Silent Hill 4: The Room

Silent Hill 4: The Room is the fourth installment in the Silent Hill survival horror series. The game was developed by Team Silent and published by Konami. It launched in North America on September 17, 2004, for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and PC.

The Japanese version of the game would later be released digitally on the PlayStation 3 in Hong Kong, Japan, and Indonesia in 2012 and 2013 respectively. The English-language PC version was given a wider re-release with patches in October 2020.

Plot

 * Note: For more information about Walter's Otherworlds and the events and characters in them, see Walter's Otherworlds. It is implied that the game is set in 2001.

Henry Townshend is living in South Ashfield, a city that's half a day's drive away from Silent Hill. He is content with his life, living in the South Ashfield Heights apartments. However, one day he finds himself mysteriously locked in his own apartment, Room 302. Along with experiencing strange and nightmarish dreams, he cannot escape through either the windows or his front door, which has been chained shut from the inside. No one, not even people standing directly outside of it, can hear him when he pounds on the door and cries for help. The other residents notice Henry's absence, but carry on with their everyday lives. Even with the right key, the superintendent, Frank Sunderland, cannot open Room 302. Eileen Galvin, Henry's next door neighbor in Room 303, is concerned about Henry's welfare, though he can only observe her through Room 302's peephole and walls. By listening to Eileen, Henry learns that she is passing time in her apartment just before arriving at a friend's party.



After five days of entrapment, Henry finds a hole that has opened up in his bathroom wall. Armed with only a steel pipe that broke loose when the wall opened, he proceeds to venture into the hellish madness of various Otherworlds. The hole leads Henry to a variety of strange areas, inhabited by dangerous and sometimes immortal creatures. He is able to travel between these worlds and his apartment through mysterious holes resembling the Halo of the Sun. Every time he travels back to his apartment, Henry finds himself waking up on his own bed. In these worlds, Henry witnesses the murders of people who are stuck in corresponding realms like him; the murders also occur in the Real World. The victims are Cynthia Velasquez, Jasper Gein, Andrew DeSalvo, and Richard Braintree.



As Henry investigates further, he learns more about Walter Sullivan, a serial killer that terrorized Ashfield several years ago and left numbers carved into his victims; Walter was eventually arrested and killed himself soon after. However, these new victims bear similar numbers carved into their bodies, matching Walter's modus operandi, and subsequent events suggest that Walter has come back as a ghost. Walter was born in Room 302, and his parents abandoned him immediately after he was born and were never seen again. Frank Sunderland handed the newborn to the medics, and Walter found his way to the Wish House Orphanage in the woods outside of Silent Hill, where he was taught occult rituals and teachings of the Order. Walter began to believe that Room 302 itself was his "mother". As an adult, Walter decided to "awaken" his "mother" by purifying "her" through the "21 Sacraments" ritual, which required 21 murders. Walter killed 10 people in different ways, and he ended each murder by taking their hearts out. Afterwards, Walter performed the Ritual of the Holy Assumption, which allowed him to make himself the eleventh victim through suicide and still remain in his own, manifested world. The four victims that Henry encounters in his wanderings are victims 16 through 19. In Walter's Otherworlds, Henry also meets two versions of Walter: an immortal adult and a child manifestation conjured by Walter's reminiscences.



After exploring Walter's first four Otherworlds, Henry arrives in the fifth Otherworld: an alternate South Ashfield Heights. He sees Walter Sullivan knocking on Eileen's door, and after finding the key that unlocks Eileen's room, Henry witnesses her bleeding to death on her living room floor, having been assaulted by Walter and named the next victim. Eileen thanks Walter's younger self for trying to protect her from his adult self and then passes out. Following Eileen's supposed death, Henry wakes up in Room 302 and notices an ambulance on its way to St. Jerome's Hospital.



In his apartment, Henry notices "hauntings" invading from the Otherworld. Henry creates a new hole in his laundry room that leads to St. Jerome's Hospital's Otherworld, where he discovers Eileen, alive, in one of its rooms. Henry and Eileen decide to stay together and find a way out of Walter's world. Henry takes Eileen to a Halo of the Sun; however, he realizes that he is the only one who can use them as she is unable to see them. Eileen tells Henry about Joseph Schreiber, Room 302's previous resident and a journalist who disappeared six months before Henry moved in. Henry and Eileen then decide to "go down into the deepest part of him and look for the ultimate truth".



After leaving the hospital, Henry and Eileen find themselves on the top of a spiral staircase, full of strange objects such as human limbs and shadowy figures. Each Otherworld is connected by the staircase, and Henry and Eileen must descend it in order to "find the ultimate truth". The Otherworlds are the same as before, except that a few paths that had been blocked before are now accessible and each victim is now a ghost that can be deadly to Henry's health. In the first Otherworld revisited, Henry meets the victim Cynthia Velasquez, who has long, flowing black hair that covers her face. In the second Otherworld, Henry discovers the ghostly Jasper Gein, who is constantly ablaze. It is while exploring this world that Henry realizes that Walter Sullivan is now pursuing he and Eileen. In the third Otherworld revisited, Henry finds the haunted Andrew DeSalvo, who is shirtless and must be pinned down with a Sword of Obedience in order to continue. While revisiting the fourth Otherworld, Henry locates the victim Richard Braintree, who has the ability to teleport; also in this world, Walter Sullivan kidnaps his younger, manifested self.



After defeating The One Truth, Henry and Eileen reach the bottom of the spiral staircase and find a dark abyss with Room 302 of the Past, a memory of Joseph Schreiber's. Henry and Eileen meet Joseph Schreiber in Room 302 of the Past, who appears as a statue in the ceiling. He tells them about Walter's history and reveals that these Otherworlds are a creation of Walter's Holy Assumption ritual. Before his voice fades away, Joseph tells them that they are the last victims: Eileen, the "Mother Reborn", and Henry, the "Receiver of Wisdom". They must kill Walter in order to prevent the 21 Sacraments, or else he will kill them. In Room 302, Henry is shocked and speechless when he discovers a sealed room in his apartment that contains Walter Sullivan's crucified corpse. After using the keys found in Walter's coat pocket, Henry unlocks his chained front door and is bewildered that South Ashfield Heights has also been transformed into a sickening realm. Eileen then appears in the corridor, and they reunite.



In the apartment Otherworld, Henry examines six, hanged corpses; each one eliminates a chain that is forbidding entry to the superintendent's room and has a memory of Walter's father's voice. Inside Frank Sunderland's room, Henry discovers Walter's umbilical cord that Frank had kept in a box for decades; Henry suddenly sees flashes of Walter's memories in his mind, and he falls to the floor with a massive headache. Eileen tries to comfort him, but she leaves to find Walter's child self on her own, and they separate.



Henry returns to Room 302 and discovers that Walter's corpse has disappeared. Underneath where Walter's corpse was lies a round, black abyss. Henry enters the abyss and comes across a large room with a spiked, spinning mechanism in the center with a pool of blood surrounding it. There are also eight spears and a giant monster resembling a torso in the room. Walter Sullivan confronts Henry, who realizes that Eileen is possessed and is about to walk into the large mechanism, unconsciously killing herself. The final fight of the game takes place; Henry uses Walter's umbilical cord on the monster, allowing him to spear it. Walter then loses his immortality and Henry defeats him.

Endings
The game has a total of four possible endings. Unlike the previous three installments, there is no UFO ending. It is also unknown which ending is canon.

There are two factors that determine the ending:


 * 1) If Henry saves Eileen in time during the final battle (if Eileen was injured too much during the game, it may be impossible to save her; however, Henry can place Holy Candles to slow her down)
 * 2) If Henry cleared 80% of the Room 302 hauntings throughout the game.

The endings are:




 * Escape - After Walter falls to the floor, he raises his arm, calling out "Mom" before he goes motionless. The room starts to shake, and Eileen, still alive and no longer possessed, slumps to the ground. Henry calls her name and reaches out to her. Young Walter knocks on Room 302's door in Walter's apartment world, calling to his "mother" to let him in. He then falls to his knees and to the floor, fading away. After he disappears, the door leading to Henry’s apartment opens. Next, Henry is walking away from South Ashfield Heights, and he looks back and then continues on, saying Eileen's name. One day later, Henry visits Eileen in a normal hospital. Henry smiles and gives Eileen a bouquet of flowers, alluding that their relationship has strengthened over their previous recognition of one another. Eileen says to him, "Guess I'll have to find a new place to live, huh?" This ending is considered the best. To obtain it, the player must save Eileen and clear at least 80% of Henry's apartment of hauntings.
 * Mother - This scene is the same as "Escape", except when Henry visits Eileen in the hospital, she tells him "Well, I guess I can go back to South Ashfield Heights now." Henry's apartment is then shown as it was at the beginning of the game, covered in blood and rust, implying that spirits still haunt Room 302 and that Eileen may still be possessed. To obtain it, the player must save Eileen, but not clear at least 80% of Henry's apartment of hauntings.
 * Eileen's Death - After Walter falls to the floor, he raises his arm, calling out "Mom" before he goes motionless. The room starts to shake. Young Walter knocks on Room 302's door in his apartment world, calling out for his "mother" to let him in. He then falls to his knees and to the floor, fading away. After he disappears, the door leading to Henry's apartment opens. Henry sits up in his bed once more and then hears on the radio, to his despair, that Eileen has died of her wounds. After Henry finds out about Eileen's death, he falls to his knees and says her name. To obtain it, the player must let Eileen die, but they do have to clear at least 80% of Henry's apartment of hauntings.
 * 21 Sacraments - After Walter falls to the floor, he raises his arm, calling out "Mom" before he goes motionless. Henry stares down at him, and then suddenly falls to his knees, holding his head in pain. He then stands up, as if possessed by Walter. Young Walter then appears in Room 302 as it was at the beginning of the game, with blood and rust. He cuddles up to the couch saying, "I’m home, I won't let anyone get in the way... I'm gonna stay with you forever..." The radio turns on with a news bulletin announcing the deaths of Eileen, Henry, and others, as the adult Walter lies motionless against a wall. To obtain it, the player must let Eileen die and not clear at least 80% of Henry's apartment of hauntings.

Gameplay


Silent Hill 4: The Room is the first game in the series to feature a first-person perspective. In Room 302, the player navigates through a first-person perspective and can access their only save point and enter the Otherworlds through holes formed in the walls. For the first half of the game, the room will also heal the player.

However, the second half of the game has the room become possessed by various hauntings, which drain Henry's health. They can be exorcised with Holy Candles and Saint Medallions. The player can turn on the radio by Henry's TV and its static will notify the player of hauntings.



In the main levels of the game, the third person perspective returns. Unlike other Silent Hill games, the player only has a limited item inventory which can be managed by dumping unneeded items in a chest in Henry's room. In addition, the tanks controls are completely removed in favor of directional controls.

Breakable melee weapons are also introduced including a variety of golf clubs. Henry can also charge his melee weapon if the attack button is pressed for a few seconds for a more powerful strike.

One of the most significant additions are Ghosts, which are the unkillable spirits of Walter Sullivan's victims. The ghosts have the ability to hurt Henry with a damaging "aura" that can be nullified by Holy Candles and Saint Medallions. The same items can also exorcise the hauntings in Henry's apartment. Ghosts can also be knocked down for a long time with one of the two silver bullets and pinned permanently with one of five Sword of Obediences. There are 10 types of Ghosts in total (excluding Walter, who cannot be pinned), so it is up to the player to decide who to pin. However, Eric Walsh is already pinned by default, so if anything, there are nine ghosts to be concerned about.



In the second half of the game, Henry is accompanied by his neighbor Eileen Galvin and must escort her. Eileen cannot die while she is with Henry, although as she takes damage, she succumbs to possession by Walter Sullivan. Eileen walks slower than Henry due to her injuries and cannot climb ladders. The player can also equip Eileen with a weapon to have her join Henry in combat or to defend herself. The damage Eileen takes in the game determines whether or not she dies in the final boss fight, directly affecting the ending achieved.

Further divergences from the other games include the absence of a flashlight and radio, although Henry has a stereo which alerts him of hauntings and uses a torch to illuminate dark wells to find the pieces of a burned doll. The controller vibration in the previous three games does not indicate Henry's heartbeat, but vibration is present when Henry is attacked or uses a weapon.

Music


The original two-disc soundtrack for Silent Hill 4: The Room is Silent Hill 4: The Room Original Soundtracks, which was composed by Akira Yamaoka and released in Japan on June 17, 2004. It also contains some songs that were unused in the game.

The game's main theme is "Room of Angel", written by Joe Romersa with vocals by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn. There are also many vocal songs in the soundtrack, including "Cradle of Forest" (the game's ending theme), "Your Rain", "Tender Sugar", and "Waiting For You ~ LIVE at 'Heaven's Night' ~ ". A remix of "Your Rain" was featured in Dance Dance Revolution: Extreme.

A noticeable difference of the music compared to the other games in the series is that the game features songs that have more rhythm and beat, giving a more "hip" or "trance-like" feeling. Guitar and drums are prominent instruments.

Development
After Silent Hill 3 was released, Team Silent wanted to create a sequel. In actuality, Silent Hill 3 and 4 were developed around the same time, "almost simultaneously".

Despite what has been popularized around the Internet, Silent Hill 4: The Room, in all stages of development, was always meant to be connected to Silent Hill at least as a "spin-off of Silent Hill". An interviewer asked:


 * "Is it true that The Room was not originally going to be part of the Silent Hill series and that this was only changed part way through development?"

In response:

"In a sense this is true because the game began life as simply Room 302. However, it was always at least a spin-off of Silent Hill and the most important thing was simply that it be different to the previous games. Certainly if Silent Hill had not existed we would not have gotten the idea for The Room, so in that sense they have always been together.
 * —Interview with Masashi Tsuboyama and Akira Yamaoka"

It is false that this original conception (Room 302) was a completely separate horror game unrelated to Silent Hill that did not have Silent Hill in mind.

For example, the idea that 50% or more into development, Room 302 was transformed into Silent Hill 4 and that developers merely sprinkled and inserted some Silent Hill references near the final months of the development is incorrect. It's likely that before even 5-10% of the game's development, it was decided and finalized that Room 302 would be a proper Silent Hill game.

Some of the different gameplay mechanics and change, such as Room 302 as a hub world, were intentional because the developers wanted "change" and "new" as the focus. There is no proof that a single idea in the final version of Silent Hill 4 (such as invincible ghosts, no flashlight, or not visiting the town of Silent Hill for much of the game) was the result of Room 302 being a spin-off or "Silent Hill 4 never being meant to be a Silent Hill game". Similarly, around the first half of Silent Hill 3 isn't set in the town of Silent Hill.

"We wanted to make a sequel after Silent Hill 3 and you could say that was the initial concept, but upon that we needed to implement a lot of new flavor to the sequel, otherwise it would have been the same old Silent Hill. So for that, we created "The Room" as the concept for the game...
 * —Interview with Masashi Tsuboyama"

"Even though the Silent Hill 4 project was a proper sequel to the Silent Hill series, our top objective for the game was "change."
 * —Interview"

Confusion is likely due to an interview which said "SH4 was not originally suppose to be a Silent Hill." This is likely referring to the very early stages of Room 302 when the developers were uncertain if they wanted Room 302 to be an official Silent Hill game; this is likely not referring to when the actual development of the Silent Hill 4 project seriously began.

Reception
Silent Hill 4 was generally well-received. The PlayStation 2 and XBox versions have a Metacritic rating of 76, while the PC version was less well received, gaining a rating of 67. The story, music, detailed environments, and graphics were generally well-praised. Despite some criticism of the combat mechanics, the majority of reviewers found them to be a considerable improvement over those of the previous games. The atmosphere and fear factor was also praised, with many critics finding the game "tense" and "damned scary".

Some common criticisms were having to constantly revisit Room 302, the ability to only hold 10 items, and the lack of detailed puzzles and boss fights (although the game technically has a few boss fights). There was also the absence of the traditional radio and flashlight, and of a UFO ending (though an unused texture for a Channeling Stone in the game's files hint at developers' original intent to add such an ending). Other common criticisms included—like previous games—poor camera control; "clunky" movement and combat controls; a lack of originality, with many finding it too similar to the previous games; and the "lazy" reuse of previous areas, which some reviewers criticized as forcing "tedious backtracking".

Trivia

 * Silent Hill 4: The Room uses two minor unseen characters from previous installments as major characters in its plot. The antagonist of the game, Walter Sullivan, was first referenced in a newspaper scrap in Silent Hill 2 as having killed himself shortly after murdering twins Billy and Miriam Locane. The siblings also appear in the form of the Twin Victim creature Henry encounters. The second reused character is investigative journalist and previous tenant of Room 302 Joseph Schreiber, who was first referenced in Silent Hill 3 with a magazine article he had written condemning the "Hope House" orphanage run by the Order which the game's protagonist, Heather Mason, can discover at Brookhaven Hospital.
 * Memos about Mary Sunderland's nurse Rachel can be found in Silent Hill 4: The Room. There is even a painting of her in Room 202 of South Ashfield Heights, giving a face to the character.
 * Frank Sunderland is the father of Silent Hill 2's protagonist, James Sunderland. James is said to have disappeared in Silent Hill together with his wife "several years ago".
 * Silent Hill 2 appears to contain several foreshadowings of Silent Hill 4. At one point, James enters a bar with a cryptic message scrawled on the wall: "There was a HOLE here. It’s gone now". This could be a reference to the kinds of spontaneously appearing and vanishing "holes" Henry uses to travel between realms in Silent Hill 4.
 * Eileen Galvin owns a Robbie the Rabbit (first introduced in Silent Hill 3) doll, which can be seen sitting on her bed.
 * The Halo of the Sun, first appearing in Silent Hill 3, is seen during the loading screen and are the holes which Henry uses to travel between his apartment and Walter's worlds.
 * In Silent Hill: Downpour, Murphy Pendleton can climb a fire escape ladder in Pearl Creek and enter through a window into a replica of Room 302. The window Murphy uses to enter leads to the living room, next to the television and bookshelf. The coffee table is gone, as are some of the paintings from around the apartment, but there are chains on the door and a black spot on the wall adjacent to Eileen's room. Murphy can explore the living room, kitchen, and hallway, but cannot enter any other rooms (the bedroom, bathroom, or laundry room). There is a handgun on the kitchen counter and a first aid kit on a chair beside the window.