Silent Hill f isn't a soulslike, and its developers wish you'd stop saying it is

Trying to define what constitutes a 'soulslike' is like attempting to comprehend the inside of a black hole. It's the steep difficulty! No, wait, it's the punishing consequences of death. That's not quite right either. Maybe it's the stamina bar? Maybe it's all of those things. Maybe it's none of them. After the last round of Silent Hill f previews went out earlier this month, series fans quickly began affixing the moniker born from FromSoftware's unforgiving RPGs to NeoBards' upcomer. As game director Ai Yang tells Lauren at Gamescom, the studio really wants people to stop thinking SHf is a soulslike.

It might not be a soulslike game, but Silent Hill f is more than heavy enough on the soul. Its Steam content warning is as long as a shopping list for a family of ten, reeling off harrowing theme after harrowing theme. Hinako's spooky jaunt through 1960s Ebisugaoka is not for the light-hearted, and her struggle for survival is best expressed through f's combat.

From what we've seen so far, NeoBards is paying close attention to Hinako's capabilities as a meek teenager, and designing around it. Each labored swing of the pipe deals a slow but hefty blow, while she's far more comfortable with smaller weapons like knives. Silent Hill f also iterates on what we saw in Bloober's Silent Hill 2 remake, adding counterattacking potential and timed dodging to Hinako's arsenal. There's even a focus bar that lets her use a more powerful attack, among other perks. All of this, compounded with resource management in the form of stamina, and tricky bouts, have led some to believe f is more Sekiro than Silent Hill.

After going hands-on with Silent Hill f at Gamescom, Lauren asks if there's anything remotely soulsy inspiring the game's combat system. Yang gets straight to the point. "The first thing I want to point out is [that] I think the term 'soulslike' is being thrown around. Everyone's just using it to refer to anything that has a dodge and uses stamina. But when we really look at it, a lot of action games have had these elements for a very, very long time. Even going back to Silent Hill 3 - that had a dodge, that had stamina.

"Just because it has a couple of these things, [and] harder boss fights, it doesn't mean it's automatically a soulslike, and I think the online community has really latched onto this. So I want to reiterate again that we're going towards an action game base, not a soulslike. You'll see from the way our progression works and the way our monsters work. It's harder, yes, but again, we're missing a lot of things that, for us, make a soulslike."

So, if it wasn't already obvious, Silent Hill f is absolutely 100% not a soulslike. Job done. Case closed. I'm honestly shocked this even became discursive in the first place, but that's the internet for you, I 'spose.

While there's still some time to go before the Silent Hill f release date arrives, go and check out more of the best horror games and best single-player games you can kill the time with.

If you're still holding out hope that Silent Hill f is actually a soulslike in disguise, we'd be fascinated to hear your reasoning over in our community Discord server.

Additional reporting from Gamescom by Lauren Bergin.