All Silent Hill Games in Order

Silent Hill: Townfall arrived on September 24, making this a good time to sort through the series and its play order. Over the past two years, Konami has brought Silent Hill back after a long lull: first with the Silent Hill 2 remake, then with the Japan-set Silent Hill f. A new film, Return to Silent Hill, also reached theaters. For newcomers, that leaves a question: where do you start?

Below is every Silent Hill game and movie in order, from the 1999 original to Townfall. We'll sort out the best order to play them in, how the timeline works, and where to start.

Silent Hill isn't one continuous story — it's a set of largely standalone games. What ties them together isn't a shared plot but recurring themes, psychological-horror techniques, and imagery: the fog, the rusted Otherworld, monsters as reflections of someone's trauma. Some of the games are also linked by a setting — the cursed town — and the mythology of a cult called the Order, but not the whole series: Silent Hill f, for instance, moves the action to Japan, and Townfall to Scotland. So most entries can be played in any order: nearly every one features a new protagonist and tells a self-contained story.

There's simply no single linear timeline the whole series fits into. There is one hard story link: Silent Hill 3 is a direct sequel to the first game (Heather is a grown-up Cheryl from Silent Hill), so play it after the original. Keep two more cases in mind: Silent Hill: Origins is a prequel to the first game, and Shattered Memories isn't a sequel but an alternate re-imagining of its events. Otherwise, the play order matches the release order — that's the easiest way to follow how the developers, the mechanics, and the very approach to horror changed over time. The Silent Hill 2 remake gets its own entry as a separate game, and ports and re-releases aren't counted as separate installments; the movies sit in a separate block, since they play by their own rules and aren't directly tied to the games.

Every Silent Hill game in release order:

The first four games were made by an internal Konami team fans later nicknamed Team Silent. They established everything the series is known for: psychological dread instead of jump scares, the fog, the rusted Otherworld, and monsters that mirror someone's trauma.

Silent Hill begins with writer Harry Mason driving into town with his adopted daughter, Cheryl. After a crash, he wakes to find her missing. His search leads him to a local cult called the Order, which is trying to resurrect its deity. The original PlayStation graphics have aged, but the fog still makes the streets unsettling: Harry can barely see what lies ahead. It began as a way to hide the console’s technical limitations and became one of the series’ defining images. The announced remake will return to this first game’s story.

Many still consider Silent Hill 2 the peak of the series. James Sunderland receives a letter from his wife, who died three years ago, calling him to Silent Hill. What follows is a story about guilt, memory, and self-deception, where the town literally sculpts monsters out of what the hero hides from himself. This is also where Pyramid Head debuted — the executioner who became a symbol of the entire franchise. The second game isn't tied to anything story-wise, so it's a perfectly good place to start.

Silent Hill 3 directly continues the story of the first game. Its protagonist, Heather, finds herself pursued by the Order, and the cult’s interest in her becomes clear as the story unfolds. Where Silent Hill 2 is more restrained, the third game leans into visceral, grotesque imagery. It is one of the bleakest entries in the series. Play the original first, or many of its story references will lose their meaning.

Silent Hill 4: The Room strays furthest from the usual formula. Henry Townshend wakes up in his own apartment and realizes the door is chained from the inside, and the only way out into other worlds is a hole in the bathroom. The game unsettles you with claustrophobia and the idea that even home is no longer safe. Reception was mixed, but over the years the fourth game grew into a cult favorite — and it's the last work of the original Team Silent.

After the fourth game Konami handed the series to Western developers. The results were uneven: there are good ideas in these games, but none of them reached the density of dread the original team achieved.

Silent Hill: Origins is a prequel to the very first game. Trucker Travis Grady stops near the town and gets drawn into the story of a girl named Alessa, where it all began. For a PSP game, it looked impressive and held onto the signature atmosphere, though it fell short of the classics in depth. A good pick for anyone who cares about the lore of the first game.

In Silent Hill: Homecoming, Alex Shepherd returns to his hometown and finds it being devoured by a familiar curse. The game put much more emphasis on combat — and that's the problem: Silent Hill was always about helplessness, and here the hero swings his weapons a little too confidently. The atmosphere works in places, but the game doesn't reach the classics.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is a bold re-imagining of the first game's story. The setup is the same (Harry searching for Cheryl after a crash), but from there the game goes its own way. There's no combat at all: you only run from the monsters, and between episodes the game "profiles" the player through therapy sessions and quietly reshapes the town and the ending to fit you. One of the most original entries in the series.

Silent Hill: Downpour follows convict Murphy Pendleton, who gets stranded in town after a prison-bus crash. It was the last major entry of its time and, at the same time, the series' quiet finale before a long pause: decent atmosphere sits alongside technical problems and second-hand ideas.

Silent Hill: Book of Memories stands apart: it isn't a horror game but an isometric action-RPG with leveling and co-op. It has almost nothing to do with the main canon and is really only for collectors — no great loss if you skip it.

Between the old era and the new one there was a moment when the series almost came back in triumph. In 2014 a playable teaser called P.T. quietly appeared on the PlayStation Store — a short nightmare in a looping corridor that players unraveled together across the internet. At the end it turned out to be a teaser for Silent Hills — a new entry from Hideo Kojima and director Guillermo del Toro, starring Norman Reedus.

The project was cancelled in 2015 after Kojima's split from Konami, and P.T. was pulled from the store. But the mark it left is huge: the teaser's looping corridor is still a clear reference point for horror games, and Kojima soon left Konami and founded his own studio, where he made Death Stranding. The cancellation of Silent Hills became, for years, the symbol of how Konami "lost" the series — which makes its current comeback all the more surprising.

2024 was the reset point. Konami released two projects in the same year and showed it was taking the series seriously.

Silent Hill: The Short Message arrived out of nowhere, with no long build-up. It's a short story about modern youth, bullying, and social media, framed as a first-person interactive scare. Its ties to the town's canon are loose, but it works well as an introduction to the series' mood for newcomers.

The Silent Hill 2 remake by Poland's Bloober Team was the clearest proof that the series was alive again. The studio kept the story and spirit of the 2001 original but moved the camera over the shoulder, reworked the combat, and rebuilt the town on a modern engine. It was warmly received by both players and critics — and commercially it was a big success, which we covered separately in a piece on whether that's a failure or a solid performance. If you want to understand why the second game is so loved but the classic visuals put you off, this is exactly where to start.

After the remake's success Konami didn't slow down. The series' producer made it clear that new Silent Hill games will now come out regularly — and the next two entries confirm the franchise isn't afraid to experiment.

Silent Hill f takes the series to Japan for the first time, setting its story in the fictional village of Ebisugaoka in the 1960s. Its script was written by Ryukishi07, creator of the cult classic Higurashi, while grotesque beauty and blooming red spider lilies take the place of the series’ familiar rust. The shift toward action sparked debate, with combat that sometimes resembles a Soulslike game. Even so, Silent Hill f is a strong entry, with some of the series’ best atmosphere and writing in years. We explain why in our Silent Hill f review.

Silent Hill: Townfall was developed by Screen Burn, formerly known as No Code, the studio behind Stories Untold and Observation. It is a standalone first-person psychological horror game set in Scotland. We covered its key features in our Silent Hill: Townfall review. The next major release in the series is expected to be Bloober Team’s remake of the original Silent Hill.

The Silent Hill films exist in their own continuity and aren't directly tied to the games — the plots freely reshuffle characters and events. Still, the adaptations are worth knowing for the full picture.

The first film was directed by Frenchman Christophe Gans, a big fan of the series. He drew on the first game but swapped Harry for a heroine named Rose, who searches the cursed town for her adopted daughter. Visually it's still one of the most faithful game adaptations out there: the fog, the siren, the Otherworld, and Pyramid Head are carried to the screen almost verbatim.

The sequel was directed by Michael J. Bassett and built on the plot of the third game — Heather's story. It came out in 3D and turned out noticeably weaker than the first: the film was criticized for a muddled script and a loss of atmosphere.

Years later Christophe Gans returned to the series — this time with an adaptation of the second game. Return to Silent Hill follows James as a letter from his late wife draws him back to the town. We covered how it turned out in our Return to Silent Hill review.

If the series is new to you, you don't have to play everything from 1999 on. Here are three routes that work:

Standalone spin-offs like Book of Memories and the old mobile games can be safely skipped — they don't affect your understanding of the series. And to decide what's worth your time first, our mainline Silent Hill games ranked from worst to best will help.

Quick answers to what people ask most about the order and lineup of the series.

The easiest way is by release year — that's also the recommended one. Story-wise almost every entry is standalone, so there's no strict sequence. The only hard link is Silent Hill and Silent Hill 3: play the third game after the first.

It depends on what you count. The main lineup has 13 games: twelve are already out (from Silent Hill in 1999 to Silent Hill f in 2025), and Silent Hill: Townfall releases on September 24, 2026. That's four Team Silent games, four Western-studio games (Origins, Homecoming, Shattered Memories, Downpour), the second game's remake, two spin-offs (The Short Message and Book of Memories), plus Silent Hill f and Townfall. The cancelled Silent Hills stands apart — all that's left of it is the P.T. playable teaser.

The best way into the series in 2026 is the Silent Hill 2 remake (2024): it's standalone, modern, and considered the strongest story-wise. Alternatively, try Silent Hill f if its 1960s Japan setting appeals to you.

Directly, almost never. The series is held together by recurring themes and mythology (the town, the Order cult), but not a single plot: nearly every entry features a new protagonist and tells its own story, and Silent Hill f and Townfall even move to other countries. The only direct sequel is Silent Hill 3, which continues the events of the first game.

No. The 2024 remake is fully standalone and retells the same story from scratch — no knowledge of the original required. The 2001 original is worth launching only if you want to compare or experience the classic.

Yes. A remake of the first game is in development at Bloober Team, and Konami has stated it plans to release new Silent Hill titles regularly. The series won't stop after Townfall.

Which Silent Hill scared you the most, and how many have you finished? Share in the comments.

If your Silent Hill marathon leaves you wanting more scares, we have a big list of the best horror games on PC and consoles — from the classics to modern releases. And if you enjoy breaking whole franchises down piece by piece, a similar guide to another genre legend will hit the spot: what order to play the Resident Evil games.