Silver Pines

I absolutely love a good survival horror game. Combine it with Metroidvania-style exploration, a healthy dose of mystery, and a generous helping of weirdness, and you've got my attention. Silver Pines is precisely that, and while it wears its inspirations on its sleeve, it does an excellent job of carving out its own identity. In fact, it's easily one of my top five games of the year, and one of the best survival horror experiences I've played in quite some time.


Got to find out what kind of trees these are

We play as Red Walker, a P.I assigned a missing persons case in the town of Silver Pines. Red is looking for famed travelling musician Eddie Velvet, but things aren’t as simple as they might seem. Soon enough, Red finds the town in near ruins after a brutal storm, but even more nightmarish events are unfolding. Red soon discovers more secrets about Eddie and the town as he ventures to find the missing musician, and soon enough has questions about his role in the grand scheme of things.

(If this sounds familiar, then you know…)

First things first, I absolutely adore the art style, atmosphere, and presentation. The 2D visuals, with their grungy greys, washed-out colours, and beautifully stylised character designs, create a wonderfully bleak world that feels pulled straight from a fever dream. The aesthetic's striking simplicity works in its favour, making everything feel grimy, unsettling, and occasionally downright surreal without ever becoming pretentious, but rather with confidence.

Naturally, there are plenty of familiar influences here, particularly Silent Hill and Twin Peaks, but I never felt as though Silver Pines was trying to imitate its inspirations. Instead, it takes elements from these works and combines them into something that feels distinctly its own. The world has a wonderfully off-kilter quality, where even seemingly ordinary interactions can leave you wondering whether you've missed something or whether the characters you've encountered are simply a little... peculiar. It’s weird enough, but also something you might have seen before, which makes it uncomfortably and perfectly uncanny.

The writing is another highlight, particularly the dialogue and the strange assortment of characters you'll encounter. They're weirdly wonderful, often delivering conversations that leave you intrigued, amused, or scratching your head, sometimes all at once. The voice acting is particularly good, giving these eccentric characters plenty of personality.

David Lynch would be proud.

While Silver Pines presents a healthy dose of note-reading, it also provides effective environmental storytelling, and enough through the main exchanges that I was never lost. You can read the notes to get the full picture, but I grasped what was going on without much note reading, and everything else still captivated me. You're given enough information to piece together the mystery without being bombarded with documents explaining every little detail.

My biggest reservation concerns the central twist. I won't spoil anything, but I found the eventual revelation fairly obvious from the outset. I mean, from the trailer I guessed it … But a mystery doesn't necessarily need to catch me off guard to be worthwhile, and Silver Pines kept me invested, but I rarely felt surprised by where things were heading. Its twist is heavily reminiscent of a certain noir film, which I personally feel handled the idea more effectively. Its themes and much darker tone help. Nevertheless, translating this kind of revelation into an interactive experience is a different challenge, and the game does a good job of making it work.

Besides, I may not be the best person to judge how obvious a mystery is. I only watched Twin Peaks last year, and by the second episode, I'd already developed a theory about who killed Laura Palmer. And, well, I was dead on. Maybe I should consider a career in detective work.


Where can I get a damn good cup of coffee in Silver Pines?

As for gameplay, Silver Pines is a proper Metroidvania through and through. Expect plenty of backtracking, unlocking new areas with tools and items you pick up along the way, and gradually opening up a map that rewards curiosity. Thankfully, the world is relatively contained, and I never found its layout anywhere near as complex or overdesigned as something like Hollow Knight. Instead, it strikes a lovely balance between Metroidvania exploration and classic survival horror.

One of my favourite aspects is how you can approach certain obstacles using different tools, often at the cost of valuable resources. Take the wooden planks blocking some paths, for example. Early on, you can blast through them with your shotgun, but doing so means sacrificing precious ammunition. Alternatively, you can wait until you acquire a crowbar, which will make short work of them without wasting a single shell.

I love this kind of design. It gives you the freedom to explore more of the world early on, as long as you're willing to pay the price. It also opens up new areas early on and adds value to repeat playthroughs (like Hollow Knight’s map design does). You might discover a hidden room or find a useful upgrade long before the game expects you to. Still, you'll need to consider whether that discovery is worth the ammunition you're spending, especially early on.

It's a simple idea, but it makes exploration feel genuinely rewarding. Rather than forcing you along a strictly linear path, Silver Pines encourages you to experiment, take risks, and make decisions based on the resources at your disposal.

The map itself is exceptionally well designed, too. Backtracking and progression feel natural rather than artificially stretched, with new tools regularly opening fresh routes through previously explored areas. The major locations are equally impressive. The motel, police station, and town hall are all tightly constructed environments filled with puzzles, locked doors, and details to investigate. They're complex enough to make you think without becoming frustrating.

Each main location feels like a miniature survival horror adventure, with its own layout, challenges, and discoveries. Taking plenty of notes from the SH games, these highly refined, tightly crafted locations have fantastic pacing, a sense of discovery, and enough objectives and challenges to overcome without overstaying their welcome. My favourites are the police station and motel, and while there is a sewer section, it is handled cleverly and isn’t tedious.

The optional bosses and hidden rewards are another welcome addition, giving you extra reasons to explore beyond the main objectives. I always appreciate a game that rewards curiosity rather than making every worthwhile discovery part of the critical path, and these secrets made the experience all the more enjoyable.


"There are clues everywhere - all around us. But the puzzle maker is clever”

The puzzles are another highlight in Silver Pines, offering a satisfying balance between logical problem-solving and the occasional bit of surreal weirdness. They're rarely difficult enough to bring your progress to a complete standstill, but they encourage you to pay attention to your surroundings and think about the information you've gathered.

There were plenty of moments when I found myself staring at a puzzle, convinced I was missing some elaborate solution, only to realise the answer was staring me in the face.

"Oh, for ffs. Of course it's that, and not that!"

And I love that. Instead of a problem that's too obscure, where I get fed up with the solution.

There's something deeply satisfying about a puzzle that makes you enjoy working it out without making you feel like you need a degree in ancient languages to understand what the game wants. Silver Pines generally strikes that balance very well, trusting you to connect the dots without resorting to overly obscure solutions.

The puzzles aren't necessarily revolutionary, either, but the execution is good enough that I never particularly minded. Take the task of finding three stone faces and placing them into a large statue to retrieve one of the bells needed for progression. It's a wonderfully strange image, but the objective is clear: finding the pieces gives you something to work towards, and the solution feels satisfying without being needlessly complicated.

I particularly appreciate this mix of the familiar and the bizarre. One moment you're solving a straightforward environmental puzzle, and the next you're investigating something that feels as though it belongs in a particularly strange episode of Twin Peaks.

And I have to bring up Hellraiser: Revival. Because apparently, I'm not done with it just yet.

One of the puzzles in that game involves a locked cabinet, with the combination apparently tattooed on a random corpse's back. Now, maybe I'm missing something, but who exactly decided this particular corpse should have the combination tattooed on their back? Did they get the code from someone else? Were they responsible for the cabinet? Was this person wandering around with a combination lock tattooed on them for absolutely no reason?

It's bloody stupid, Hellraiser …

By comparison, Silver Pines does a much better job of making its puzzles feel like natural extensions of the world. Its solutions can be strange, but they rarely feel arbitrary for their own sake. There's usually enough context to understand what you're looking at and why the pieces fit together, even when the final result is decidedly odd.

Give me something unusual, make me think for a moment, and then let me enjoy that little burst of satisfaction when everything clicks into place.


Time for the boomstick and coffee …

Combat is above serviceable, although it's certainly not the game's strongest feature. You can engage enemies with melee weapons, shoot them with firearms, or dodge past them when things get a little too hairy. Since everything takes place on a 2D plane, encounters can feel awkward at times, especially when you're trying to avoid attacks in confined spaces.

Thankfully, the weapons have a satisfying sense of weight. Combat has a pleasing crunch, and the sound and impact of your attacks make even straightforward encounters enjoyable. The shotgun, in particular, is an absolute beauty. It packs a mighty punch, and there's something immensely satisfying about blasting an enemy when you've been saving your ammunition for precisely that moment.

The reloading mechanics help, too, by adding tension. You have to click each round into the firearm in this neat little mini-game of sorts (which you can turn off if you like). You also get all the classic bells and whistles: watching your ammunition, deciding when it's safe to reload, and making the most of the resources you've collected. It's a familiar approach for the genre, but one that works well here.

Unfortunately, the enemies themselves are a little underwhelming. Many are creepy enough, particularly those that cry, groan, and make all manner of horrible noises as they shuffle towards you. The sound design does a lot of the work in making them unsettling. While the visual theory is interesting (the idea that your imagination does the work of what these monsters look like), their outlines and core principles are very generic. i.e., a sad howling dude, a big cockroach, or a big bloated sick dude that vomits on you. Many enemies boil down to shadowy figures, bugs, and dogs, which quickly became a nuisance.

I absolutely hated those bugs.

Combat can also feel unfair at times. Certain foreground objects obscure your view of enemies, making it difficult to judge their positions or anticipate incoming attacks. Some enemy telegraphs are difficult to read, too, occasionally leaving you taking damage when you're not entirely sure what you've done wrong. Thankfully, you can turn off screen shake and adjust other visual effects to make things more manageable.

Ultimately, combat does enough to serve its purpose. It doesn't have the depth or variety to compete with the game's exploration and puzzle design, but the weapons feel good to use, and the encounters are generally enjoyable. I'd have liked more enemy variety and a fairer approach to some of the visual cues, but the fundamentals are solid.


Survival horror that respects your time

One of the things I appreciated most about Silver Pines was how well it balances its difficulty. I played on Tense, with the difficulty set above the standard experience, and generally found it well balanced. You need to be mindful of your resources, and there are moments when you'll have to consider whether an encounter is worth the ammunition you'll spend. However, the game rarely feels as though it's deliberately trying to leave you stranded.

I often relied on melee weapons and healing items to conserve ammunition, saving my firearms for situations where I genuinely needed them. This mattered most in the early hours, when my arsenal was limited, and every shell counted. Thankfully, exploring your surroundings usually turns up something useful. Resources aren't unlimited, but there's a satisfying balance between scarcity and generosity.

The vending machines are a particularly good example. They let you buy supplies when you need a little breathing room without completely undermining the survival horror experience. You still have to think carefully about what to buy, especially when you need that same currency to save your progress at payphones.

And I absolutely love that decision.

A single currency for supplies and saving adds an extra layer of resource management without overcomplicating the system. Do you spend your hard-earned cash on ammunition and healing items, or save it for a payphone? Sometimes you'll have enough to do both, but other times you'll need to prioritise.

On the standard difficulty, I found this balance fairly comfortable. On the harder settings, however, I was much more cautious, as ammunition became harder to come by and every expenditure felt more significant. There were times when I had to think twice about how often I saved, knowing the money could go toward supplies instead.

It's a lovely little system that makes your decisions feel meaningful without becoming a constant source of frustration.

Just as importantly, save points and storage boxes are sensibly placed, allowing you to manage your inventory without constantly trekking halfway across the map. The storage space is generous enough to prevent inventory management from becoming an unnecessary headache, too.

It's a small thing, perhaps, but these decisions matter. Survival horror is at its best when you're forced to make difficult choices, but not frustrated by an unbalanced survival experience.

Hellraiser: Revival, which occasionally made me question whether certain design decisions were meant to challenge me or annoy me, feels considerably more thoughtful. Its systems encourage you to consider your options without making the experience unnecessarily tedious, which goes a long way toward making the adventure enjoyable from beginning to end.

And Silver Pines nails the balance here.


Overall?

Ultimately, I absolutely loved Silver Pines. It understands what makes survival horror and Metroidvanias so enjoyable, bringing the two together in a way that feels natural, cohesive, and consistently rewarding.

The atmosphere is fantastic, the art direction is gorgeous, and the writing and voice acting give the world a wonderfully strange personality. Its central mystery might be a little predictable, but the eccentric characters and unsettling world kept me invested. The map design is excellent, with satisfying backtracking, meaningful progression, and plenty of secrets to uncover. The puzzles strike a lovely balance between being approachable and rewarding, while the resource management encourages you to think carefully about how you approach encounters and explore your surroundings.

Even when the combat falls short, with occasionally awkward encounters and underwhelming enemy variety, the overall experience remains thoroughly enjoyable. I'd have liked more enemy variety and a little more subtlety in how the central mystery unfolds, but these are minor complaints in the grand scheme. The strengths far outweigh the weaknesses, and I was consistently eager to see what the next area would reveal.

Silver Pines is easily one of my favourite survival horror games of the year, and one of the best I've played in the last couple of years. If you've been craving something that captures the atmosphere of Silent Hill, the eccentricity of Twin Peaks, and the satisfying exploration of a good Metroidvania, then this is an absolute treat.

+++ Fantastic presentation, art style and vibes
++ Great survival horror and Metroidvania gameplay combined
++ Great sense of storytelling and David Lynch weirdness
+ Great horror gameplay and exploration that respects your time (unlike Hellraiser)

- The twist is very predictable (but still fun to unravel)
- Lacking enemy designs
- Somewhat clunky combat

A PC copy of Silver Pines was kindly provided for this review