Consider this: disbanding Team Silent may be a disappointing move on Konami’s part, but handing the franchise over to a third-party developer is possibly the best idea the publisher has ever had when it comes to Silent Hill. Having peaked with the second game, released in 2001, even diehard fans would be hard pressed to deny the gradual decline the series has taken. Silent Hill 3 may have featured the most cohesive story to date, but gameplay-wise, it scaled the open-city environs of the first and second games back in favour of something awfully linear – even by the series’ standard. Silent Hill 4: The Room felt like everything the title was intended to be – that is, not a Silent Hill game (The Room actually started life as a standalone, separate game before Team Silent chose to make it canon).

These weren’t awful games by any stretch of the imagination, but when it comes to the second, there’s been a clear downfall. Ran out of ideas? Not really. Burned out by making four Silent Hill games consecutively? More like it. What’s needed, ironically for a horror franchise such as this, is new blood. By the gallon. So giving Silent Hill to The Collective wasn’t just a ballsy, controversial move, it’s without doubt the right one. And yeah, the fact The Collective’s previous games, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Marc Ecko’s Getting Up and The Da Vinci Code, were less than stellar endeavours is troubling, but are you seriously disappointed with anything you’ve seen from Silent Hill V so far?

Probably not. Because every single rustic, horror-filled screenshot and all the video footage released, as well as the plot synopsis, informs us that The Collective really seems to get Silent Hill. Merely understanding the franchise and churning out a game that is as good as any previous endeavour simply isn’t enough though – such is The Collective’s resolve to push Silent Hill into exciting, new territory. It has the monsters, it has the locations, the character designs are all spoton, and it owes possibly the biggest debt to Adrian Lynne’s seminal Eighties psychological horror, Jacob’s Ladder, to date. Oh yeah, it’s Silent Hill alright.

But change is afoot, and it’s all for the best… and the first area you’ll note that is in terms of the enemies (at least, the ones The Collective has shown). Nurses, who to all intents and purposes are as horrible, dirty and dead as before, are now a wee bit sexier too. Taking a page from the film’s book, they stand motionless, twitching in the darkness, until a light source is presented – whereupon they spaz into un-life and very jerkily move towards it, rusty blade in hand. Their movement, like some even more twisted version of the zombie dance in Thriller, is ripped out of the film and rammed into the game. Unluckily for the player, one of the puzzles involves x-ray sheets, and putting several in order to get a password code. The only source of light you have to check them is a small light box in a room that just so happens to be full of nurses.

Another enemy making its return, having appeared in Silent Hill 2 and the more recent Origins on PSP, is the skin-wrapped body bag guy in stilettos. He’s called Smog and, thanks to the power of next-gen hardware, is far more detailed than he’s ever been before. He now has a massive mouth with sharp little teeth dotted around it, and two huge claws emanating out of either side of his body like tiny little wing-claw things. We’re sure they’re painful to touch and could probably take your face off if you get close enough. Whether or not Smog still spits goo at the player remains to be seen. He did in Silent Hill 2, and Origins, but then look at the nurses and the change they’ve seen in Silent Hill V. Their entire dynamic is different, attacking the player under a whole new rule set – so who knows what to really expect from Smog?

Remember the Closer in Silent Hill 3? That large, lumbering beast with the massive arms as thick as tree trunks? They won’t be returning in Silent Hill V, but Siam, a new creature, looks more than a little inspired by the colossal beast. He’s essentially two bodies mutilated and strapped together, bound by leather into an extremely painful, horrific monstrosity. Then there’s Schism (are you noticing the trend with the letter ‘S’?), the tall, pale hammerhead-shark chap whose massive head is split down the middle. He’s much faster than the aforementioned, and will rush players on occasion.

Don’t think outrunning him and hiding in an adjacent room will help either; enemies can now follow you in environments, breaking down doors to get closer to you. In a stroke of genius, Havok physics now affect most items in the game. So, sneak past something only to hit a table and it’ll react accordingly, the items on it scattering. The noise, however loud, will draw most enemies within the area to your whereabouts. Yep, them guys is smart now – which should make the idea of merely legging it past them (something that has plagued previous games, not to mention Origins) non-existent. And while nurses and Smog may be slow arses, the last thing you want is Schism alerted to your presence and chasing after you.

Not that you won’t be able to defend yourself, mind you. Without getting in to the story too much just yet, Alex Shepherd, the main playable character, is a 22-year-old war veteran. As such, he’s got some pretty extensive training thanks to the military. Now, before you start imagining the character wielding Rambo-like arsenals, know that his training largely affects the psychological side of the story. Alex has seen horrors unimaginable in his time serving his country, and that kind of stuff will play into his role and purpose in Silent Hill V. What affects Alex more in combat is the fact his father taught him to hunt from a very young age. As such he’s extremely adept at using knifes, pipes, planks of wood and the like – as well as evading and grappling with enemies.

Combat in Silent Hill V is more flexible than it’s ever been, with Alex now capable of addressing multiple targets. It’s more adaptable too – Alex able to use light, heavy and charged-up attacks. Wounds will stay with you if left untreated, which may or may not affect the way you play. Thankfully, real-time wounds stick with enemies too, so it’s pretty equally balanced. Enemies can latch on to you, which may see a little Sixaxis support coming into Silent Hill V. Oh, and expect some Quick- Time Events to pop-up every now and then, too, both in combat, as Origins introduced, and in set pieces. In a clear Jacob’s Ladderinspired scene, Alex is strapped to a gurney and sent hurtling through doors in a hospital ward. Finally coming to stop, to escape his straps the player needs to partake in a little QTE. Hopefully they’ll prove more exciting than the QTEs in Silent Hill Origins, and more diverse, too.

While the fourth Silent Hill dropped the torch and static radio, Silent Hill V is bringing them back again. One thing it is losing from its predecessors however is fixed camera angles. Now, Silent Hill V will sport a proper 360- degrees camera that you’ll control with the right analogue stick. Standard third-person camera and controls, basically, and it’s about damn time the franchise followed this route.

Where it’ll be staying absolutely still, and with good reason, is in terms of story. As mentioned, you play Alex Shepherd, the 22-year-old war veteran who, at the start of Silent Hill V, is resting in a military hospital recovering from a minor injury he obtained in battle. One night he has a nightmare that reveals his young brother Joshua in trouble. Immediately, Alex takes his leave of absence and goes back to his hometown of Shepherd’s Glen. Joshua is missing, his father vanished and his mother is in a coma. Something horrible has befallen Shepherd’s Glen, and the town is now permeated by dense fog. Alex soon discovers a connection between Shepherd’s Glen and Silent Hill, not to mention his family and the titular town. So, suitably Silent Hill, and with the potential to hit boundaries set by the second game – which, as well as Christophe Gans’ film, has been a big inspiration.

Speaking of the film, as well as the general look of the new nurses, and of course their new attack scheme, Silent Hill V borrows some aesthetics, too. Now, crossing into the hellish ‘otherworld’ won’t occur between loading screens, or with Alex having to activate something. Instead, a siren will wail and the walls will peel up, revealing the flayed hell beneath. One of the more interesting ideas Silent Hill V has is the concept of fear in broad daylight. It’s not entirely clear what that will entail, but you should expect to have the wits scared out of you in broad daylight, much as you can in some rustic, underground facility with a torch, radio and several knife-wielding, jittery nurses for company.

Where the game also takes a page from the film, and films in general, is in the way The Collective hired actors to portray not only the main characters, but a good deal of the monsters, too. The idea is to make their movements as fluid and as realistic as possible, and no amount of time spent hand-animating monsters is going to achieve the same effect as just supergluing dots to someone wearing a Lycra suit two sizes too small, and capturing their performance for the game in a computer. Gans used trained dancers for the nurses in his film, and whether The Collective has done the same isn’t clear. Generally speaking, however, enemies should move far more differently and more realistically than they ever have before.

Where the game also takes a page from the film, and films in general, is in the way The Collective hired actors to portray not only the main characters, but a good deal of the monsters, too. The idea is to make their movements as fluid and as realistic as possible, and no amount of time spent hand-animating monsters is going to achieve the same effect as just supergluing dots to someone wearing a Lycra suit two sizes too small, and capturing their performance for the game in a computer. Gans used trained dancers for the nurses in his film, and whether The Collective has done the same isn’t clear. Generally speaking, however, enemies should move far more differently and more realistically than they ever have before.