When Konami announced the return of Silent Hill in October 2022 and announced a bunch of upcoming games, not all plans were revealed. A few months before, several images appeared on the web that the publisher tried to remove from everywhere, as they were screenshots of another, unannounced instalment in the series. We saw a girl, a strange monster, a junk-filled room and walls covered with small papers. Until this week Konami refused to explain where these images came from, and now we can see why: the screenshots were taken from Silent Hill: The Short Message, a small surprise game that became available for free on PlayStation 5 on the day of the announcement.

Don’t go kids

We play as a girl Anita, who, at the invitation of her friend Maya, goes to the Villa apartment complex. Although the action of Silent Hill usually takes place in the USA, this time we find ourselves in the fictional German town Kettenstadt, which at some point started to be abandoned by young people. The government had ambitious plans to renovate the town, but something was always in the way: Japanese corporations would build a lot of buildings and abandon them because of the financial crisis of 2008, or the coronavirus would turn foreign investors away from the project. As a result, old “derelicts”, including Villa, remain idle, and the city continues to die due to growing unemployment and poverty.

For teenagers, the Villa has become a place where they can express themselves through graffiti – literally every wall here is painted. Maya is one of these artists, and her sensual works are even mentioned in the press. But if she paints cute girls and boys with flowers and other cute things, the others, apparently, do not have such a rich inner world: you’ll see scary faces, crude inscriptions, meaningless symbols – in general, everything that is sprinkled on the walls in any back alley. The complex attracts not only artists – it is also a favourite place for suicidal individuals. The management company has tried to deprive the Villa of this dubious status, but judging by the signs forbidding access to the roof lying in piles of rubbish, nothing stops teenagers – they fall into the same place, which has even been marked as a memorial.

In general, you can understand that the themes in The Short Message are not very pleasant. The developers even had to insert a warning after each chapter that suicide is not an option, and at the slightest thought of it you should consult a specialist. This part of Silent Hill decided to make not a “horror” about a religious cult, but a psychological horror, touching on the problems of modern youth. Bullying at school, lack of self-acceptance, self-harming behaviour, envy towards peers, dependence on attention in social networks – the story lasts only an hour and a half, but during this time it manages to touch on many topics. What’s debatable is how head-on it’s presented. You’ll find a psychology book about teenage anxiety in the most prominent place, then the heroine will say out loud a phrase that in reality she would probably say only in her head. There is almost no room for subtle metaphors and veiled images – as if the screenwriters were afraid that the audience would not understand something. Even the meaning of Maya’s drawings is explained – the flowers on her graffiti grow from people’s scars and symbolise the desire to overcome old traumas. When you occasionally find a detail that the authors didn’t add to the ubiquitous lines, you’re glad that they don’t take you for a fool.

Despite the clumsy presentation in places, the story still succeeds. The plot is intriguing, and right up to the finale it is interesting to find out what is really going on in the complex, why Maya is so reluctant to answer SMS messages, and who is the monster chasing Anita through the corridors. Obviously, this is not going to be an ordinary meeting of two girls, one of whom invited the other to a creepy place – everything is much more prosaic and interesting. There will be those very walls with notes, and changing locations, and unpleasant memories (though pleasant ones too). And the ending wraps up this eventful story, although I was worried that the authors wouldn’t be able to finish the hour and a half long game successfully. But it all worked out, and as cheesy as it sounds, the game makes you think about the fact that teenagers similar to the heroes of The Short Message can be found at every step – only no one may know about their experiences. And if they do, it’s from the news on the relevant websites. The only question is why The Short Message even exists. I’d like to draw an analogy with P.T.. – That was not exactly a game, but rather a teaser-mystery with a surprise at the end, an unusual way to announce an unusual project. Here we got a full-fledged game, and if often one and a half hour adventures are sold for money, The Final Message is available to everyone for free. Most likely, this release has two goals. The first one is to show that Konami is really serious about Silent Hill, and if it can give it away for free, it will sell something much cooler for money. The second one is to explain what Silent Hill is in the modern Konami’s view.

Fans of the series look at it each in their own way. Some want a fog-covered city where you can’t see anything and therefore it’s creepy. Some people think that all these games are connected by the theme of love, and for some people Silent Hill is based on the dark sides of people and their inner conflicts. The idea of The Short Message – ghosts of the past, remembering creepy details of one’s life and reliving unpleasant moments – seems interesting. Plus it’s wrapped in actual narrative elements – this isn’t a classic story told many times over, there’s even a coronavirus mentioned, plus there aren’t many video games about teenage angst. It may be difficult for adults to empathise with these characters, but with an engaging story, this barrier can be overcome.

With one smartphone

Gameplay novelty reminds of many first-person camera horror games, including the aforementioned P.T.. The protagonist takes with her only a mobile phone, the torch in which allows her to somehow see the dark corridors of the complex, and with it she walks the whole game. There is no inventory, but there are dozens of notes, from which you learn a lot of plot details. Rarely in some games there is a desire to read the texts of notes, but here you don’t want to skip any of them – they perfectly cope with the fact that they help the player to form a picture of what is going on in his head. They tell the history of the city, and you learn about the lives of teenagers, and the final chapter reveals such details that it becomes much easier to empathise with the heroine.

Unfortunately, there are no puzzles, except for one in the second half of the game. But there are three chases, in which you get into the corridor and have to run away from the monster, frantically opening doors and trying to find a way out. The first two chases are tolerable – tense, creepy, but it’s almost impossible to die during them. The third one causes mixed feelings – you will have to die in it more than once, and it’s not very pleasant. You have to not only run along the corridors, but also look for the specified items, trying not to fall into the clutches of the monster. It’s impossible to pass the episode if you don’t memorise where the rooms with dead ends and rooms without columns are located, by going behind which you can deceive the enemy – you finish the episode by trial and error, but it doesn’t bring any pleasure. Otherwise, the gameplay is very calm and even meditative – no monster appears outside of three chases, and you don’t need to hurry anywhere. You read notes, open doors and get impressed by the level design. Almost everything here looks creepy and scares you not with scrimmers and other cheap tricks, but with the oppressive atmosphere of the abandoned complex, with all those swarming cockroaches and disgusting dolls, whose heads sometimes fall off. It’s even pleasant that for an hour and a half not once some babaika jumps out, there are no sharply flying birds, there are no loud falling objects – enough properly placed light and gloomy graffiti to make the player uncomfortable, but at the same time want to know what awaits in the next room.

You can’t expect anything outstanding from a completely free game that doesn’t require a subscription and isn’t packed with microtransactions. And if The Short Message had a price tag, perhaps I would be more critical of it – at least because of the duration. But for 0 roubles the game seems to be a curious project that Silent Hill fans will discuss for a long time, trying to decide whether the game is worthy to bear this name or Konami has gone somewhere wrong. I think, as a modern look at the series, the game turned out to be interesting, and if the next parts will be similar psychological horror, I will be only glad. Just add more puzzles and don’t make episodes like the final chase.

Pros:

• An intriguing story that raises relevant themes;
• excellent design of locations gives a creepy atmosphere;
• no screamers and other cheap scares;
• full free with a good length.

Minuses:

• much is presented head-on – there is little room for your own – reasoning and theories;
• the final chase does not fit into the game in the best way;
• the lack of connection with the past parts of the series will not appeal to fans.