Silent Hill f Fans Are Split: Combat Harder Than Elden Ring or Designed to Make You Pick Your Battles?

Silent Hill f landed on Steam with a shiny 'Very Positive' tag earlier this week, and now that folks are sinking real hours into it, the conversation has zeroed in on one thing: the combat. Not the atmosphere. Not the story. Not the creepy Silent Hill weirdness. The fighting.

The debate: tense survival horror or Souls-lite headache?

A lot of players are calling the combat more aggravating than scary. The game leans into dodge timing and stamina management in a very Souls-ish way, and even the so-called 'Story' difficulty isn't bailing out people who just want to explore and be unnerved. That shift is a pretty big departure from older Silent Hill entries, and longtime fans are split on whether it works.

• One poster says they love everything about the game except the core combat, which they describe as stiff and clunky. The 'perfect dodge' system, in their view, clashes with everything else the game does well, and once you're deeper in, combat starts to dominate the playtime.
• Another player, near the end of the story, complains about getting swarmed by enemies that feel spongy as hell — soaking up bullets and even pipe hits — estimating it can take close to 10 swings to make a dent. They go as far as saying actual Souls games like Elden Ring felt easier.
• Elsewhere, someone sums it up bluntly: the game is just too fight-focused for their taste.
• On the flip side, a different camp argues the solution is simple: stop fighting so much. They say the game is built to pick your battles, sprint when you can, and conserve resources — because there's basically no reward for clearing every room anyway.

"It's survival horror at its core, the fear of choice. I would think with a survival horror series, people would instinctively avoid combat when available, especially when the game provides practically no rewards for fighting."

So… who's right?

Both sides, honestly. If you came in expecting classic Silent Hill pacing and minimal combat, the Souls-lite dodging and stamina economy can feel like sand in the gears. If you treat it like survival horror — run when the game lets you, fight only when you must — the systems make more sense. The community's clearly not a monolith here.

Meanwhile, critics are into it

Despite the combat discourse, Silent Hill f is landing well. It's sitting at an 86 on Metacritic right now — the same score the 2024 Silent Hill 2 remake earned — which puts it in solid company. Konami and NeoBards have delivered something that's connecting with a lot of people, even if the difficulty curve is rubbing others the wrong way.