughtful symbolism.

Like many others, we had doubts Bloober Team’s recent remake would serve its legacy well, but it proved to be a far more respectful and necessary modernisation than expected. Not only did it add quality of life improvements, to suit modern sensibilities, but it added subtle new plot elements and encounters that made it an even better game.

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