So you recently played Silent Hill f and thought to yourself: where can I currently play each mainline Silent Hill?
I have played many versions of each Silent Hill so that you didn’t have to. Each Silent Hill game is a bit of a unique beast with some shared elements. Each of the mainline games is playable in 2025 (which is saying something as many retro games are not) but not always in terribly convenient ways. Or, if they are convenient, they aren’t the best way to experience the game.
Why Silent Hill Matters
Konami released the stunning and terrifying Silent Hill f on September 25, 2025. The game is the first complete new mainline Silent Hill experience since 2012’s Silent Hill: Downpour.
The horror franchise is legendary. During the PlayStation 2 and Original Xbox era, Silent Hill was the psychological companion to the more campy horror of Capcom’s Resident Evil series. The first Silent Hill was released in 1999 on the original PlayStation. Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3 solidified the series’ spot as a brilliant anthology of psychological survival horror.
A shift toward action then sent the series into more ambiguous territory. Silent Hill 4, much like Resident Evil 4, would go on to transform the franchise, but arguably, unlike Capcom’s beloved horror series, not even a little for the better. The latter games’ greater focus on combat makes Silent Hill 4, Silent Hill: Homecoming, and Silent Hill: Downpour difficult recommendations. They are awkward titles to return to; their gameplay never quite works as well as one would hope. (This may explain why folks were so concerned when a trailer for the Silent Hill 2 remake heavily emphasized combat.)
While Hideo Kojima’s P.T. demo gave us a glimpse at what his ultimately-cancelled Silent Hills might have been, the series was put on ice after Konami and Kojima’s nasty breakup. That was until recently, however, with the series experiencing a resurgence of interest. With that in mind, I felt it was important to let players know the best way to experience every game in the series so they can see for themselves how legendary it is (and, also, how it lost its way for a while).
For the record, I have only considered the mainline entries here. I have not experimented with the different ways to play or experience the spin-offs, including Origins, Shattered Memories, the mobile games, P.T., Ascension, or Short Message, so it wouldn’t be appropriate. And, besides, it’s Silent Hill itself we must (re)visit.
The Best Way To Play Each Mainline Silent Hill
Silent Hill: Plug That PlayStation 3 Back In
The original Silent Hill set the tone and atmosphere of the rest of the series. It follows Harry Mason’s search for his missing adopted daughter. Harry traverses the small town of Silent Hill, occasionally fighting creatures and solving puzzles. The game’s infamous fog effects are still freaky 26 years later. The narrative and pacing hold up as a 1999 game, even if the game’s writing feels cringy at times (we’ll see if Bloober Team fixes that in their upcoming remake.)
It is a bit difficult to play the original Silent Hill. In terms of the actual experience, the game still depends on tank controls. In terms of access, it is only available through the PlayStation 3 emulator. The game can still be purchased for $9.99 on the PS3 online store and transferred through a USB cable to play on the PlayStation Portable or PlayStation Vita. Playing the game on the go feels wonderful in 2025, and on particularly creepy evenings, Silent Hill can still be a little more startling on a small screen in a way that feels muted on the larger screen.
Here’s hoping that Sony brings this one to the PlayStation Plus Classics Catalogue soon with Trophy Support. Everyone deserves to experience the original without owning hardware that is nearly two decades old.
Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Over Remade
Bloober Team’s Silent Hill 2 remake, as great as it may be, is not the best way to experience this classic (though it is now the easiest to access since it was added to PlayStation Plus Extra’s catalogue this month). Please don’t mince my words: the remake is wonderful and, frankly, a little miracle. But if you want the vibe and feeling of the 2001 classic, then the fan-project Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition on PC is the way to go as it is the best version of the original game.
Silent Hill 2 follows James Sunderland as he goes looking for his deceased wife in our titular town after receiving a not-at-all concerning posthumous letter. When folks talk about Silent Hill, this is often the game that comes to mind, and it is often associated with its PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions. And for good reason: the sound design, fog effects, and town perfectly align with the themes of this entry’s story. The supporting cast of characters are memorable. Not to mention, PYRAMID HEAD is still the scariest monster in video games.
Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition builds on the solid PC port of the game, making the 2003 port compatible with modern hardware as well as adding consistent quality of life updates. The team’s improvements to the fog and shadow effects as well as the audio enhancements really uphold the feel of the original release.
(Note: Silent Hill HD Collection is the worst way to play both Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3. If it is your only option, it is fine. However, if you can play these games in any other way, please do. You deserve to enjoy these games in a way where they’ve been maintained with quality and care, and the audio and visual issues in the HD Collection do not demonstrate care.)
Silent Hill 3 and 4: An Over-the-Shoulder Mod Saves the Day
The initial releases of Silent Hill 3 and Silent Hill 4: The Room were pretty different beasts. Silent Hill 3 is a sequel to the first game and translates the vibes nicely to the PlayStation 2 with an amazing protagonist in Heather Mason and incredible cutscenes that hold up nicely 22 years later. Conversely, Silent Hill 4: The Room feels like the beginning of the end of the era of Silent Hill dominance with this aforementioned overemphasis on combat and frustrating protagonist Henry Townsend.
Silent Hill 3 on PC still plays quite wonderfully with a few mods, though it can be hard to get a hold of unless through an emulator. Silent Hill 4: The Room is also readily available on GOG.
Both games are made significantly better with modder ZealotTormund’s over-the-shoulder mods for both titles. In particular, the mod truly makes Silent Hill 4: The Room worth experiencing in 2025 and makes sections that I dread on the PlayStation 2 version or unmodded PC version more than tolerable.
While I believe that the same is true at the gameplay level of Silent Hill 3, this is a more difficult argument to make aesthetically. The third entry was so thoughtfully and artfully constructed by Team Silent that the shift in camera angle initially feels like a sin, taking away some of the cinematic framing of quiet moments and obscuring solutions to certain puzzles. I recommend keeping the toggle button at the ready to turn the mod off during non-combat sequences to appreciate the Lynchian aesthetic experience.
Silent Hill: Homecoming and Downpour: Backwards Compatibility for the Win
I debated on including these last two at all, since they are not technically numbered entries in the series. Silent Hill: Homecoming and Silent Hill: Downpour showcase nearly every problem that legacy horror franchises had transitioning to HD during the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 era.
New faces like Dead Space found creative ways to take advantage of the new technology, while legacy horror franchises like Silent Hill and Resident Evil (where the fifth and sixth entries also released during this gen) struggled to simultaneously capture the vibe of the previous entries while matching new gameplay expectations.
In some ways, these games feel the least like Silent Hill, though they are still playable through backward compatibility on the Xbox Series X as long as you are willing to seek out the Xbox 360 disc copies.
Both games also still run fine on their original hardware, and if you are someone who wants to experience the original on the PS3, then it is kind of cool to return to the hardware for these two entries. Homecoming is a pretty lukewarm entry that didn’t dissuade any concerns following Silent Hill 4: The Room.
In comparison, Downpour is full of ideas that would have benefited from just a little more time in development. The rain effects alone are worth playing Downpour for, and its protagonist Murphy Pendleton’s story belongs alongside the narratives of the first three games.
Silent Hill Fans Kept the Horror Alive
To say that Konami is just now bringing Silent Hill back feels like a misnomer; many Silent Hill games not only survived the long drought, but were improved by fans. I understand that for many players Silent Hill f (and the Silent Hill 2 remake) must feel like taking an old record off the shelf and blowing the dust off, revealing scratches and all. But I assure you that the lights were always on in our foggy town.
What are your favorite ways to play the Silent Hill games? Let us know in the comments!
Clint is a writer and educator based out of Columbus, OH. You can often find him writing about Middle English poetry, medieval games, or video games. He just finished a PhD in English at the Ohio State University. You can find his academic and public work at clintmorrisonjr.com.
