If you're into horror that gets under your skin and hangs there, Silent Road is an upcoming game you'll want to keep an eye on. It leans into everything fans love about Japanese psychological horror. Instead of throwing constant scares at you, it builds tension slowly. It's the kind of horror that makes you uneasy before anything actually happens, and that's exactly why it works.
In Silent Road you play as a night shift taxi driver roaming through a remote part of rural Japan. On paper, it sounds simple, but the game twists that routine into something constantly unnerving. The empty roads and quiet stretches of night driving all combine into an atmosphere that feels off right away. Even just cruising along with nothing happening makes you wonder what's waiting around the next bend.
You can feel the Japanese horror influence everywhere. Silent Road focuses on mood over raw jumpscare tactics. The silence. The slow pacing. The idea that something might be wrong even if you can't see or hear anything. Fans of Silent Hill will immediately pick up on that style. The game doesn't rush to scare you. It lets the dread build naturally, and that makes every little detail feel important. A shadow on the side of the road or a flicker in the mirror is enough to make you tense up.
The passengers you pick up are where things really start to get strange. Every person who steps into your taxi seems just a little off. Some talk in vague, unsettling ways. Others avoid direct answers. Sometimes they just act weird enough that you start questioning what they really are. Even when nothing dramatic happens, the way they behave makes the ride feel uncomfortable in the best horror fan way.
Then there are the moments when you need to step outside the car. Walking around in the dark brings a different kind of tension. The places you visit have that classic Japanese haunted feel to them. Quiet forest paths, unsettling apartment complexes, and dim streetlights all work together to make you feel like something terrible happened there long before you arrived. The environments don't need to throw monsters at you. They're creepy just by existing. This adds more to the tension that the game wants to constantly build with you. You're just a taxi driver, but the horror here is about the environment and the people in it.
Silent Road clearly gets what fans of Japanese horror look for. It wants to keep you on edge by making the world feel starkly abnormal. Because of this, small things matter much more. A passenger breathing too quietly. A shape in the trees that you're not sure you really saw. A sudden sense that the road behind you isn't empty anymore. Eerie.
That commitment to slow, atmospheric horror is what makes the game stand out. There aren't many modern horror titles that take this approach anymore, and Silent Road looks ready and able to fill that gap. It feels like a return to the kind of creepy folklore-tinged horror that made the genre so memorable in the first place.
If you're a fan of Japanese horror, especially anything that calls back to hayday of Silent Hill's eerie vibe, Silent Road is one you may want to look out for. According to its trailer, it's purposely unsettling and full of the kind of moments that stick with you long after you stop playing. There's no release date announced just yet, but you can now wishlist the game on its official Steam page.
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