Silent Hill: The Short Message reviewDeveloper: Konami, HexacraftPublisher: KonamiPlatform: Played on PS5Availability: Out now on PS5
It’s long been known that different Silent Hills wait for different people. For some – most famously perhaps – there are faceless, buxom nurses lurking in the rust-encrusted corridors. For others, flames tower around them, leeching the air of all light and hope. For Anita, sticky notes daubed with crude insults are layered like feathers on every surface. It’s kind of beautiful in a dark, melancholic, effed-up way.
Kind of beautiful in a dark, melancholic, effed-up way is actually a pretty good summary for Silent Hill: The Short Message, actually. I went in hopeful, if cautious – I know better than most how many false dawns Silent Hill has had – but by the time I came out the other side just a couple of hours later, I was surprised at not only how complete The Short Message feels, but how much it affected me, too.
I didn’t feel that way halfway through, mind. The Short Message’s, well, message, isn’t subtle. You play as Anita, a school-aged teen plagued with profound self-esteem issues that manifest in self-harm and suicidal ideation that’s inextricably tangled up with the crude, cold approval metrics of social media. Her friend, Maya – a graffiti artist of some renown and with a modest social media following – texts to ask if they could meet at an abandoned apartment block in their town. So off to the abandoned apartment building Anita goes, with nowt but her phone for company. You know. As if she’s never seen a horror movie before.