What is Silent Hill: Homecoming?

Homecoming launched in North America in September 2008, reaching other regions later, and it was the series' full step into American development and into the high definition generation. Its opening deliberately stages the series' iconography, a hospital, a stretcher ride, Pyramid Head appearing as the Bogeyman, while its story centers on the founding families of Shepherd's Glen and a pact with the town next door that has come due.

The combat is the argument. Alex, written as a trained soldier, fights with dodges, counters and finishing moves in a system closer to an action game than to the fumbling terror of the early entries. Defenders call it the first Silent Hill that controls the way its hero would; critics answer that competence is the opposite of the series' horror, and the debate has never really closed.

Censorship history clings to this entry: Homecoming was initially refused classification in Australia and faced cuts in Germany, with modified versions following, which makes regional copies genuinely different objects. Japan, notably, never received a home console release of Homecoming at all, an absence that makes its Japanese collecting story a blank page and its Western discs the whole record.

Yamaoka composed the score, his last full mainline soundtrack work alongside Downpour's changing of the guard, and McGlynn's vocal tracks anchor its best sequences. The music, as so often in this series, is where the divided game most clearly holds together.

For collectors: PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 editions in each Western region, the censored variants as distinct objects, and no Japanese edition to chase. Official guides were published in the West and document the combat system and the film grain presentation options in useful period detail.