The new installment will be the first main game in the series in over ten years. Silent Hill f offers a new approach: the action takes place in 1960s Japan, with a focus on close combat, and firearms are completely excluded.
In early previews, fans compared the game to a soulslike due to the challenging combat. The game's producer expressed dissatisfaction with the statements, calling them "disingenuous." According to him, the current trend of hastily categorizing any challenging combat project as a soulslike subgenre is quite understandable.
Some journalists spent almost an hour fighting bosses, using parrying and dodging with a stamina gauge. Motoi Okumoto confirmed in an interview that modern players see stamina bars and dodging and immediately consider the game a soulslike, although similar mechanics have long been present in Silent Hill 3 and 4 — long before the emergence of the Souls genre games.
He reiterated: Silent Hill f is not a soulslike. These elements are not exclusive to the subgenre and have existed in combat horror games for a long time. The developers also noted that the complex combat system is designed for a modern audience that is interested in challenging action games, so hasty comparisons are quite understandable.