Silent Hill or Resident Evil?

Key things

• Silent Hill and Resident Evil are iconic horror game series with unique atmosphere and tension.
• Silent Hill excels in environments and monsters, while Resident Evil shines in combat and resource management.
• Resident Evil triumphs in overall variety and quality of gameplay, making it slightly better than Silent Hill.

Horror as a genre in all types of creative media has always had a large following of people who love it for a variety of reasons, be it aesthetics, storytelling style, or simply for the thrill. While there are plenty of great new horror games coming out these days, let's not forget the pioneers of the genre that revolutionized and brought the genre to the masses: Silent Hill and Resident Evil.

To this day, they are unrivaled titans of the survival horror gaming scene, constantly serving as inspiration for new projects from independent developers. Let's take a look at what these epic survival horror series have done over each other to create the ultimate legendary horror game.

Updated on September 10, 2024 by Dennis Moiseev: Is there anything more iconic than comparing Silent Hill and Resident Evil to decide which horror game series is better? With the 2024 remake of Silent Hill 2 on the horizon from Bloober Team, we decided to revisit this article to update you on the latest and most important comparisons between the games. Let us know in the threads if you agree!

12 Atmosphere

Silent Hill

It cannot be denied that the atmosphere of the original Silent Hill was an incredible feat by the developers, especially considering that the game was released in 1999. Washed-out graphics, eerie sound effects, fog, story and monsters; all this creates a constant and unrelenting sense of dread and fear. It also continued in sequels, making it the core of the series.

Compared to the atmosphere of Resident Evil, which focuses mainly on the mystery of the situation and the number of zombies, it does not produce the same effect. While zombies can and are scary, the entire vibe of the series exudes a B-movie vibe rather than genuine fear.

11 Voltage

Resident Evil

The original Resident Evil games had a lot going for them, one of them being the tension you feel. This was due to the way the games were set up, especially elements like tank controls, camera angle adjustments and unexpected jumpscares that made it feel like danger was lurking around every corner.

Importantly, these dangers can sneak up behind you or come in the form of several zombies in a tight corridor shuffling towards you. Of course tension is a subjective term and it can be argued that both games are tense. However, Resident Evil created more tension by deliberately placing some enemies outside the field of view of the set camera angles, keeping you on your toes.

10 Settings

Silent Hill

While the settings in the Resident Evil games are fairly creepy, being either a huge mansion, a police station, or a village filled with zombies and unnecessarily complex and out-of-place puzzles, the setting in Silent Hill works better for a horror game. . Some may argue that a giant mansion is scary, but the locations in Silent Hill are designed to scare you to the core.

A horror game's environment can make or break immersion, and in this case, Silent Hill's setting works better because the thought of being completely helpless in a fog-filled city or an abandoned hospital sends chills down our spines.

9 Fight

Resident Evil

If you love horror games that are faster with action, but also with hauntings, Resident Evil definitely has the upper hand. In it, the horror comes from the ridiculous traps aimed at making Jill's sandwiches or the zombie dogs chasing you. Sure, it's not extremely methodical with building up its scares, but the threat of a sudden scare coming out of nowhere keeps your attention and adrenaline levels high throughout.

We can't deny that some games in the Resident Evil series miss out on mixing equal parts horror and action, but the ones that had the perfect balance got our hearts racing like nothing else. And when those combat moments do come, only Resident Evil delivers a truly refined experience, as it was never Silent Hill's forte.

8 *Characters

Resident Evil And Silent Hill – Tie

When it comes to characters that fit the horror genre, Silent Hill and Resident Evil are equally strong in this regard. In the former, most of the characters feel human and somehow flawed, some more than others. The reason this works is because they don't feel like superhumans who can overcome any situation without sacrificing their sanity.

Although the main cast of the Resident Evil series seem like generic action movie characters who will make it no matter what is thrown at them, that is literally the magic of the series (and there are traditional reasons for most of them). Leon S. Kennedy, Claire Redfield, Chris Redfield, Ada Wong, Jill Valentine, Albert Wesker, Ethan Winters and even the supporting characters are super iconic.

7 Arms

Resident Evil

A big part of survival horror as a video game genre is the survival part, which means games have to make you feel like you have to find tools to improve your chances of survival. One of the most important tools in these games are weapons, and Resident Evil has a lot of useful and exciting weapons to help the characters fight and survive the zombies.

What makes collecting these weapons better is that they are usually hidden, either hidden behind a puzzle or broken up into parts that you have to hunt down. Some might argue that too many guns take away from the horror side of things, but no matter how many guns you have, there are always moments in the Resident Evil series that completely shock and scare you.

6 Monsters

Silent Hill

Zombies are a staple of most, if not all, horror-based creative media, and Resident Evil was one of the reasons it became so prevalent in the late 1990s. However, one thing that Silent Hill arguably did better was creeping you out with inhuman and downright disturbing creatures that manifested from the characters' own fears.

While the tyrannical variants of Resident Evil are memorable, enemies like Pyramid Head or the nurses from Silent Hill are more iconic. Creatures in horror games that make you fear the dark or go to sleep after playing are extremely difficult to create because they have to be deeply disturbing on a psychological level, and there's no denying that the Silent Hill games nailed that aspect.

5 Rawness

Resident Evil

Some may find this confusing, but the cheesiness of Resident Evil works in its favor. The way it does this is by reducing the tension through cheesy dialogue between the characters before immediately hitting them with a scare that makes them jump and fear for their character's life. The rawness also applies to enemies, the best examples being Nemesis and most of the bosses in Resident Evil 4.

Granted, it most likely wasn't a conscious decision, but rather a product of its time, as the 80s and 90s are the definition of cheesiness. However, whether it was intentional or not, it seems to play an important role. And then Leon's lines in Resident Evil 4 are the perfect cheese to compete with the real “Big Cheese”, Bitores Mendez.

4 Sound design

Silent Hill

For some reason, there is a general rule that sound quality can either make or break the medium that uses it, regardless of the quality of the rest of the project. A game may have the simplest graphics in the world, but if it has sound that is well done and fits, it can improve the experience a million times.

A perfect example of this is the Silent Hill series, where every piece of audio is designed specifically to crawl under your skin while serving a function like radio static to warn you of approaching enemies. If you've ever wanted to hear a song from a game soundtrack that instills pure dread in you, listen to a song called 'Over' from the original Silent Hill.

3 Resource management

Resident Evil

When talking about the survival horror genre, few can mention resource management as an important element within the genre. While it may seem annoying to count your every shot and make sure you have enough room in your inventory for both your gun and ammo, it's the system that makes the Resident Evil games tense.

Dodging zombies because you know you don't have enough ammo due to limited inventory creates a unique type of fear. Some may find limited inventory space tiring, however knowing that you have limited space for both weapons and ammo makes you worry about missing your shots.

2 Overall variety and quality of play

Resident Evil

A big factor to consider is each series' legacy and overall longevity in the industry, and Resident Evil blows Silent Hill out of the water in this series. Silent Hill suffered defeat after defeat directing nearly every sequel and spin-off, most notably the cancellation of PT, 2024's A Short Message, and the terrifying interactive mobile game Silent Hill: Ascension. A Silent Hill 2 remake also seems a bit too late, as it's already been outdone by a lot of solid Resident Evil remakes from Capcom.

Each Resident Evil entry offers a compelling story and innovative new gameplay, and the series even handled Ethan Winters' first-person quest far better than any Silent Hill entry. While the first four Silent Hill games from Team Silent will forever remain iconic and among the best the survival horror genre has to offer, the Resident Evil sequels, spin-offs, and remakes are masterfully crafted and more memorable.

1 Statement

Resident Evil

It was an incredibly difficult decision to reach, but Resident Evil wins out over Silent Hill only slightly. Finally, a survey of all games as a whole in series, characters and gameplay shows better results for Resident Evil than Silent Hill. While the latter has excellent monsters, settings, and atmosphere, Resident Evil ultimately excels in providing consistent and satisfying experiences across each title.

Silent Hill is still a must-play for fans of the genre, but Resident Evil has a longer ongoing story where beloved characters visit new areas and face new and exciting enemies in each installment. You'll have more thrills playing Resident Evil and more depressing and emotional moments with Silent Hill (due to its darker psychological horror nature), but both earn their streaks in different ways.