Glasgow-based developer Screen Burn has been around for over a decade, and Silent Hill: Townfall is the studio’s highest-profile game to date. The studio has produced a few cult-classics over the years like Stories Untold and Observation, but with its Silent Hill spin-off, the team has described being handed the keys to Konami’s premier survival-horror franchise as a “confidence builder.”
Silent Hill Townfall was announced during Konami’s dedicated 2022 livestream for the series, which also saw the announcement of the games Silent Hill f and Bloober Team’s Silent Hill 2 remake. According to Silent Hill Townfall game director Jon McKellan, Screen Burn was largely given free rein over the project, with oversight on it being focused on making certain that the game complemented its spooky brethren.
“We had our head down for the majority of this. Like, I think even from the first teaser in 2022 when all the games were kind of announced at the same time, you know, working with these guys, it’s always been easy. It’s always been kind of letting us cook, so to speak, like just we had talked through story, we talked through the vibes and the goals of the game that we had, and these guys were obviously making sure that nothing overlapped too much or that things would kind of like complement each other in a way.”
“We weren’t kind of like connected to Silent Hill 2, to Silent Hill F–like we weren’t getting involved in that or really aware of what was happening. We were just kind of like making sure that we were focused on our game and that we trusted these guys to raise anything if it was a concern, should the games not complement each other in some way or overlap too much. Overall, it felt like it gave us the creative freedom to do what we do, and knowing there’s a little bit of oversight there to make sure we don’t like accidentally make the same story as another one, given that we’re all drawing from the same pool of reference.”
The release of Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill F has also been a “net positive” for Screen Burn, and while the studio knows that it’s being expected to live up to the high standard set by those games, the warm reception to those titles has left the developer feeling confident.
“I think just as Silent Hill 2 was coming out, like seeing what they’d done and being like–as a fan of the original–being blown away by what they did with the remake,” McKellan said. “And then with Silent Hill F, the left turn that took is just great to see. It gave us confidence as well, seeing those games do really well, [it] gave us confidence that people were accepting of the new Silent Hill and that the fans were here for it. So, it’s always been like a confidence builder for us. Now the spotlight’s on us, so now we’re terrified! But yeah, it’s been overall a net positive, like we’ve enjoyed being part of the franchise, obviously, and happy to be the next installment.”
Unlike the previous games, Silent Hill Townfall is a first-person survival-horror. It does share one idea with Silent Hill f, moving the series out of the US and taking it to the fictional Scottish town of St. Amelia. For more on the game, you can read up on why Konami has published so many Silent Hill games lately, Screen Burn’s ambition to make people talk about Townfall for the next 20 years, and the decision to make it a first-person experience.