In preparation for Silent Hill f, one of my most hotly anticipated 2025 releases, I delved into the Higurashi When They Cry series, hoping to better familiarize myself with writer Ryukishi07. I certainly got more than I bargained for, as Higurashi When They Cry is startlingly upsetting, terrifying, and uncomfortable, its cutesy anime aesthetic a facade for a far darker, more sophisticated narrative.
To be clear, I absolutely loved my time with Higurashi When They Cry, and it did more than enough to increase my hype for Silent Hill f. Naturally, this newest entry in the Silent Hill franchise couldn’t, and shouldn’t, have been a mere carbon copy of Ryukishi07’s previous work, but its Japanese setting and teenage cast definitely put it in conversation with Higurashi, at the very least. After dozens of hours in Silent Hill f, I can say that it has much more in common with Ryukishi07’s earlier projects than these superficial elements, and while some may even find it derivative of something like Higurashi, an alternate interpretation would be that it’s a continuation of the same ideas as that older franchise, nestled within a different IP.
Spoilers ahead for Silent Hill f and Higurashi When They Cry.
Silent Hill f Has Ryukishi07's Fingerprints All Over It
Social Anxiety, Folk Horror, and Psychodrama Are at the Heart of Silent Hill f's Narrative
The plot of Silent Hill f is delightfully complex and often confusing, but it doesn’t take much analysis to decipher its core themes and ideas. Ebisugaoka, the game’s fictional Japanese setting, is a small town plagued by a past that is both enigmatic and mundane, and is controlled by greater, incomprehensible cosmic entities. At the center of their god-like manipulations are important mortal characters like Hinako and Shu, who are subject to the whims of these greater powers, and suffer from severe confusion and other psychological issues.
This isn’t too different from how the conflict of the Higurashi games is presented. Taking place in the rural, fictional Japanese town of Hinamizawa, Higurashi When They Cry follows unsuspecting teen characters as they wander through a complex web of temporal and psychic manipulation. “Hinamizawa Syndrome,” a disease that infects the minds of Hinamizawa’s residents and turns them violent, certainly has shades of Silent Hill‘s own violence-exacerbating forces, and the constantly unfolding horror of this scenario is similar to the sense of expansiveness that characterizes Silent Hill f‘s plot, which is constantly unfurling.
Worth noting is the enigmatic nature of both Silent Hill f and Higurashi When They Cry. After an initial playthrough/read of the first Higurashi chapter, audiences are mostly in the dark, much like how just one playthrough of Silent Hill f isn’t enough to fully grasp the story.
How Silent Hill f Differs from Ryukishi07's Previous Work
Broken down into their most easily identifiable components, the similarities between Silent Hill f and Higurashi When They Cry are undeniable. But each story is more than the sum of its parts, and the way that these parallel elements interact with one another, as well as how they are presented to players, differs greatly between projects.
For one thing, Silent Hill f is told at a much faster pace than any of the When They Cry games, which tend to take their time, lulling players into a false sense of security with long slice-of-life passages, before ripping all that away. Silent Hill f becomes action-packed and shocking after just a few minutes, and doesn’t take its foot off the gas until the credits roll. Since it’s a more action-oriented experience, this is to be expected, but it also changes the story from something more ephemeral and vague to something far more urgent and, in some ways, more disorienting.