Silent Hill: Townfall’s dev team wrecked old TVs with magnets to make its in-game gadget feel real
Screen Burn, the studio behind Silent Hill: Townfall, has revealed that its in-game device, the CRTV, achieves its authentic analogue look by actually being run through damaged old televisions rather than relying on digital effects alone. Writer and director Jon McKellan explained that the team fed gameplay footage and cutscenes through old TVs and pocket televisions, deliberately damaging cables and applying magnets to distort the picture before capturing that footage back into the game. This gives the CRTV, which serves a similar warning function to the series' classic radio but also offers directional clues and puzzle-solving uses, a genuinely authentic feel rather than a merely stylised one.
McKellan compared the choice to giving protagonist Simon a torn old map instead of a GPS, arguing that authentic analogue tools suit the story's tone far better than modern equivalents. Silent Hill: Townfall is due for release on 24th September on PC and PS5, and forms part of Konami's wider revival of the franchise, which also includes the Silent Hill 2 remake, Silent Hill f, Silent Hill Ascension and the Return to Silent Hill film. Series producer Motoi Okamoto has said the strategy behind the revival is to preserve the franchise's core psychological horror narrative while allowing each entry to experiment freely with different gameplay styles.
- CRTV gadget's static effect comes from real damaged TVs, not digital filters
- Developers ran footage through old TVs, damaging cables with magnets
- Silent Hill: Townfall launches 24th September on PC and PS5
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Silent Hill is a long-running survival horror video game series known for its unsettling atmosphere, foggy town setting and psychological themes rather than jump scares. Konami, the Japanese company behind the franchise, is currently reviving it with several new projects, including remakes, spin-offs and a film, after years of dormancy. Silent Hill: Townfall is one of these new entries, being made by a studio called Screen Burn, with Jon McKellan as its writer and director.
In the games, characters often rely on old-fashioned devices, such as a radio that crackles to warn of nearby danger, to build tension through analogue, low-tech means rather than modern digital tools. Townfall introduces its own version of this idea, a device called the CRTV, which its protagonist Simon uses for warnings, directions and solving puzzles. How this device was designed and made to look authentic is the subject of recent reporting on the game.
Townfall is scheduled for release on 24th September on PC and PlayStation 5, as part of Konami's broader effort to bring back the franchise while letting individual games experiment with different styles of play.