Silent Hill: The Terror Engine, the second of the two inaugural studies in the Landmark Video Games series from series editors Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron, is both a close analysis of the first three Silent Hill games and a general look at the whole series. Silent Hill, with its first title released in 1999, is one of the most influential of the horror video game series. Perron situates the games within the survival horror genre, both by looking at the history of the genre and by comparing Silent Hill with such important forerunners as Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil. Taking a transmedia approach and underlining the designer's cinematic and literary influences, he uses the narrative structure; the techniques of imagery, sound, and music employed; the game mechanics; and the fiction, artifact, and gameplay emotions elicited by the games to explore the specific fears survival horror games are designed to provoke and how the experience as a whole has made the Silent Hill series one of the major landmarks of video game history.

A troubled man travels to a mysterious town from his past after receiving a letter from his wife... who's been dead for years. And while our "hero" explores dark corridors and battles countless disturbing enemies, his journey offers more psychological horror than survival horror. Welcome to Silent Hill, where the monster is you. Silent Hill 2 doubles down on what made the first game so compelling: The feeling of being lost in a foggy, upside-down town as unsettling as it is familiar. Nearly two decades after first experiencing Silent Hill 2, writer and comedian Mike Drucker returns to its dark depths to explore how this bold video game delivers an experience that is tense, nightmarish, and anything but fun. With an in-depth and highly personal study of its tragic cast of characters, and a critical examination of developer Konami’s world design and uneven marketing strategy, Drucker examines how Silent Hill 2 forces its players to grapple with the fact that very real-world terrors of trauma, abuse, shame, and guilt are far more threatening than any pyramid-headed monster could ever be.

This blood-soaked volume collects IDW Publishing's three chilling one-shots based on Silent Hill, the smash-hit Konami videogame series. In "Among the Damned," a young, guilt-ridden soldier meets a doomed soul that will either change his life or end it. In "Paint It Black," a painter finds his dark muse in Silent Hill, until a group of cheerleaders arrive and the attacks begin. "The Grinning Man" tells the tale of the terrifying title character, who faces off against a State Trooper one day away from retirement.

"Originally published as Silent Hill: past life issues #1-4"--Title page verso.

THE DEAD DO NOT REST TILL THEY GET WHAT THEY WANT. You have arrived in the hills. In here, you are surrounded by dense, menacing forests, enveloped in a deadly silence . . . You never know what lurks here in the cold, dark night. Do not walk alone after sunset in the hills. A beautiful woman in white haunts the lonely pathways, looking to enchant and ensnare men . . . All the people who died in accidents here . . . They say you hear their screams at night. And the deserted lodges sitting amidst lush greenery and calm streams . . . Spirits lie in wait here, ready to prey on the living. There are sceptics who did not heed these warnings. They tried to rationalize what they saw, what they felt. But when they came face to face with the beings that they believed didn't exist, they couldn't run away anymore . . . Ghosts of the Silent Hills is a collection that will make your nights a little scarier, encompassing the very best spine-chilling stories based on true hauntings.

In a gripping tale of bone-chilling horror, writer Scott Ciencin (Silent Hill: Dying Inside) follows a young soldier suffering from survivor’s guilt into the darkened confines of Silent Hill. There, he will meet a doomed soul that will change his life forever… or end it.

Discover the Silent Hill Omnibus, collecting over 400 pages of IDW's Silent Hill comic books into one volume -- Silent Hill: Dying Inside, Silent Hill: Three Bloody Tales, and Silent Hill: Dead/Alive.