Silent Hill: The Short Message Reviews

As its title suggests, Silent Hill: The Short Message is a short cinematic experience that surprisingly focuses its story on subjects that today's games would never dare to even mention. Take a look at this full review if you really want to understand what's behind the latest free entry in the universe of one of the most important franchises in the survival horror genre.

Silent Hill: The Short Message is a 2024 survival horror game co-developed by Konami Digital Entertainment and HexaDrive and published by Konami.

Silent Hill: The Short Message shows glimmers of the classic horror series at its best - despite the very heavy-handed metaphor, a frustrating chase sequence, and the long shadow of P.T.

The Silent Hill franchise has been in very rough spot in recent years. The past ten years have been pretty…. silent. Hideo Kojima’s cancelled Silent Hill project was torn away from us before we knew what to expect, using some elements of that including the casting of Norman Reedus to bring us Death Stranding. All that remains is the demo known as P.T., a horror masterpiece that changed the scene forever, apawning dozens of clones ranging from the excellent Visage to the less excellent Evi...

Silent Hill: The Short Message isn't going to set the horror genre ablaze, but it doesn't have to. As a free offering, it's a solid showcase with a heavy atmosphere and heavier subjects, even if its narrative could have been more subtle.

Silent Hill: The Short Message is a boring, contrived, borderline offensive experience.

While it can be a little ham-fisted with its messaging, Silent Hill: The Short Message is a suitably dark and disturbing experience that certainly captures the look and feel of Silent Hill. Those who dig into it will find that it offers an interesting take on how these stories can occur outside of the actual town of Silent Hill, too. In any case, for the price of free, it’s hard to complain about a short horror experience that is as good as (or better than) most of its ilk released at a cost.

The sad thing is that Silent Hill: The Short Message has a lot of good story ideas, characters and world-building, but then proceeds to waste them on completely unoriginal, shallow gameplay. It paradoxically wanted to move ahead and tackle more mature themes and stories, yet has gameplay that feels blatantly regressive, settling for the most generic aspects of modern horror games. If this is the direction that the franchise wants to take, then it's headed straight for a cliff. Hopefully the likes of No Code will be able to salvage things with their side games later, but for now, you can easily skip over The Short Message.

For a free game that shows the first glimpse of what Konami is truly going to do with the franchise, Silent Hill: The Short Message is absolutely worth experiencing. That's not to say it's perfect. The "walk around and find the only interactable object in the room" gameplay brings nothing new to the table, and after being caught by the monster two or three times the escape room segments become far more tedious than they do scary (especially the final one). The dialog is a bit too on-the-nose, and all the social media references that seemed pretty important in the beginning are quietly shoved to the side once the real story reveals itself. That all being said, it's a far better start than it could have been, and it is undeniably the best new Silent Hill media since 2014.

Silent Hill: The Short Message is the first product in 12 years to release with the Silent Hill name on it, and picking up where the Silent Hill HD Collection and PS Vita title Book of Memories left off, it doesn't exactly put the series' best foot forward. Instead of a horror experience filled with inventive puzzles and consistently scary sequences, Konami — alongside developer HexaDrive — has put together a walking simulator that harkens back to when the genre was actually just about putting one foot in front of the other. It's free and roughly 90 minutes long, so the only thing The Short Message asks of you is your free time. The issue is you could just spend it playing a significantly better game.

Silent Hill's return to consoles after 12 years away falls flat thanks to a script lacking even an ounce of subtlety.

Silent Hill: The Short Message is an interesting, if not amazing rebirth for the series that proves it can be reanimated for a modern audience. Atmospheric and full of potential it bodes well for future instalments.