About Silent Hill Homecoming

Silent Hill Homecoming is the sixth installment in the Silent Hill survival horror video game series, developed by Foundation 9 studio, Double Helix Games. The game was announced on July 11, 2007 by Konami at their E3 press conference, and was originally entitled Silent Hill V. This entry in the horror series follows the journey of protagonist Alex Shepherd, a soldier returning from war, to his hometown of Shepherd's Glen, where he finds the town in disarray, and his younger brother missing. As he continues on his search to find his younger brother, he discovers more about the Order – the cult of Silent Hill – as well as the town's history, and his own past.

The game was released on September 30, 2008 in North America for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, whilst the Microsoft Windows version will be distributed exclusively through Valve's Steam digital content delivery service. The game received mixed but generally good reviews from critics, with positive reaction to the graphics, audio and environments, and less favorable reaction to the game's plot and scenario, and some of the gameplay and horror elements; however, overall, reviewers were largely appreciative of the development of a main, home console installment of the franchise by an external Western developer.

Silent Hill Homecoming follows Alex Shepherd, a soldier wounded in combat and recently released from the hospital. At the start of the game, the player controls Alex through a nightmare concerning his younger brother, Josh, before Alex wakes up in the cab of a truck driven by Travis Grady, who gives him a ride to his hometown of Shepherd's Glen. The town, named for a distant ancestor who helped found it, is covered in fog and deserted, with several roads having fallen into disrepair or simply collapsed into nothingness. At home, he finds his mother in a near catatonic state, murmuring about his father leaving to find Josh; promising to find Josh, Alex leaves.

He soon discovers that many more people have gone missing in Shepherd's Glen since he left when he finds childhood friend Elle Holloway pinning "missing" signs to a board outside the police department. As Alex explores the town, he witnesses the separate deaths of the delusional Mayor Bartlett and Dr. Fitch by horrific monsters in hellish Otherworld versions of the same locales, both of whom have a child who is apparently missing. Back in Shepherd's Glen, Alex allies himself with Deputy Wheeler in the police department. Alex eventually learns that his father was involved in the secrets of the town and had left to attempt to resolve the town's problems, but before he is able to get answers from his mother at home, he is knocked unconscious when The Order — the cult which worships Silent Hill's god, and has been taking people from the town — kidnap his mother.

Alex, Elle and Wheeler chase after the soldiers across Toluca Lake, but are intercepted by the Order before they can reach Silent Hill. Elle and Wheeler are taken to Silent Hill's penitentiary, where Alex attempts to rescue them. He finds his mother, Lillian, strapped to a stretching rack by the Order; here, the player make a decision regarding whether to kill her out of mercy, which will affect the outcome of the game. After rescuing Judge Holloway from a death similar to those he has already witnessed, and separating from Wheeler once more, Alex finds the Order's church, where he listens to a man in the confessional who mistakes him for a priest; whilst his identity is not explicitly revealed, it is heavily implied from his description of his life, and Alex's strong reaction to it, that it is indeed his father, and here the player may choose to forgive him, again affecting the outcome of the game. Alex soon meets his father face-to-face, and he reveals that Alex was never a soldier, and has been in a mental hospital since "the accident" occurred. He begs forgiveness before he is skewered and cut in half by the Bogeyman.

Continuing on to the Order's underground facility, Alex is captured by Elle's mother, Judge Holloway, who reveals that everything that has happened is due to a broken pact. One hundred and fifty years ago, the four founding families broke away from Silent Hill's Order to move to Shepherd's Glen. They were allowed to do so on the condition that once every fifty years, they would sacrifice one of their children in a pre-ordained fashion. On this occasion, while Joey Bartlett, Scarlett Fitch and Nora Holloway were successfully sacrificed by their parents, the Shepherd sacrifice failed, and as a result, the Order had been reformed to try to appease their God. Judge Holloway tries to kill Alex, who gains the upper hand and lodges a power drill through her skull. Alex rescues Elle from the facility and, after finding Wheeler gravely injured and allowing the player to choose whether to save him — once more affecting the game's ending — continues on alone to find Josh. He eventually finds the sacrificial chamber with each families' sacrifices inscribed; his name is listed, confirming Alex as the intended sacrifice for the Shepherd family.

Realising he was the intended sacrifice, Alex experiences a flashback showing Josh's true fate. When Alex was younger, he had taken Josh rowing out on the lake, jealous of the attention he was receiving from his parents; he gave his brother a hard time, and as they struggled momentarily, Josh slipped, hitting his head on the side of the boat and falling into the lake. His father retrieved the body, and explained that Alex had "ruined it for all of us", since he had "chosen" Alex, and not Joshua; unable to accept Josh's death, Alex was then sent to the mental hospital, and with Josh instead of Alex sacrificed by drowning, the Order's pact was broken. Fighting a final monster, Alex is faced with Josh's corpse, and is given one final chance to face reality and say goodbye to Josh for the last time, before leaving his brother and the facility.

There are five endings available, which depend on the player's actions during the game, including whether the player saves Alex's mother, forgives Alex's father, and saves Deputy Wheeler. These range from the single positive ending to the game – the Good ending, where Alex comes to terms with his past actions and reunites with Elle to leave Shepherd's Glen – to four endings where Alex's fate is negative. In addition, the tradition of a UFO ending also returns, where both Alex and Elle are abducted by a UFO.