Silent Hill: The Short Message Review – A Disappointing Experience

Silent Hill is back, and this time for real. Even Konami itself seems to have forgotten about the negatively received interactive series Ascension, because The Short Message means for the first game of the new phase of the entire series, which has been on ice for quite some time. There have been rumors about this game for a long time, it even received a rating a long time ago, but over time it disappeared. And when it was gradually considered that the name was completely canceled, at the State of Play event we saw not only an announcement, but also a release, and the game is also available for free. In theory, any owner of the PlayStation 5 console can try it out. But it should be warned in advance that this game is not for everyone.

• Platform: PlayStation 5
• Release date: 02.01.2024
• Developer: Konami, HexaDrive
• Publisher: Konami
• Genre: Psychological horror
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: No
• Data for download: 12 GB
• Play time: 2 hours
• Price: Free (PlayStation Store)

(From) serious topics

In Silent Hill: The Short Message, you take on the role of teenager Anita, living in a fictional German town where life is not really joyless and both attempts to “revive” the dying Kettenstadt have ended in failure. At the request of her friend Maya, Anita finds herself in an abandoned building, but something is clearly wrong there. And it seems that he will not be able to get out until he finds “something”.

The developers have already stated in an article on the PlayStation blog that the game is trying to highlight the problems of modern youth and serious topics. But I really didn’t expect it to be so strong. If you are going through a bad period in your life, you might want to save the game for another time, because these two hours are full of depression and negative emotions or thoughts. However, this is definitely the biggest advantage of the whole game.

It deals with topics such as suicide, bullying, child abuse or psychological issues, which are finally not as taboo as they used to be, but still not many games that dare to touch on such topics. But above all, serious topics are handled delicately and together with a central and very strong storyline that offers more than one twist, create a holistic experience.

This is also helped by the excellent acting, especially that of Anita, played by Fadile Waked. You quickly get to know the characters and feel their suffering, which is depicted in a frighteningly realistic way. After finishing the game, you will definitely be glad that you do not have to live in Kettenstadt, but at the same time, you will not forget the experience.

Simple gameplay

In terms of gameplay, there’s nothing new here. It’s essentially a classic “walking simulator” in the style of Layers of Fear, where you walk around and interact with the environment without any puzzles to solve (except for one minor one). You read various newspaper articles and other documents, but you also communicate via text messages. It’s Anita’s cell phone that she always carries with her and also serves as her main source of light.

Overall, I think the gameplay method is well chosen, and that’s why I was unpleasantly surprised that the authors somehow tried to impose a game with frantic passages, fear of all games of this genre. As in the vast majority of them, they do not scare, but simply upset. I don’t know when the developers will finally understand that this is simply not possible. Actually, I would not have objected so much if not for the very last episode, which was simply terribly designed, so I gave in and watched the ending of the game on YouTube, which I also recommend to all readers. This way, you will get much more pleasure from the game and save yourself from unnecessary disappointment.

A rollercoaster of emotions and images

And I will dwell on the second big problem – the frame rate. The game does not offer display modes and automatically targets 60 frames per second. The problem is that almost from the first moments it clearly “does not keep up” and the frame rate drops noticeably, which was confirmed by the subsequent test.

While the title can hold a steady 60 in places, the vast majority of the time the frame rate is a rollercoaster, which even the VRR can’t save. On the PS5, there is a minimum limit of 48Hz, but the frame rate drops well below that (and there is some stuttering during playthroughs). I don’t understand why the game doesn’t have an option to lock to 30 (or 40) frames per second, which would at least provide a stable experience.

Beautiful audiovisual effect

It’s a shame, because graphically the game looks very nice, be it the lighting, the details of the environment (which, as usual in the series, can be transformed a lot) or the character models. It’s interesting that it was created on Unreal Engine 5, because its appearance and UI style in many ways reminded me a lot of the new Resident Evils, which runs on RE Engine.

Either way, the visuals are a big strength of Short Message, thanks to some great aesthetics, including a rather inventive monster designed by none other than Masahiro Ito, creator of the legendary Pyramid Head.

In addition, the game relies not only on in-game graphics and cutscenes (which sometimes switch to a third-person view), but also on animated films, which serve primarily as flashbacks and are a very pleasant addition.

The game is also great in terms of sound. It is the sounds that complete the overall, very unsettling atmosphere. As well as the music, including the final song in the closing credits, written by another famous composer Akira Jamaoka.

Good experiment

I would like to end the whole review on a positive note. Although the game has two rather serious shortcomings – unstable frame rate and racing passages, otherwise I was very pleasantly surprised. Nice graphics are complemented by excellent sound and, above all, an emotional story filled with serious and bold themes for a video game.

It’s a very successful experimental project that’s definitely worth your two hours. Honestly, I can’t really judge how the game will be received by hardcore fans of the series, since the title is only loosely connected to the overall lore. But personally, I’m a fan of fresh ideas and glad that we have a game like this from Konami.