‘Silent Hill’ Fans Officially Get a New Survival Horror Nightmare for Halloween
1 day ago
0 8 minutes read
Halloween movie marathons are great, but there’s something especially unsettling about being the person who actually has to open the door. Survival horror games make players responsible for every bad decision, whether that means investigating an unfamiliar noise or walking into a building that practically begs them to stay away. For fans of Silent Hill and Resident Evil, that particular brand of dread is part of the appeal.
The earliest entries in those franchises also understood how much terror could come from what players couldn’t see. A fixed camera could conceal something just beyond the frame, while an ordinary hallway became threatening the moment the perspective changed. That approach still has plenty of life left in it, especially when a developer pairs the familiar presentation with a new reason to venture into the dark.
Heartworm is now available on consoles, bringing developer Vincent Adinolfi and publisher DreadXP’s psychological survival horror game to PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2. The console release arrived on October 1, giving players a new nightmare to investigate throughout Halloween season. Its stated inspirations include Silent Hill, Resident Evil, and Dino Crisis, making its intended audience pretty clear. Originally released on PC on July 31, 2025, Heartworm follows Sam, whose grief leads her toward the possibility of reconnecting with the dead. An online search points her toward a mysterious house in the mountains, a place associated with visitors who never return. For someone desperate enough to seek answers there anyway, the warning becomes part of the attraction.
Collider Exclusive · Horror Survival Quiz Which Horror Villain Do You Have the Best Chance of Surviving? Jason Voorhees · Michael Myers · Freddy Krueger · Pennywise · Chucky
Five killers. Five completely different ways to die — if you’re not smart enough, fast enough, or self-aware enough to avoid it. Only one of them is the villain your particular set of instincts gives you a fighting chance against. Eight questions will figure out which one.
🏕️Jason
🔪Michael
💤Freddy
🎈Pennywise
🪆Chucky
01
Something feels wrong. You can’t explain it — you just know. What do you do? First instincts are the difference between the survivor and the first act casualty.
02
Where are you most likely to find yourself when things go wrong? Setting is everything in horror. Where you are determines which rules apply.
03
What is your most reliable survival asset? Every survivor has a quality the villain didn’t account for. What’s yours?
04
What kind of fear is hardest for you to fight through? Knowing your weakness is the first step to not dying because of it.
05
You’re with a group when things start going wrong. What’s your role? Horror movies are brutally clear about who survives group situations and who doesn’t.
06
What’s the horror movie mistake you’re most likely to make? Honest self-assessment is a survival skill. Denial is not.
07
What’s your best weapon against something that can’t be stopped by conventional means? Every horror villain has a weakness. The survivors are always the ones who find it.
08
It’s the final scene. You’re the last one standing. How did you make it? The final survivor always has a reason. What’s yours?
Your Survival Odds Have Been Calculated Your Best Chance Is Against…
Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.
Camp Crystal Lake · Friday the 13th
Jason Voorhees
Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.
He moves in straight lines toward his target. He doesn’t strategise, doesn’t adapt, doesn’t outsmart. He simply pursues.
Your ability to keep moving, use the environment, and resist the panic that freezes most victims gives you a genuine edge.
The Crystal Lake survivors were always the ones who stopped running in circles and started thinking about terrain, water, and distance.
You think like that. Which means Jason, for all his indestructibility, would face someone who simply refused to be where he expected.
Haddonfield, Illinois · Halloween
Michael Myers
Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.
But you are paying attention. You notice the shape in the window, the car parked slightly wrong, the silence where there should be sound.
Michael’s power lies in the invisibility of ordinary suburbia — the fact that nothing ever looks wrong until it already is.
Your spatial awareness and instinct to map every room, every exit, and every shadow before you need them is precisely the quality Laurie Strode had.
You are not a victim waiting to happen. You are someone who already suspects something is wrong — and acts on it.
Elm Street · A Nightmare on Elm Street
Freddy Krueger
Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.
You are harder to destabilise than most. You’ve faced uncomfortable truths about yourself and you haven’t looked away.
The survivors on Elm Street were always the ones who understood what was happening and chose to face it rather than flee from it.
Freddy’s greatest weakness is that his power evaporates in the presence of someone who refuses to give him the fear he feeds on.
Your psychological resilience — the ability to stay grounded when reality itself becomes unreliable — is exactly the quality that keeps you alive here.
Derry, Maine · It
Pennywise
Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.
The Losers Club didn’t survive because they were braver than everyone else. They survived because they faced their fears together, and faced them honestly.
You ask the questions others avoid. You look directly at what frightens you rather than turning away.
That directness — the refusal to let fear fester in the dark — is Pennywise’s worst nightmare.
It chose the wrong target when it chose you. You are exactly the kind of person whose fear tastes like nothing at all.
Chicago · Child’s Play
Chucky
Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.
You don’t have that gap. You take threats seriously regardless of how they present — and you never make the mistake of underestimating something because of its size or appearance.
Chucky relies on surprise, on the delay between recognition and response. You close that delay faster than almost anyone.
Your instinct to treat every unfamiliar thing with appropriate scepticism — rather than dismissing it because it seems absurd — is the exact quality that keeps you breathing.
Against Chucky, not laughing is already winning. You are very good at not laughing.
‘Heartworm’ Gives Players a Camera to Fight Its Nightmares
HeartwormImage via DreadXP
Sam’s most important tool is a camera, which also serves as her weapon against the dangers ahead. The game combines fixed perspectives with over-the-shoulder aiming, giving its familiar survival horror presentation a different approach to confrontation. Exploring its world means solving puzzles and defending yourself while unraveling a mystery tied to death and memory. The retro presentation extends to low-resolution environments, cinematic camera placement, and a mix of pre-rendered and in-game cutscenes. Players can also choose optional tank controls, while multiple endings offer different conclusions to Sam’s journey. Those features make the console arrival particularly fitting for anyone who first discovered survival horror with a controller in their hands.
The premise gives those familiar mechanics an emotional hook: Sam has a reason to pursue something that everyone else would avoid. Her search puts the desire for another connection with the dead alongside the danger of refusing to let go. That’s fertile ground for psychological horror, where the answer to a mystery can be just as frightening as the creature standing between you and it.
