New Silent Hill game inspired by tiny fishing village in Fife

The next release in one of the biggest video game franchises in the world was inspired by a small fishing village in Fife.

Silent Hill: Townfall is set in a fictional place called St Amelia, which is based on the real village of St Monans in the East Neuk of Fife.

The new release was created by Screen Burn, a Glasgow developer with about 30 employees, who said it was their "biggest and most ambitious game yet".

The survival horror series has sold millions of units since its first game was published by Japanese multinational Konami in 1999.

The most recent game in the franchise, a spin-off called Silent Hill f, sold a million copies the day it was released in September 2025.

When Townfall is released later this year, one million people could walk the virtual streets of St Monans - which has a real-life population of just over 1,100 people.

A trailer for the game reveals a fishing village shrouded in haar - a cold sea fog common along the east coast of Scotland.

It shows a harbour littered with lobster boxes and boats bobbing in the water, as well as colourful bunting along the dark streets of St Amelia.

Placards by a monument read "let the ferries in" and "this town is ours", however the place appears to be deserted.

Screen Burn co-founder Jon McKellan said the team were keen to bring a new setting to the popular series.

In a recent transmission on the Silent Hill YouTube channel, he said they originally planned to keep the location vaguely in northern Europe.

But he added: "There was a drive to create something that felt authentic to us and it kind of felt natural to bring it home."

McKellan said he was wanted to use the location to help tell the story, and his team studied the village's features to bring it to life in the world of Silent Hill.

"It's the smell and the wind and the sound of the place, all of that together is what you're trying to recreate," he said.

"When I started to write the story about what this town was, what happened to this town, the isolation was a big factor.

"There's like an existential dread that comes with that. Silent Hill has always had a sense of not being able to leave the town, and face why you're there."

He said recreating the haar accurately and how it obscures things from the player was a key part of this.

Art director Paul Abbott said the misty environment in the game reminded him of early morning walks to school when he was growing up in a small fishing village.

"It's a beautifully epic, grey, drizzly environment and we're bringing that to the game," he said.

He said the team had painstakingly recreated recognisable elements of the town, such as the winding alleyways and the texture of the piers.

McKellan said it was a "genuine honour" to work with and contribute to the franchise.

"It's not an opportunity we ever thought we'd get, but it's one we knew we all wanted right away," he added.

The game will be released later in 2026.