Silent Hill: Townfall Gamescom 2026 Interview

Silent Hill: Townfall Director And Producer Discuss The Game's Roots, Horror Stylings, And Place Within The Franchise Published Sep 1, 2026, 9:01 AM EDT Sam Woods is TheGamer’s Senior Reporter. He’s been in games journalism since 2020 and has undertaken a variety of roles in that time. These have included roles such as SEO Editor, Managing Editor at DualShockers, and Global Head of Gaming, and he's also been seen on the BBC. He was promoted to the Senior Reporter position in 2025 following a series of high-quality reports and exclusives for TheGamer. Since 2020, Sam has written over 2,500 articles and specializes in telling the stories of the people behind the games. He’s interviewed the biggest game directors, some of the industry’s top talents, told the stories of how indie games came to be, and spoken to players about what really makes them tick. He’s also interviewed some of the world’s biggest musical artists to find out how the medium has inspired their work, and TV and Film actors about their roles in video game adaptations. He even hosted a PAX panel in 2021 and made a documentary in 2024 surrounding the creation of a Disney game. Alongside this, Sam focuses on breaking news. He got the scoop on Perfect Dark’s cancellation, got context around some AI drama, and revealed how Lady Dimitrescu’s actress would love to step back into the character’s giant shoes. These articles have been picked up by the biggest gaming sites, including IGN, GameSpot, and PC Gamer. He also loves to dive into the numbers behind the games. Sam’s journey in games journalism has taken him all over the world. He’s covered Gamescom in Germany, Summer Game Fest in Los Angeles, and Tokyo Game Show in Japan, each on more than one occasion. He’s been learning Japanese since 2024 with the intention of identifying and translating Japanese-language news and bringing it to English-language audiences first, something he’s done countless times. Sam’s first review was 2020’s Battletoads reboot, and he’s since reviewed games in The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario, and Pokemon franchises. Silent Hill: Townfall is one of many big hitters still to be released in 2026. It represents the next stage in the resurgence of the Silent Hill franchise, following the success of the remake of Silent Hill 2 and later Silent Hill f. Ahead of its release later this month, we sat down with Motoi Okamoto, Silent Hill series producer at Konami, and Jon McKellan, Silent Hill: Townfall writer and director, at this year's Gamescom. The candid chat explored how Townfall fits into the world of Silent Hill and how McKellan drew on his Scottish roots for inspiration. TheGamer: The last Silent Hill was set in Japan; now we're over in Scotland, the UK. What's the reasoning behind the decision to change locations so frequently now? Motoi Okamoto: We felt that if we kept focusing on the same setting, it would exhaust the team's capabilities and cost the players. So it was an intentional choice to take the project outside of Japan. And by focusing on different locales, we felt that would give a fresh perspective to each of the games. It would also provide opportunities for each developer to tell the kinds of stories that they feel are most suitable for them. So that they could take the right approach that works best for them. They could also focus on different kinds of culture and lore rooted in that setting. TG: I'm assuming because you're a Scotland-based studio, a Scot yourself, that that played a big role in where we are in Townfall? Jon McKellan: I think it would have been disingenuous for us to write a story set in another part of the world that we didn't know so well. And I think we wanted the town to be an important part of the story, an important part of the experience. And so we felt like we could bring a perspective, a backstory, something unique to us as a team. To bring to the series in a way that feels authentic and believable. TG: Growing up in the UK in the 90s, it's probably the most nostalgic I've ever felt playing a game. Which is really weird to say, given the type of game. Was it hard to think back to all that? How much of it was you going back to your youth? How much research did you have to do? JM: I think a lot of it came quite naturally. The lead designer, Graham, is my brother. So we grew up together and we've got a shared reference, a shared pool of memories. Which has been really useful in lots of weird ways. I think the biggest challenge was actually with our younger members of staff. Getting them schooled up on, 'yeah, we used to use cards [to top up electricity in houses]. We used to put coins in dogs' heads [guide dog charity collection pots].' Trying to get that across to people internally. For some people it would be a bit of research and a bit of digging into the past. And for others, it was going back to old memories. Our attitude to it was that it should feel nostalgic to us. And it should feel very different and unique to everyone else. Because they've never played a game set in a place like this at a time like this. TG: So there was a lot of stuff based on Japanese folklore in Silent Hill F. How heavily do you lean into Scottish folklore in that? JM: Not so much in folklore but more in just the way of life in Scotland at that time. The things that were happening in the towns, the kind of situation we were in. Very much drawing on real life rather than mythology. To tell our story where Simon's an outsider to this town. He's not been there before. He doesn't understand his connection to it. And through playing, you start to learn what this town is and who they are as people. So it's kind of like drawing on our experience of growing up in these places. Thinking back to what Dad was doing as a job. Or what cousins were doing when they went from the house to the country. It's really just drawing on the shared history we had rather than on the mythology itself. I think the town feels uniquely Scottish. And there are a lot of good reasons why we've chosen that era, that time, that location to be able to tell the story. TG: Up until this point, everything you've worked on has been your own. How different is it working on something that already exists, an existing IP? Is it a different challenge for you? JM: It's a different challenge. Before I started Screen Burn, I worked on Alien Isolation. So I had some experience working with a big franchise before. But I think what's been really freeing is that the guys at Konami have been very open to letting us tell the story when we tell. And build the game design-wise, artistically. Build a game that fits the story best. We haven't felt shackled, we haven't felt tied down. We've been given a good range of freedom to make the story what we want it to be. We were worried going into it. We weren't sure what to expect, as I think everyone would be. But within the first couple of months of pre-production, we realized we had a great partnership. And we were going to be able to tell a really unique story. TG: And how, from Konami's perspective, has it been working with Screen Burn? MO: The developers of Screen Burn are very skilled and professional. They are very particular about the details. Whether it's just them or Scottish people as a whole, I can't quite say. But our experience with them is that there is a very meticulous, obsessive amount of attention to detail. That's something that caught our attention very quickly. The accent is difficult, though. I'm thinking of hiring a translator for the Scottish dialect. TG: So with budgets ballooning, studio sizes ballooning, everything just going crazy. How hard is it for a smaller studio like yours to make a game as big in scope as some? JM: I think we've deliberately tried to stay as small and lean as we can. Just from the perspective of the company growing, making sure that we don't... It's very easy to bloat and to calcify in terms of how easy you can move your teams around. I always say it's a lot easier to steer a speedboat than it is a Titanic. So we've tried to stay speedboat. And that means that we can pivot to feedback. We can react very quickly with discussions with Anaheim or Konami. We've been able to really iterate fast. I think it's about leaning into your strengths and away from your weaknesses as a team. That's allowed us to stay small and still build a game that looks way bigger than the 25 people. And that's always been our goal, to kind of punch above our weight in that way. But we are a very experienced team. Between us all, we've got a lot of big-name titles under our belts. So we can bring that to what feels like a smaller project and still deliver something that feels true. TG: In a previous interview, you've said that Konami has completely trusted you to make your own type of horror. What does your own type of horror look like? JM: I think our horror is more tension-driven, more understated, less bombastic. It's not gore, it's not blood and guts, it's not jump-scares. When you're playing the game, you're not necessarily scared all the time. But your shoulders are tense. That slow burn is a big part of what makes it unique in the horror space. We're still telling a deep, meaningful story with lots of varied gameplay systems. We've got stealth, we've got combat, we've got puzzles. But they're done in a way that feels like a slow-seeping dread, rather than worrying that someone's going to jump on your face in about five seconds. I think that's our thing. Systems Released September 24, 2026 ESRB Mature 17+ / Blood, Strong Language, Violence Developer(s) Screen Burn Publisher(s) Annapurna Interactive, Konami Genre(s) Horror, Action, Adventure, Exploration