Silent Hill: Townfall finally fixes one of its biggest problems, but players may not like the solution

Konami has released a new patch for Silent Hill: Townfall that addresses several player criticisms, including the difficulty of the game's most infamous enemy and one of its most frustrating puzzles.

While these changes should make the experience less punishing, they could also prove controversial, with not every player agreeing that developer Screen Burn has found the right solution.

Silent Hill: Townfall is the latest entry in Konami’s iconic survival horror series, and its first major release to use a first-person perspective. It’s also set outside the USA, taking players to the fictional Scottish fishing town of St. Amelia.

The game is heavily focused on stealth, and while that can work brilliantly, some sections have caused avoidable frustrations. Now, Screen Burn has responded to that feedback with some significant changes that could split the fanbase.

What does Silent Hill: Townfall patch 1.4.0 change?

Aside from general bug fixes, these are the main changes made by patch 1.4.0:

Gameplay & AI Improvements for The Weight:

• Grab attacks now deal heavy damage instead of causing instant death on Story Mode and Normal difficulties.
• Searching behaviours have been improved to prevent The Weight from ‘camping’ in front of the player’s objective for long periods of time.
• Searching behaviours have been improved to prevent The Weight from repeatedly searching the same location and remaining there for long periods of time.
• Hunting behaviours have been improved to prevent The Weight from tracking the player too aggressively.

Gameplay & AI Improvements for enemies:

• Enemy sensitivity to the sound of firearms has been reduced.
• Enemy sensitivity to the sound of the player while running has been reduced.
• Enemy sensitivity to the sound of the player entering a hiding space has been reduced.
• The frequency of enemy counterattacks after successful player attacks during melee combat has been reduced.
• With the exception of The Weight, grapple attempts from enemies while the player is actively blocking with a melee weapon have been removed.
• Players are now given more time to react to enemies after escaping a grapple.

Puzzle Information Design Improvements:

• A collectable manual for the "Remote Systems Control" console that can be viewed for quick reference while operating the console has been added.
• The pipe layout for the "Aux Line" puzzle has been updated to improve clarity.

The good and bad of Silent Hill: Townfall patch 1.4.0

The Weight in Silent Hill: Townfall, Konami

Was The Weight actually difficult, or was it just frustrating?

It’s a bit of both. As soon as you’re caught by The Weight, it’s instant death, which isn't out of the ordinary for a game of this type. However, the main issue with this overpowered enemy is the way in which it stalks you.

It has a habit of constantly being exactly where you are, and sometimes it camps right beside you. If you’re lucky, it might walk away briefly, but then quickly returns before you’ve even had a chance to twitch. This results in you hiding behind a desk for ungodly hours.

The other frustration is that it has a tendency to camp exactly where you have to go for your objective, and if you’re out of objects to throw and distract it, The Weight becomes even more frustrating. Furthermore, if it spots you and you hide in a cupboard, it can also loiter outside that cupboard or constantly wander in and out of that room in quick succession.

To me, this feels like AI behaviour that isn't optimised, and certainly not to the level of the stalker Xenomorph in 2014’s Alien: Isolation, where it will be around your area but wouldn't loiter for too long in your exact location or continually block objective paths.

So, before this patch, The Weight was both frustrating and difficult. Following the patch (and I’ve just tested the game), it does feel a little less relentless.

Is The Weight scary?

At first, yes, but when you encounter all the issues listed above, that fear quickly turns into frustration, especially with an instant kill when it's blocking your objective and you’re forced to make an un-strategic move or stay hidden forever.

The unintended bonus of that is that The Weight may move to a different location once your checkpoint has reloaded. However, in any horror game, an enemy should always be scary and not 99.9% frustrating for the player.

Is this AI change for the better?

That will depend on your preferences. I believe that it does make the game better, because it should replace much of that frustration with good old fear, as it should be with all Silent Hill games. As a player, you should know why you’ve been killed instead of always asking, “WTF?”

Sure, The Weight is a little less difficult to deal with, but at least it doesn't feel like you’re being cheated as much. If The Weight catches you because of a bad decision you’ve made, that’s fair. If you’ve been caught because it’s camped at your objective, that’s very different.

I will give credit to the developers for listening to players, because not every studio would do that.

Simon in Silent Hill: Townfall, Konami

The patch goes beyond The Weight

It’s not just The Weight that has been nerfed, because common enemies are now a little less sensitive to your actions, such as gunfire and running, and are generally a little less aggressive.

I’ve not had much of an issue with this because I move very slowly through the game; after all, it’s a stealth game. But there were a few moments when I wondered how the enemy had found my exact location after throwing a bottle or running away from an enemy whose line of sight I’d crossed.

I feel this is where the new patch could be criticised for making Silent Hill: Townfall easier. Aside from The Weight, if you’re careful in this game, you’ll be fine for the most part. If you act like John McClane, you’ll soon be a dead man. But if you do prefer running and gunning, then this AI difficulty change might not be much of an issue for you.

Were the Silent Hill: Townfall puzzles too difficult?

Again, that all depends on what you think as an individual. That being said, a puzzle can be difficult, but it should have enough clues around its environment to give the player at least a little chance. The final puzzle in Silent Hill: Townfall did not do that particularly well and caused many players to look up solutions online, which is something many of us never like resorting to.

Patch 1.4.0 essentially adds a manual for the final puzzle to let you know how the puzzle works, and it changes its layout slightly without giving you the direct answer. I feel this is the right move by Screen Burn because, as long as it's not holding your hand and still makes you scratch your head, that’s how a fair balance to a challenging puzzle should be.

READ MORE: 6 Silent Hill: Townfall gameplay tips that could save your life

I don't believe that any horror game should be too easy, unless it’s on a second-plus run and you’re mopping up trophies and achievements. You should be stressed in any good horror game, but you should never run the risk of stripping a game of its original identity.

However, there is a fine balance for the developer to get that fairness right for players. Silent Hill: Townfall did have some of those issues at launch, but the fact that Screen Burn has acted quickly to address the feedback says a lot about who it is as a studio and that it cares about players.

So, if you’re finding Silent Hill: Townfall to be too easy following patch 1.4.0, it might be time to crank up that difficulty setting.

Ultimately, the patch doesn't necessarily make it a worse horror game. It raises the question of what we might want from a horror game. Do we want to feel scared and vulnerable, or frustrated because it feels like the game is cheating us?

Silent Hill: Townfall is out now on PC and PlayStation 5.