Silent Hill The Short Message Spoiler Free - Dual Sense Controller UNLEASHED

Experience the Power of the PS5 DualSense in Silent Hill The Short Message uses a loop to tell a story about being stuck in your worst nightmare. Anita is brought to an abandoned apartment building with no idea how she got there and has to walk around to find her way out. Until she faces both metaphorical and physical demons, she’s trapped. She has no weapons or items to help her beyond her phone, which she uses as a flashlight and as a way to talk to her friends Maya and Amelie.
Chapters
00:00 - Silent Hill the Short Message Plot
00:45 - Not Typical Horror
01:16 - Dual Sense Features Used Brilliantly
02:22 - Amazing Audio
02:34 - Monster
02:48 - Player Appeal / Who will like it?
03:32 - Thought Provoking Experience

This is an amazing example of what the Dual Sense Controller if Capable of.

There are multiple loops throughout the game, and they’re great at ramping up the tension. In one, Anita walks around her old apartment, and every time she restarts the loop, she gets smaller. Once I realized that I was becoming child-sized as I relived Anita’s childhood trauma and learned more about her mother, something sank in my stomach. I saw myself getting weaker and more helpless, which played well with Anita’s experience.

The most prominent place you’ll see these loops is in the game’s only action sequences, where you have to run away from a monster, clearly supposed to resemble Maya. Considering Pyramid Head creator Masahiro Ito worked on The Short Message, it’s no surprise that it’s such an intense creature. It looks horrific but oddly beautiful, rendered in pastels that pop against the dark. She also moves at a different framerate, making her motions look jerky and unnerving. Not sure what the name of it is yet (Cherry Blossom School Girl maybe?), but it’ll definitely be one of the franchise’s most memorable monsters.
Running from the monster is a bit reminiscent of trying to escape the Void in Silent Hill: Downpour, although thankfully a lot less annoying. You have to navigate looping mazes while using your phone to listen for static (a common Silent Hill mechanic) to avoid the monster, which instantly sends you back to the beginning. Like the building, these mazes become more dilapidated and terrifying over time, with the last one running you through a Silent Hill-esque other world covered in metal grates and surrounded by fire.

Another hallmark of modern Silent Hill seems to be taking the concept of a town that reflects the protagonist’s worst fears and trauma, and expanding those horrors throughout the world. The Short Message takes place in Germany, specifically in the fictional town of Kettenstadt. The place is described as a “border stronghold” that once had big revitalization dreams until the COVID-19 pandemic caused investors to pull out funding. Many of the buildings are therefore abandoned, including the Villa apartment building, where the game takes place.

It’s impressive how fleshed-out Kettenstadt feels, and like the best of Silent Hill, it’s a character in itself. This is only a two-hour game, so there’s only so much detail here, and you don’t see anything beyond the Villa, but there’s still enough to drive home how Silent Hill-esque Kettenstadt is — in part due to its tragic backstory and current state of neglect. Even when the world around you looks worse with each loop, you never feel like you’ve left the Villa. Anita’s state of mind might make the environments look grimier and more wretched, but the line is always blurred between Kettenstadt’s actual state and its Silent Hill version. Utilizing the pandemic also adds some needed depth, especially now that we’re in 2024 and are still seeing its effects widely. (Is this the first significant COVID game?)