Silent Hill 3

May 23, 2003PuzzleESRB M

Available on

Genres

Overview

About Silent Hill 3

Silent Hill 3 is the third installment in the Silent Hill series. Like the previous entries, Silent Hill 3 is a survival horror combining action-based combat and puzzle-solving, but is somewhat more combat-oriented than the preceding installments. The main character is able to side-step and block some attacks, but in general shares with the other protagonists of the series their relative ineptitude in combat.

Story setup

Seventeen years have passed since the events of the first game, and the baby whom the Incubator gave to Harry Mason at the end of the first game, Heather Mason, is now a teenage girl. Harry took Heather into his care to raise as his own daughter. One fine day, Heather goes shopping but is suddenly thrust into a strange alternate reality filled with demonic imagery and twisted monsters. She hears footsteps, disgusting, creepy monsters attack her, and she has to defend herself. Heather quickly comes to find that the events unfolding around her have something to do with her past. Exploring the eerie town of Silent Hill, she must find a way to escape.

Reference

At a glance

Released: May 23, 2003
Platforms: PC
Genres: Puzzle, Adventure, Action
Play modes: Single Player
Age rating: ESRB M

Media

Screenshots

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Playing together

Multiplayer & game modes

Silent Hill 3 offers various play modes for different gaming experiences.

Play Modes

Single Player

Content

Age ratings

How rating boards around the world have classified Silent Hill 3. Open a board for its content descriptors.

ACBMA 15+

Medium level coarse language, Horror theme

ESRBM

Violence
Blood and Gore

PEGI18

Violence

Also in our guides

Often listed alongside Silent Hill 3

Titles that appear in the same guides on this site. Grouped by where they show up, not by recommendation.

Coverage

Featured in our articles

This game appears in 1 article on this site.

Best Psychological Horror Games

Silent Hill 3 is the most viscerally aggressive game on this list. Where the second game lives in grey guilt, the third lives in red. Heather Mason's story runs through body horror, religious mania, and a nightmare bathroom that I have not fully dislodged from my memory despite playing it years ago. It is also the hardest game here to actually get running in 2026, which costs it points on accessibility. Original hardware or an old PC with some patience is what you are looking at. Worth it if you can manage it. The atmosphere and the imagery are so specific and so relentless that playing it still feels different from anything else in the genre, even now.

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