The call of fear is almost irresistible, alluring and unsettling at the same time, just as the song of a Homeric siren can be. And we all miss the sirens that unsettle us as we wander through the fog that veils a city that has entered the legend of video games.
Ovviamente non mi riferisco alle splendide creature per metà pesce che si nascondono subdolamente tra i flutti oceanici, bensì al suono spaventoso e costante che annuncia lo spostamento dimensionale dalla nostra realtà a quella dell’Otherworld.
Tirteen years after the last chapter, Downpour, here comes the announcement that all of us fans of Uncle Tibia (do you remember him?) had been waiting for: on September 25, Konami will thin out the mists of uncertainty and finally unveil the new act, titled Silent Hill F, a title that raises a flood of questions and sends hype to stratospheric levels. Are we really ready to arm ourselves with a demon-finding radio and a flashlight to face the unknown?
At the moment, the screenshots released and the first images in general of the game have been extracted almost entirely from the official trailer, where we see for the first time a Japanese schoolgirl with the classic Sixties school uniform, Hinako Shimizu, the protagonist of this new iteration of the franchise created in 1999 by Keiichiro Toyama.
After showing us a brief exchange of greetings between her and a classmate, the trailer brutally leads us into rooms with blood-stained walls and horrible omens of death inside and outside the houses of the town where the game is set.
Ed and here is the first surprise: at least at the beginning, we will move Hinako in a small town called Ebisugaoka and not the iconic Silent Hill of the title. This is a choice, one bordering on recklessness, given the appeal and fascination surrounding the place where the other games in the series are set, the epicenter of evil that has itself become a protagonist of the saga just as much as the characters who have taken turns playing the lead role.
La tradition qui nous voit aux prises avec des horreurs qui vont au-delà de toute compréhension humaine, vues à travers les yeux de gens ordinaires et non de héros armés jusqu’aux dents, est respectée : tout comme l’inoubliable Harry Mason du premier titre et le routier bourru d’Origins, la lycéenne Hinako se distingue pour l’instant seulement par son apparence délibérément kawaii et cette sensation constante de fragilité qui, dès la bande-annonce, nous colle à la peau comme une seconde nature, avant même de poser les mains sur la manette.
Unlike Resident Evil, which has always focused on adrenaline rushes and bloody jump scares thanks to genetically modified undead and nightmare creatures derived from pseudo-scientific aberrations, Silent Hill plays on a more subtle plane, filling the inner bar of anxiety with increasingly impactful psychological traumas. The original musical genius of the series, Akira Yamaoka, will also return to collaborate with Konami, after years of silence, as if the great K wanted to mend a direct thread, of course red, with the dawn of the saga.
Silent Hill F arrives at the starting blocks with many expectations and promises, a return to the origins of relentless horror conveyed through carefully staged shots, creatures with a disjointed and chilling gait, as well as enveloping and icy music comparable to the caress in the dark of someone, or something, you cannot see.
Because the beauty of Silent Hill is not what terrifies you when it appears before your eyes.
It is the hushed breath that blows on your neck, while you tremble uncontrollably and the fog rises, until it completely envelops you. On September 25, this fog will clear and Silent Hill F will be among us.
