Thesurvival horrorgenre is one of the most thriving areas in video games and it’s incredible to watch how titles have found innovative new ways to frightened audiences and get in their heads. Konami’sSilent Hillfranchise used to have a reputation that rivaledResident Evil,but the series has cooled off in recent years.
Related:10 Things A Silent Hill Reboot Needs To Do
It’s been nearly a decade since a newSilent Hillgame and fans are wondering if they’ll ever get to revisit the creepy community. There’s such a rich world that’s been created in these video games that it’d be a tragedy to abandon it. Accordingly, here is everySilent Hillgame, ranked according to Metacritic.
10Silent Hill: The Escape (Score: 58)
It’s become common for any popular video game series to churn out a fewmobile entriesin an attempt to appease casual gamers. As a result, it’s not surprising thatSilent Hill: The Escapeis the smallest of the games with the least favorable reputation (in fact, this Metacritic score of 58 is from users, not critics).
Related:Every Silent Hill Game Ranked By How Long They Take To Beat
The game is a first-person shooter that lovingly features lots of enemies from the franchise like nurses, wheelchairs, and a disturbing hybrid between the Butcher and Pyramid Head. Unfortunately, the game is more a novelty than a fulfillingSilent Hillexperience.
9Silent Hill: Book Of Memories (Score: 58)
Silent Hill: Book of Memoriesis another outlier in the horror franchise, not only because it’s a release for the handheldPlayStation Vita, but it chooses to radically mix up the series’ formula.
Related:Silent Hill 2: Every Monster Ranked From Least To Most Scary
Rather than the standard survival horror experience,Book of Memoriesis a disturbing dungeon crawler that incorporates the dark world and enemies ofSilent Hill.It’s never a bad thing for franchises to experiment around to find new inspiration, but this was not the right direction or what fans wanted from aSilent Hillrelease.
8Silent Hill: Downpour (Score: 68)
Silent Hill: Downpourwas the final game to be released in the mainSilent Hillseries, which makes it disappointing that it goes out with a whimper.Downpourutilizes many of the ideas and themes from previous, but puts players in the mindset of problematic protagonist, Murphy, a prisoner.Downpouris most interested in the moral decisions that the player and Murphy make throughout the game, all of which make a difference to the overall story.Downpourisn’t a broken game, but at this point it seems like audiences were just tired ofSilent Hill’scurrent direction.
7Silent Hill: Homecoming (Score: 71)
There was a lot of pressure onSilent Hill: Homecomingsince players were ready for more forward momentum of the lore after the latestprequel game. As a result,Homecomingis slightly frustrating as it begins the dissolution of the series' tight chronology in some ways.Homecomingdoesn’t bring that much new to the equation and its biggest selling point is that its protagonist, Alex, heavily suffers from PTSD and is more fragile than the typical main character in the series. Alex’s journey to find his brother has weight to it, but not much else clicks.
6Silent Hill 4: The Room (Score: 76)
Silent Hill 4: The Roomis perhaps the most ambitious in the original run of games from Team Silent. It was criticized upon its release for doing something different, but it’s since gained more of a cult reputation. The game mixes things up and turns the protagonist’s apartment into a source of tension, rather than security. It leads to a bunch of supernatural worlds as the story becomes increasingly paranoid and resembles headier texts likeJacob’s Ladderand the works of David Lynch. It’s a deviation from the previous three titles, but it’s a risk that deserves some more respect.
5Silent Hill: Origins (Score: 78)
After the departure of the original Team Silent, the horror series tried to break fresh ground for their fifth game and decided to deliver a prequel that gets deeper into Silent Hill’s history and the events that lead into the first game.Silent Hill: Originsis actually quite clever with how it plays against the audience’s expectations. It connects to the previous titles in ways that feel satisfying rather than manipulative. It’s also worth pointing out that this score is for the original PlayStation Portable version of the game, since thePlayStation 2port that followed is actually slightly inferior.
4Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (Score: 79)
Nintendo has developed a reputation of being a more kid-friendly company, so it’s always exciting when a new survival horror entry debuts on one of their consoles or theytake a risk.Silent Hill: Shattered Memoriesis an interesting experiment since it’s a “reimagining” of the first game, but it still pushes the material in a new direction and adds a lot of fresh concepts. This score is also for the original version of the game, which makes the best use of the title’s new control scheme, not that the ports suffer from that much of a drop in quality.
3Silent Hill 3 (Score: 85)
Silent Hill 2is a tough act to follow, butSilent Hill 3is a smartsequelthat’s just as good as its predecessors in many ways and it’s not afraid to take some ambitious swings.Silent Hill 3benefits from its extremely creepy amusement park environment and teenageCherylis a great change of pace as far as protagonists go.Silent Hill 3figures out new ways to try to make audiences unravel and there’s a seriously impressive story that brilliantly connects back to the first game.
2Silent Hill (Score: 86)
The title that started it all is still seen as one of the most impressive entries in the series. The firstSilent Hilldoesn’t overextend itself and even though elements like combat aren’t great, it was still a groundbreakingPlayStationrelease for its time. The firstSilent Hillstill figures out how to get into the audience’s head and disturb them in more psychological ways. This title becomes the framework for everything that follows and there’s a reason that the original premise is never deviated away from that much.
1Silent Hill 2 (Score: 89)
Silent Hill 2looks at widower James Sunderland’s journey to Silent Hill to locate his seemingly dead wife. The story is an emotional masterpiece and the way in which James’ trauma influences the events of the story is amazing. Mature themes that were once unheard of for video games are explored here and theendingis still a gauntlet to endure. Not only isSilent Hill 2one of the best survival horror games of all time, but the enhancedRestless Dreamsonly makes a sublime title even better. This is the benchmark to achieve for psychological survival horror games.
Next:5 Survival Horror Games That Deserve A Remake (And 5 That Don’t)
