This is an IGN opinion piece from Ryan McCaffrey, who worked at Official Xbox Magazine from 2002-2012 during the original Xbox and Xbox 360 era before joining IGN, where he remains “the Xbox guy.” In the run-up to Xbox’s 25th anniversary, he’ll be sharing his memories from the platform’s first quarter-century.

Sometimes, video game release schedules converge to create memorable superstorms that live on for years after the fact. The Fall of 1998 (Half-Life, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Doom 3, Metal Gear Solid, Grim Fandango) comes to mind, as does the Fall of 2004 (Half-Life 2, Halo 2, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, World of Warcraft). But for my money, the greatest season in gaming history was the Fall of 2007. It was so unbelievably brilliant that you could take just the Xbox 360 releases from this window and it still probably takes the cake. But when you add in PC, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo Wii releases, it’s an absolute murderer’s row of video games that will probably never be topped in a 3-4 month period.

At Official Xbox Magazine, we knew it was going to be big. But looking back and remembering our Game of the Year debate a few weeks after the dust settled (Rock Band won, and no I have no regrets about that), I’m not sure we were able to fully appreciate the gravity (gun) of the moment. One first-ballot Hall-of-Famer shipped after another. Take a look:

BioShock (August 21): If you tried to argue that August 21 is still the Summer…I’d say I respect your point of view, but lots of kids are already back in school by August 21, so it counts as the Fall! Anyway, the original BioShock is an often-imitated, never-duplicated narrative-driven first-person shooter classic whose stunning underwater setting in the failed utopian city of Rapture – with its terrifying Big Daddies and mysterious Little Sisters – took gamers on a ride fit for a great novel,complete with a huge, jaw-dropping plot twist. Its only blemish is its weak final boss fight, but I’ve never seen anyone try to argue for that being enough to disqualify BioShock from the list of all-time greats. Emergent gameplay possibilities abounded, with Plasmids that let you ignite the pools of oil beneath an enemy’s feet on fire or to electrocute bad guys standing in puddles of water. This is legendary game designer Ken Levine’s magnum opus.

Halo 3 (September 25): It’s wild to think about now, but for as successful as the Xbox 360 was, it didn’t launch with a big new Halo game. Instead, Halo 2 was a late release on the original Xbox, and thanks to Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 having their backwards compatibility baked into every Xbox 360, gamers were able to continue right on playing the first sequel. But when Master Chief’s first next-gen adventure finally dropped and it was time to “finish the fight” that Halo 2 had left painfully unresolved, it was hugely anticipated and it actually delivered. The Chief got a proper sendoff in the final cutscene, making it one of the few sagas that actually stuck the landing.

The Orange Box (October 10): Sometimes, Valve just does things, kinda like The Joker. The Orange Box was a ridiculous package of 10 out of 10 video games that any publicly traded game publisher would’ve split up and sold as a bunch of separately-sold 10 out of 10 video games. But not Valve. Steam makes Gabe Newell more money than he could ever know what to do with, so Valve, seemingly just for the love of the game, bundled Half-Life 2, Episode 1, and the then-new Episode 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2 into a single $60 package. We’ll probably never see anything like this ever again…unless Valve drops Half-Life 3 out of nowhere in a “Crowbar Crate” with Portal 3 and Left 4 Dead 3. Which, honestly, we can’t 100% rule out.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (November 5): Infinity Ward’s third Call of Duty (Treyarch handled Call of Duty 3) not only brought the series out of World War II for the first time and into the modern era, but it also catapulted the franchise from Very Big Deal to The Biggest Deal, putting it in the same rarified air as Mario, Zelda, Halo (at the time), and Grand Theft Auto. It boasts an incredible campaign and multiplayer on which the entire last 20 years of Call of Duty have been built.

Assassin’s Creed (November 13): You know it’s a killer list when this is the “worst” game on it. No one really spends time wistfully recalling the original. It was a heck of a four-hour gameplay loop that was more or less just repeated a couple of times, and most agree that Assassin’s Creed 2 – the start of the Ezio Trilogy – is where the series really took off. And more often than not, it’s a terrible idea to launch a new IP in the holiday season against established tentpole franchise sequels. That Ubisoft not only shipped Assassin’s Creed into the hurricane-force headwinds of Fall 2007 but the series gained a foothold and rose to become a megafranchise of its own speaks to how good the core idea of this “social stealth” game was.

Mass Effect (November 20): I’ve already shared my extensive memories of this one elsewhere in this Xbox 25th anniversary retrospective series. But everything I said about Assassin’s Creed above also applies here. Maybe the lesson here is that publishers should place more big bets on bold new ideas…

Rock Band (November 20): I’ve covered this one at length as well. You want to talk about a game that has aged beautifully? Rock Band is in fine-wine territory. The only hassle is finding functioning instruments to still play it with. It’s not a software problem, it’s an equipment problem. Even typing this makes me want to go play Rock Band immediately.

But even though the OXM offices had Xbox 360s on every desk, the staff were gamers who played every platform. So now let’s add in a PC exclusive, a PlayStation exclusive, and a Wii exclusive to really cement Fall 2007’s GOAT status:

Super Mario Galaxy (November 12): My personal favorite 3D Mario game was also a bold reinvention of the 3D platformer from the masters of the genre. At this point, there isn’t a superlative that hasn’t been written about Super Mario Galaxy. Heck, it was so monumental that Nintendo and Illumination based the Super Mario Bros. Movie sequel around it earlier this year, almost 20 years after Galaxy debuted on the Wii.

Crysis (November 13): Let’s just say there’s a reason that “Can it run Crysis?” became a meme. This wasn’t just a technical showpiece for the ages. It was also a tremendously good first-person shooter from the team that originally created Far Cry before Ubisoft bought it and took it over.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (November 19): The first Uncharted not only launched Naughty Dog into the upper echelon of game developers in the world and eventually paved the way for a movie starring Spider-Man, it took the mantle of third-person action-adventure gold standard from Tomb Raider, the series that arguably invented the genre. You could also make the case that this was the beginning of PlayStation’s insane run of top-shelf first-party exclusives that helped propel the PS4 to nearly the same record heights as the PS2.

The fact that you can slice up the Fall of 2007 in so many different ways – best Xbox season ever, best PC season ever, best November ever – and the argument for its unmatched brilliance still holds up is iron-clad proof that it is, indisputably, the best season in video game history.

25 Years of Xbox

For more of my memories from across a quarter-century of writing about Xbox games, check out these other stories:

GTA 4 Was the Xbox 360’s ‘We Mean Business’ Moment Against the PS3Call of Duty 2 Signaled the Beginning of the End of Halo's Reign as the King of Console ShootersFable 2 Was the Closest Xbox Ever Got to Having Its Own Zelda-Like Action-AdventureSouth Park: The Stick of Truth Went Through Publisher Hell but Emerged as One of, if Not the Single Funniest Game EverThe Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion – I Spent 44 Hours Reviewing it in Bethesda's BasementInside Is the Closest Thing to a ‘Perfect’ Game I’ve Ever PlayedSorry Halo, but Splinter Cell Chaos Theory Was the Best Original Xbox GameThe Original Mass Effect Is the Trilogy’s Best Story, Hands DownI Played Halo 2 Before the Rest of the World and Almost Reported the Abrupt Ending as a BugBatman: Arkham Asylum Marked the End of the ‘Sh*tty Licensed Game’ EraFight Night Round 3 on Xbox 360 Was the First ‘Holy Sh*t!’ Game of the HD EraStar Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Legitimized RPGs on the XboxRock Band Was So Awesome My Coworkers and I Converted a Storage Closet Into Our ‘Rock Band Room’Ninja Gaiden Legitimized the American Xbox Console for Japanese Developers1 vs. 100 Live Was One of the Gutsiest Games Ever MadeSunset Overdrive Was the Highlight of the Otherwise-Rough Xbox One Era and Remains Criminally UnderratedCrackdown Was So Much More Than Just the Halo 3 Beta’s Pack-In Game

The latest Witcher novel, Crossroads of Ravens, finally arrived in English last September, giving fans their first proper look at Geralt of Rivia's earliest days as a monster hunter.

I personally loved it, which probably won't come as much of a surprise given I've been eager to badger Andrzej Sapkowski with questions ever since I first picked up The Last Wish many moons ago.

Well, I finally got my wish.

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Sapkowski, the creator and author of The Witcher books, over email, alongside David French, the English translator of Crossroads of Ravens.

See at Amazon UK - £9.49 (was £10.99)See at Amazon US - $15 (was $20)

And, perhaps unsurprisingly, Sapkowski is every bit as sharp and disarmingly honest as you'd expect, with a wonderfully dry wit and a talent for delivering remarkably incisive answers. There's a scholarly flair to his responses, defined by a penchant for weaving classical Latin phrasing in wherever possible—a habit his English translator, David French, has also playfully dubbed "linguistic snobbery." Ha!

As a longtime fan, I'm delighted by the interview with both gentlemen, and I can't wait to share it.

We discussed (amongst plenty of other topics) the new Witcher prequel, Geralt's early years, the possibility of returning to that period of his life in future books, more short stories, and where Sapkowski sees the wider Witcher franchise going next. Whether that's a stage show like Game of Thrones, or another musical (yes, a musical, there have been two, I checked), Sapkowski said he's nevertheless open to unorthodox suggestions.

An Interview with Andrzej Sapkowski, Author of The Witcher

In Crossroads of Ravens, we meet a younger, more inexperienced Geralt. What were the most rewarding and challenging parts of stepping back to write his early years?

Sapkowski: Well, it's not easy for an author nearly 80 years old to step into the shoes of an eighteen-year-old teenager. Fortunately, I still remember a thing or two from my youth. Including some experiences I shall never forget.

One of my favorite aspects of Crossroads of Ravens was seeing Geralt in rare moments of genuine panic, yet watching him make quick, split-second decisions and push through anyway. While I’m trying to avoid making a sweeping generalisation in questioning this—as Geralt certainly isn’t infallible in the main series—was it refreshing to write him in situations where he isn't yet fully used to what he’s dealing with? What was your thinking behind this?

Sapkowski: The narrative premise of my books makes Geralt a product of a targeted mutation making him a kind of superman. However, such a superman - always victorious, never defeated, omniscient and never doubting - seemed to me narratively uninteresting - if not outright boring. Therefore, despite all the infallibility resulting from his mutation, in the plot I gave Geralt some fallibilities, i.e. some imperfections. As well as susceptibility to err. Sometimes gravely.

What do you see as the biggest differences in mindset, morality, and temperament between the younger Geralt in Crossroads of Ravens and his older self in the main saga?

Sapkowski: That's rather obvious. Lack of experience and the harsh lessons from life associated with it. Development, mental and moral. Overcoming obstacles that accompany development. In other words, a classic rite of passage. A canonical trope for fantasy genre.

From your perspective, how does a full-length prequel novel demand an entirely different narrative engine and drive compared to something like the short stories from The Last Wish or the other Witcher novels?

Sapkowski: As Isaac Asimov once said: a short story is a straight line, while a novel is a plane. Point A to point B versus A times B squared. A comparison vivid enough to explain everything.

The relationship between Geralt and Preston was fascinating to read. What drew you to explore this specific dynamic, and how did you approach shaping a mentor relationship during Geralt's formative years? How does it differ from writing another mentor figure like Vesemir?

Sapkowski: Preston Holt is another classic and canonical trope for fantasy: the surrogate father figure, the archetypal mentor, a guiding teacher during Geralt's rite of passage. The genre features numerous such quasi-fathers and mentors in coming-of-age stories. Gandalf from LOTR, Dumbledore from the Harry Potter books, Allanon from the Shannara series, or Obi Wan Kenobi from Star Wars, to name just a few. But, as it turns out - and as storyline dictates - Holt is a rather deceitful mentor and I surely wouldn't put him in the same league as Gandalf. Or Vesemir.

Listen to Crossroads of Ravens and the rest of The Witcher books with a new deal at Audible. Amazon Prime members can sign up for four months of Audible Standard for just $0.99 per month.

Crossroads of Ravens has also been released as a "Full-cast Audiobook" featuring Sam Stafford, Richard Armitage, Clare Corbett, and Tom Alexander.

Full-cast editions of The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny will follow in November, with the remaining 6 audiobooks to come throughout 2027.

Did you draw on specific fables or myth tropes when constructing the encounters in Crossroads of Ravens, or has your relationship with fairytale/folklore exploration and subversion evolved since the early days?

Sapkowski: I evolve - or strive to evolve - on daily basis. Incessantly. And in every possible aspect. Or I wish it were like that. Either way, it amounts to the same thing. Wishes, contrary to popular belief, are horses. Sometimes.

I’ve always loved how your dialogue dances with an almost Shakespearean rhythm—characters politely trading sharp barbs, maneuvering around complex political situations while effortlessly delivering world-building. How do you go about constructing that rhythmic flow in your writing? Is it something that just comes naturally, or is it something that takes a lot more practice and effort to create?

Sapkowski: Both. Ease of writing is, as it seems to me, a feature of everyone who works with a pen, a condition sine qua non. If one doesn't have such ease, one doesn't become a writer. But ease alone is not enough. Without effort and painstaking work, one will not achieve good results.

Are there any monsters, characters, or concepts you’ve held onto over the years that you never found the right place for? What made them so tricky to fit in?

Sapkowski: First - at the beginning - is the idea and construction of the plot. The rest, including, quoting, "monsters, characters and/or concepts" results from the plot and serves the plot. Indeed, it happens that something from the mentioned suddenly begins to serve the storyline poorly or turns out as narratively damaging. Then it is thrown out of the plot and goes into the thesaurus. For possible use in the future.

Given your background before becoming a full-time author, was writing always the ultimate goal? What is your single best piece of advice for aspiring writers?

Sapkowski: My debut story entitled "The Witcher" was written when I was nearing 40, so it is rather difficult to describe my writing as my lifetime ultimate goal. I had many ultimate goals before I became a writer. Notwithstanding the fact that yes, now I think exactly so, I am now a full-time author and I intend to continue this state as long as possible. As for advice, I don't feel entitled to give it. I don't have the competence to advise.

Across your entire body of work, what type of scene remains the most challenging or demanding for you to write? Were there any scenes in Crossroads that you found particularly exciting/ challenging to tackle?

Sapkowski: Across my entire body of work? Every single one of them. Each was equally challenging as exciting.

Would you ever consider writing more short stories/ short story collections for The Witcher - similar to The Last Wish? Whether that’s focusing on Geralt or other characters within the series? (The Last Wish is still one of my all-time favorites and a real comfort read for me throughout my life).

Sapkowski: It is not an easy thing to create a good short story. This is much more difficult than writing a novel. Returning to Asimov's comparison: it is not easy to nicely and logically lead that straight line from point A to point B and that with a word count of less than some 8000 words. But if one succeeds, it is proof of writing mastery. May I remind just one example: Ernest Hemingway. Now, answering your question: yes, I am considering writing more short stories.

Do you feel there is room to explore Geralt’s early years further in future prequel books?

Sapkowski: Room? Sky is the limit.

Having seen your characters expand into games, television, and comics, are there any unconventional formats or interactions you’d still like to see them explore? Stage plays, like Game of Thrones, for example?

Sapkowski: Does a musical count as a stage play? If so, there were already two. What else? I am open to suggestions. Even unconventional ones.

Why do you think Geralt resonates so deeply across medium boundaries—whether audiences are reading him on the page, watching him on screen, or playing as him in a video game?

Sapkowski: It is not my place to judge nor draw any conclusions here. Surely, one might suspect that both the books and the character somehow appeal to the reader worldwide - but perhaps that assumption is too presumptuous?

When writing Geralt’s dialogue, do you hear a specific mental voice for him? Does that inner voice differ between his younger and older self—and do famous screen/game audio performances ever cross your mind when writing?

Sapkowski: I definitely strive to ensure that the written text captures the specificity of how each individual character from the book speaks. That is, after all, the foundation and ABC of a writer's work. "Famous screen/game audio performances" have no influence on my writing in this aspect. Not even the slightest.

For any readers who have never read The Witcher before, how do you personally pitch or describe the essence of the series to them?

Sapkowski: I am not good at making essences. That's the specialty of marketing people, those who write blurbs on book covers. It's an art in itself. Many times I was asked to write such a blurb for somebody's book. I always refused. I couldn't.

Can you share any subtle hints or teases about what project you are working on next?

Sapkowski: I would prefer not to. Begging your pardon.

What books or authors have you most enjoyed recently, and do your current reading habits still bleed into your writing?

Sapkowski: I have recently enjoyed a lot of books, let me be allowed to mention a few, whereby the order is random:

Lev Grossman, The Bright Sword; Percival Everett, James; Joe Abercrombie, The Devils; Joe Hill, King Sorrow; Christopher Buehlman, Between Two Fires; Alix E. Harrow, The Everlasting.

Did any of them - or any other, not listed - "bleed" into my writing? God forbid, no! And yes, confiteor, all of them. Somehow.

What books would you recommend to fans looking for inspiration or their next read? Perhaps anything similar to The Witcher, fantasy or otherwise?

Sapkowski: In addition to the titles just provided:

Grady Hendrix, Witchcraft for Wayward Girls; Christopher Moore, Anima Rising; Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Oracle; V. E. Schwab, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil; Frances Hardinge, Unraveller; Stephen Graham Jones, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter; Richard K. Morgan, No Man's Land; Adrian Tchaikovsky, Green City Wars.

Again, the order is random.

An Interview with David French, English Translator for Crossroads of Ravens

Sapkowski’s Polish mixes dancing prose, modern slang, and dry irony. What is your process for blending those elements into smooth, natural English?

I’m a big fan of Sapkowski’s writing and I love the elements you’ve mentioned above. A list of various other elements in his writing could, of course, be much longer than that. I wouldn’t say he uses that much modern slang. He certainly sometimes uses words which might jar with purists in the broadly medieval high-fantasy universe he navigates – I remember I wasn’t sure when he used the word ‘terrorism’ in dialogues between characters. I suppose the process you’re asking about is essentially the work of a literary translator. So you have to have an ear for those variations and do your best to transpose them into English – or whatever language it is you translate into. I guess my process is: thinking up possibilities, giving myself options, searching for synonyms, reading them aloud to myself, drafting, re-drafting and coming back to hear if they sound right.

Because Geralt is younger and less guarded in Crossroads of Ravens, did you adjust your choice of vocabulary or prose cadence to reflect his age?

Andrzej did. And I followed his lead. The sequence that springs to mind at once is when Holt tells Geralt off for using colloquial language. I played around with how slangy it should be and my line editor and I arrived at a consensus.

How do you preserve the sharp comic timing and dry wit of Polish dialogue when translating it for an English-speaking audience?

I give it my best shot and then the editor reads it. I’ve been known to ask if a gag struck home in English. There’s dry wit, but also vulgarity and slapstick at times. Andrzej’s humour isn’t one-note, there’s plenty of toilet humour in there too, along with more sophisticated sarcasm.

Were there any specific monster names, idioms, or turns of phrase in Crossroads of Ravens that gave you a real headache to translate into English?

Zatrawiec in Polish – which ended up as cynocephalus in English – was a bit of a headache.

What is one subtle quality of Sapkowski’s prose in Polish that you work hardest to protect across the language barrier?

My immediate thought was that in general terms Sapkowski’s work has to be a ripping yarn in English, just as it is in Polish. I want readers in English to keep turning those pages over and get the same emotional experience as Polish readers do.

But now that I think about it, I do my best to preserve Sapkowski’s linguistic snobbery, so I also try include words that some English readers might not have heard of – just as he does with obscure or archaic expressions most of my well-read Polish friends have no clue about.

How closely do you collaborate with Andrzej when working on a new translation, and do you ever consult him when a phrase doesn't easily translate?

We collaborate, in the sense that Andrzej now reads the entire manuscript after my work with the editor is complete. We started that with the Hussite Trilogy, which was full of real people from history and loads of geographical names, and we’ve continued it with Crossroads of the Ravens and the two new translations of The Last Wish and Blood of Elves. He’s a fluent and avid reader in several other languages than Polish and very thorough, so he offers various constructive suggestions. But it’s usually a handful or so. It’s happened in the past that I’ve asked him about something and he’s left the call up to me. I’ve also asked him to help me with the context and/or etymology and he’s replied to the effect that: ‘There isn’t any: I just made it up’.

Given how deeply ingrained iconic game performances (like Doug Cockle's Geralt) are for English-speaking fans, do those external adaptations ever influence how you rhythmically translate Geralt's speech, or do you strictly tune into Sapkowski's original Polish cadence/something else entirely?

There’s an infinite number of interpretations of any character in any literary work. It’s not the words on the page that change that, but the actor or reader speaking them. When I translate, it’s me and the words on the page. Nothing else is relevant.

There are occasions when Sapkowski might indicate if a person has a squeaky voice or a low growl and that gives readers a clue. I’m sure there’ve been studies about whether readers reading books actually generate sounds in their heads when they read or if it’s all done in silence. It’s totally different with games and audiobooks when we ‘find out’ how a character speaks. It’s also true we’ve all probably been disappointed at times to hear the way an actor has brought a character to life in a medium that involves sound when we’d imagined them totally differently. Or we’ve been delighted and couldn’t imagine anyone else voicing the character.

Sapkowski’s novels remain the bedrock of the series, but there's no denying that The Witcher has long since grown into something much bigger.

Alongside the games and their upcoming sequels and spin-offs, there’s now a Netflix adaptation, comics, a tabletop RPG, manga, and even a cookbook keeping the Continent alive in new and unexpected forms.

For help on where to start reading The Witcher, I'd recommend checking out our guide on the best order to read the incredible fantasy novels. And for more with the biggest fantasy authors, check out our big interview with Brandon Sanderson, where he discusses Game of Thrones, Wheel of Time, and the upcoming Mistborn movie.

Crossroads of Ravens by Andrzej Sapkowksi (translation by David French) is out in paperback now in the UK, and September 29, in the US.

I spent so much of my time stalking through Silent Hill: Townfall tensed in a cautious crouchwalk, that by the end of the story I was just as worried about the damage to my character’s fraying mental state as I was about the wear and tear on his knees. Taking an about-face from the action-heavy adventure in last year’s Silent Hill f, this latest survival horror spin-off instead embraces the sustained tension of slow-paced stealth, handing you a motion-sensing gadget and tasking you with sneaking past a series of sound-sensitive beasts that have descended on its abandoned seaside village in mid-nineties Scotland. What unfolds is a gripping investigation through an increasingly unsettling world witnessed from a fresh, first-person perspective. Silent Hill: Townfall is riddled with tremendously satisfying puzzles to solve, and peppered with the most disturbing scenes to come out of mid-nineties Scotland since that baby crawled along the ceiling in the original Trainspotting.

Silent Hill: Townfall’s story begins with a cold open in more ways than one. American Simon Ordell washes up on the chilly shores of the fictional St. Amelia with a hospital ID bracelet on one wrist and an IV drip still stuck in the other, seemingly seeking redemption for an unknown sin from his past. It quickly becomes apparent that things have gone very wrong in the deserted Scottish town – market stalls are abandoned, ‘for sale’ signs are pegged out the front of almost every house, and the streets are littered with picket signs protesting an unknown organisation dubbed the ‘CEG’. Oh, and the first local you encounter is a mysterious man in the town square getting disgusting black goop pumped into his lungs through an intubation tube descending from the skies above.

Things only get more alarming from there, but Townfall dragged me through its increasingly squeamish scenes with the powerful allure of its central mystery, which gradually brings to light the tragic events that have impacted the town, the main players at fault, and exactly where poor Simon stands in all of it. It’s a story that deals with familiar themes of trauma and guilt that we’ve come to expect from Silent Hill, but it also tackles previously unexplored shades of evil like corporate greed and environmental mismanagement that help to make it feel like a refreshingly new twist on the series’ formula.

Although he comes across as fairly monotone at first, I grew to appreciate the understated earnestness of Simon as the events of Townfall mine the full depths of his despair, especially compared to some of the overly dramatic heroes of the earlier Silent Hill games. At certain junctions, the story also switches the perspective to a couple of other playable characters that further flesh out the details of what’s really going on, but I’d rather not spoil exactly who they are other than to say that they provide crucial roles in unravelling St. Amelia’s secrets.

Townfall dragged me through its increasingly squeamish scenes with the powerful allure of its central mystery.

Of course, a lot of its story themes are revealed in the form of nightmarish visual metaphors, as St. Amelia shifts into an ominous altered state with tangles of industrial pipes strangling its streets and the tentacles of a towering monster that drag along its rooftops. Sure, some sections feel like echoes of earlier Silent Hill settings, like apartment blocks in a heavy state of decay and creepy hospital wards to explore, but there are some really striking new sights to see throughout the 13 hours of Townfall’s tragic tale too, from alleys cloaked in a crimson haze to suburban streets lined with horribly bloated corpses that have freshly fallen from the sky.

The fact that developer Screen Burn Games has opted to break from the series’ predominately third-person style by telling its story entirely in first-person also does wonders for enhancing Townfall’s overall sense of dread. As proven by Resident Evil’s modern instalments, it’s considerably more intimidating to lean around a corner and come face to gaping maw with a menacing manifestation of pure malevolence than it is to witness it from a comparatively safe distance peering over your character’s shoulder. However, Townfall further enhances its first-person view by defaulting its presentation to a letterboxed widescreen format, and the benefits are twofold; aside from lending it a welcome cinematic touch, its narrowed anamorphic perspective also makes moving through confined spaces feel all the more claustrophobic and uncomfortable.

Silent Thrill

Whereas last year’s Silent Hill f demanded that you master an aggressive, action RPG-style melee and parry system, Townfall encourages a slow and steady approach to its enemy encounters that feels more inline with the survival horror systems of the series’ mainline entries. Simon can get his hands on wooden two-by-fours and lead pipes in order to beat the black pudding out of his frenzied assailants, but the actual melee combat is intentionally sluggish and weapons can degrade and break. More often than not, that meant I opted to sneak past the snarling skinbags patrolling the path to my next objective, only ever choosing violence when I found myself backed into a corner.

Even when you eventually do get your hands on some more powerful weapons like the revolver and shotgun, ammunition remains scarce, reload times are realistically slow, and the booming echo of gunfire tends to attract attention from other enemies. This makes them primarily last resort options when you find yourself overwhelmed by fleshmonsters with axe-blades for faces that are frantically trying to give you a Glasgow kiss.

Thankfully the environment provides you with enough tools to allow for a passive approach. As was the case in The Last of Us series, house bricks and empty bottles can be lobbed to create distractions away from your position, or thrown directly at an enemy to momentarily stun them and allow you to scurry past. Devices like radios can also be switched on to lure shuffling sentries away from their stations, and should you get spotted, there’s usually a conveniently placed wardrobe somewhere close by for you to run and hide in. Just be sure to break the line of sight before you do – if one of the unkillable stalker enemy types spots you cowering in a cupboard, it’s liable to rip you right out of there like the xenomorph from Alien: Isolation and send you straight back to your last save point.

Speaking of Alien: Isolation, Townfall reimagines the iconic motion tracker device from Creative Assembly’s sci-fi scarefest in the form of a portable TV that Simon clutches in his left hand. Bursts of static alert you to the presence of any nasties that might lurk in the murk ahead, and by tuning the little frequency band on his CRTV-branded device you can dial in a slightly glitchy, sonar-style view of their position on its tiny LCD screen, allowing you to plan your next steps through each area accordingly. You can’t keep a bead on every enemy at the same time, however, since each of Townfall’s monsters occupy their own space on the CRTV’s band. Anytime I found myself in more densely populated areas, I was forced to constantly flick through the frequencies in order to identify the nearest threat, which further ratcheted up my stress levels.

That said, although the CRTV is a vital piece of kit for surviving the increasingly mean streets of St. Amelia, its ability to effectively see through walls and allow you to anticipate any monsters waiting to ambush you means that Townfall is pretty light on any substantial scares in its opening hours. It eventually found a way to jolt me with a few excellent jump scares later on, especially during the prolonged section that removes the CRTV from your inventory and forces you to contend with an office block full of ghouls that stand statue-like in the shadows before surprising you when you turn away. Yet even though Townfall might not ever come close to the underwear-changing chills of the Silent Hill 2 remake or the heart-stopping horrors of Grace’s levels in Resident Evil Requiem, it does use its consistently unsettling atmosphere to maintain a strong feeling of unease throughout.

Dot Matrix Reloaded

The CRTV isn’t just a handy way to keep tabs on Townfall’s terrors, it’s also a valuable tool for uncovering clues to your next objective. Cryptic looping videos will often pierce through the static and offer brief glimpses of a specific location, forcing you to carefully scan your surroundings rather than blindly following a simple map marker to reach it. However, the CRTV isn’t the only relic from the ‘90s that you get your hands on in Townfall, since so many of the story’s puzzles involve operating all sorts of other obsolete technologies from the decade like cream-coloured desktop computers and slide projectors, each recreated with convincing effect right down to the rhythmic mechanical screeches of a dot matrix printer.

Anyone who played this developer’s 2017 debut Stories Untold (released under the studio’s previous name, No Code) will be familiar with the team’s ability to accurately replicate the look and feel of such bygone gadgets and gizmos – and as someone nostalgic for the era, I got a kick out of methodically loading floppy disks into a drive in order to unzip important documents, or the tactile experience of manually punching a series of digits into the metal keypad of a public payphone to save my game. This may well sound a bit mundane to you if you’re not old enough to remember monochrome monitors, but don’t worry because these primitive pieces of tech are occasionally used to trigger some seriously surreal sequences. For example, a microcassette recorder I found in one abandoned residence could be used to shuffle the contents of the house back and forward through time, opening up slightly altered areas to scour for a specific puzzle solution and briefly bending my mind into a pretzel.

I respect that for the most part the clues you need to solve each of Townfall’s brainteasers are there to find in your immediate surroundings as long as you’re prepared to search for them, and also the fact that in some instances there are countermeasures for any attempts to brute force your way to a solution. For example, in one level where you’re guided through the process of prepping a patient for surgery by a condescending doctor on the other end of an intercom, it soon turns into a sadistic game of Operation when identifying the wrong readout on a life support system triggers a health bar-sapping buzz. That really forced me to focus on finding the right solution, and when I applied myself I discovered Townfall’s puzzles to be regularly challenging but rarely too obtuse.

That is, aside from one particular late game contraption that confounded me so much that it seemed as though Silent Hill’s signature fog had seeped into my own brain. Seriously, it made me feel like I was Homer Simpson sitting at his keyboard and searching for the ‘ANY’ key. (It’s worth pointing out, though, that if you prefer to have your brain gently tickled rather than outright teased, you can activate hints in the options menu.)

Lastly, I was happy to find that Silent Hill: Townfall wasn’t ever dragged down by the same inventory management issues I encountered in Silent Hill f. Unlike the miserly nature of the item slots in last year’s spin-off, Townfall doesn’t really place restrictions on what you can carry besides limiting you to two throwable items and one melee weapon at any one time. You can otherwise hold as much ammunition and medkits as you like, although given how scarce these resources are it’s typically only ever a handful at any one time anyway.

One particular late game puzzle confounded me so much that it seemed as though Silent Hill’s signature fog had seeped into my own brain.

There’s a light amount of crafting, too, since you can sterilise regular bandages with bottles of alcohol in order to make them more effective healing options. Meanwhile, the ability to fill an IV bag with revitalising fluid and keep it constantly equipped proved essential (especially as enemy numbers swelled in the story’s final hours) since it brings you back to life with a partially refilled health bar anytime you’re downed. Aside from some rare exceptions when I was killed by an enemy, brought back to life on the spot, and then instantly killed by the same enemy again before I had a chance to flee or fight back, I appreciated having the safety net of the IV drip since it gave me the courage to spend longer excursions exploring each area. That’s opposed to painstakingly tiptoeing back and forth to the nearest save point in order to bank each small amount of story progress I made, which is the cowardly path I often take in spooky stories like this.