This article has a talk page!This page details bugs of Silent Hill.
Results Items Count Errors#
The results of the save have issues related to the count of items.
The first is about the general items collected. Official game guides dictate that the items sums points for the star rating by determined amount of items collected through the playthrough, however, what the game actually does is summing points by each 15 items that the player collect.
(Source: Original TCRF research)
The second is related to the special items count. The player can only unlock 6 special items (Hyper Blaster, channeling stone, katana, chainsaw, gasoline tank and rock drill), however, due a weird faulty code the results screen reads part of an unrelated value. The game uses a single bitfield variable of 5 bits for storing both special items count and the assigned Hyper Blaster's beam color, the first 3 bits store the special items count while the last 2 bits store the color of the beam, however, the result screen code reads the first 4 bits meaning that it will take the special item count and the first bit of the Hyper Blaster's beam color, so in case of having unlocked the yellow color for the Hyper Blaster then the first bit will flip up and that is going to be counted by the special item counter. Even if the player doesn't unlock any special item by default a value of +8 will be assigned and in case of having all items unlocked it will be +14.
(Source: Original TCRF research)
The second error was later fixed in the Japanese revisions and the European version.
Invincible Bug#
There have been some reports of rare occurrences where the Harry becomes immune or doesn't react to attacks.12
Break Triggers with Inventory#
, a movie, a reimagination and a remake looking for his daughter when he could have just walked a few blocks away to found her 💀]] It is possible to break some of the triggers by opening the inventory or map as soon as the player get in one of them. The most noticiably cases of this are at the beginning of the game, where, in case of performing the bug in the triggers that returns Harry to the main route that Cheryl took, the player will be able to freely roam and even find Cheryl.
Watch on YouTubeIn other cases, the player would be able to corrupt the game graphics by applying this in the lockers' jumpscare and softlock themselves at the alleyway of the beginning in case of applying the bug at the trigger of the cutscene where Harry founds a corpse.
Romper Collisions Bug#
Watch on YouTubeThe Romper grab attack can cause the collisions to behave incorrectly making the player be able to get on top of places or clipping through walls, this bug can happen during normal playthrough in cases where the Romper grabs the player too close to a wall, however, there is a way to keep the broken player's collisions with the Romper grab attack. In Central Silent Hill, the player have to go to the Green Lion Pawn shop, just before the entrance wait for a romper to appear and as soon as Harry get grab the player must move forward to get inside the entrance.
Watch on YouTubeThis bug has been used by speedrunners as this allow them to fully skip the Twinfeeler boss and there is an crazier skip that allows to completely skip the entire Central Silent Hill section of the game. As soon as the player reach Central Silent Hill they should trigger the bug, then go back to the bridge that leads to Old Silent Hill, there get on top of the railing by moving forward in a specific spot of the bridge, then go to Old Silent Hill (still over the rail), then move to the concrete railing, onces there snuck in a little space between the metal and concrete rails, in case of success the player will now be at the same level as the floor, then move to the north and reach the sewer entrance, then use the debug save and lastly load the save. However, this bug is not used in speedruns as the step of sneaking in between rails incredibly harder to perform and in case of failing the player will fall through the bridge and die.
Item Interaction Save Glitch#
Watch on YouTubeThere are some cases reported of a strange behaviour where after making an interaction with an item the save menu pull out.
This behaviour is cause by a function that constantly checks for a value in a variable use for interactions with items, likely under really specific circumstances the value that the function is checking get assigned triggering the save menu.
(Source: Silent Hill Decompilation Project)
Cybil Boss Skip#
Watch on YouTubeThe North American and the initial Japanese release versions contains a bug that allows to skip Cybil's boss fight without starting it. The player have to throw the unknown liquid to a Larva Stalker, then cutscene where the parasite that is taking control of Cybil leave her will trigger with broken animations, beyond that scene the rest of the cutscene will play correctly.
The cause of this bug and the reason that makes it slightly inconsistent is due to faulty checks. When throwing the bottle the code ask if the loaded overlay is the one where the boss fight occurs (which load as soon as the player reach Lakeside Amusement Park), then checks if the first loaded NPC in memory is inside a determined distance from the player, however, the code does not checks if the NPC is Cybil so as long as the player is throwing the bottle to the first NPC loaded in memory the bug get triggered. This was fixed in later Japanese revisions and in the European version by adding an additional check asking if the first NPC loaded in memory is Cybil.
(Source: Silent Hill Decompilation Project)
(Source: "Version Differences" by Aaron)
Sequenced Audio Bug#
If you skip the in-game opening cutscene with Harry in Old Silent Hill ("Cheryl. Where could you be?") at a specific frame, strings will start to play that are not meant to be heard until the first Otherworld shift in the Finney St. alley. The strings will fade out after a few seconds. (This bug, which could affect speedruns, was tested on Japanese Rev 2, which likely means that it is probably present in all versions of the game.)