The Best Order to Play Silent Hill Games
Silent Hill is a world-famous survival horror video games franchise. Silent Hill is perhaps one of the most famous survival horror franchise, along with Resident Evil, and has had a major influence in the video games industry, particularly the horror game genre. Silent Hill has often been praised by its mysterious atmosphere, unusual themes, peculiar enemies and deep characters.
The Story Timeline Order of the Silent Hill Video Games
Due to the mysterious nature of the Silent Hill series, and to the often unknown and unclear time periods of each game, it is diffucult to organize the Silent Hill games in a chronological story order, as very rarely exact dates are found in games to the point of connecting the different games in a chronological order that makes sense. However, there are elements, recurring characters and other evidences that help piece the puzzle together and draw a reasonable chronological order for these games. Considering that this chronological story order was written using available information, and not exact dates, it is necessary to mention that this chronological story order that I wrote is not set in stone, but rather an attempt at organizing the different Silent Hill games in a chronological story order, or a chronological order that makes some sense.
Due to the lack of information in some cases, there were some Silent Hill video games that I was not able to organize in the same chronological story order list of the other Silent Hill games. For this reason, I have left thes specific games separated, in an unknown continuity, which is presented after the chronological story order of the games that I was able to find more information. While I admit that the chronological story order of Silent Hill games list that I created is unfortunately incomplete, this is the most accurate list that I was able to write with the information available, and I believe that, even though this list is incomplete, the list available in this article can be helpful to players looking to make a Silent Hill story order playthrough, because it organizes some of the Silent Hill games in chronological story order. Also, this article makes a separate mention of a specific Silent Hill game set in an alternate continuity, and I created a separate list for the Silent Hill games that, while may not be set in a very clear time period, are still very likely set in the same Silent Hill continuity, or in other words, set in the same universe of the Silent Hill games.
To keep things organized, I created two lists. The first list consists of the Silent Hill games which I have organized in chronological story order. The second list consists of the games which are set in an unknown time period. The games of the first list are organized in the chronological order in which the events happened in each Silent Hill games. Considering that Silent Hill games often do not feature dates, and that time periods are often unclear in the Silent Hill games universe, this list I wrote is the most likely order of story events in Silent Hill games, according to the evidence I found. However, due to the lack of clear information regarding dates and time periods, I am unable to provide a guarantee that this is the most correct chronological story order of the Silent Hill video games. Instead, this should be considered an attempt at a likely chronological story order of the games.
Silent Hill: Origins
Silent Hill | Play Novel: Silent Hill
Silent Hill 2
Silent Hill 3
Silent Hill 4: The Room
Silent Hill: Homecoming
Silent Hill and Play Novel: Silent Hill are two different video games. However, considering that these two games tell the same story, I included them as the same entry in this chronological story order list of Silent Hill games, as playing either of those games will provide the player with the same core story information. So, for a Silent Hill story playthrough, either of those games can be played for the same story experience, even if the gameplay experience may be different.
It is unclear whether Silent Hill 2 takes place before, during or after Silent Hill, as the story of the game happens in a different location, with different characters. However, it is known that Silent Hill 2 likely takes place at an approximate time to Silent Hill. And considering that this game features a different storyline, the story experience won't be negatively affected by either playing Silent Hill 2 before or after playing Silent Hill.
Besides these games, there one Silent Hill game that needs to be mentioned apart because it features the same story of the first Silent Hill game, but takes place in an alternate continuity. For this reason, I decided not to connect this game with the other Silent Hill games, as I found no evidence that it is directly connected to any of the other games, story-wise. This game is Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Perhaps, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories could be considered a reinterpretation of the first Silent Hill game.
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
Lastly, there are some Silent Hill video games that I was unable to find an exact time period, and I was unable to connect them them to the other games in a clear way. While I am certain that some of these games are connected to other Silent Hill games, story-wise, I have no clear evidence about the time in which these games take place, and for this reason I can't organize them in the same chronological story order list as I would be just guessing their position in the chronological story order. Instead, I provided a separate list with the games that I was not able to find the exact position in the chronological story order. These games should be considered to belong to the same Silent Hill universe as the other games (except, perhaps, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories). It is very possible that some of these games take place before, during or after some of the other Silent Hill games. However, due to lack of clear evidences, I was not able to say exactly when each of them takes place, and for this reason I created a separated list.
Silent Hill: The Arcade
Silent Hill: Orphan
Silent Hill: Orphan 2
Silent Hill: Orphan 3
Silent Hill: The Escape
Silent Hill: Downpour
In the case of this separate list of the Silent Hill games that I was not able to find a clear evidence regarding their time period, I have found no clear evidence that could lead me to creating a chronological story order. In other words, I have no reason to believe that the order in which I wrote this list, that starts with Silent Hill: The Arcade and ends with Silent Hill: Downpour, is chronological. Instead, this is simply a tentative list of these Silent Hill video games which I missed more available information in order to create a chronological story order that makes sense. I regret that I was not able to find more information regarding these games to be able to include them in the story chronological story order list of Silent Hill video games that I created. However, there is no reason to believe that these games do not belong to the Silent Hill games universe. On the contrary, some of these games feature elements that also appear in other Silent Hill games, suggesting that they belong to the same universe or to the same continuity.
If you are interested in the story timeline order of horror video games, you may also be interested in checking out the story timeline orders of Dead Space, Outlast, and Resident Evil.
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