I’ve always been fascinated by everything to do with the "Silent Hill" universe ever since I saw the 2006 film directed by Christophe Gans and starring Radha Mitchell. For those of us who, at the time, weren’t video game fans but were film buffs, this was the easiest way to get into that world. From that moment on, I wanted to know more and wanted to play, but I never had a PlayStation. And, by then, the game was already a real relic of the past. So, it all remained at the level of interest and little else: I saw that some specialists had written academic articles on the subject and didn’t hesitate to read them. I was pleasantly surprised by the complexity of a game that had been entrusted to members of the Konami team who hadn’t had much success in their previous careers within the world of video games, the so-called ‘Team Silent’. Finally, thanks to the possibility of playing old games on our computers using emulators (whether this is legal or not, depending on the country), I was able to experience Silent Hill for myself. After playing it for a long time, I finally finished it on 4 April 2026, and the feeling was wonderful. It was so for two reasons: one more personal, to do with the gameplay experience and the game’s exceptional quality, and the other because an Egyptian-inspired element is introduced in the final section, which is what really interests us here.

Mason wanders through gloomy spaces that offer a sort of summary of all the places visited throughout the game. In one of them, Harry enters a room whose walls are completely covered in graffiti, from which hangs a golden Egyptian ankh that he must collect. For the moment, we know little of this object’s role within the game. Shortly afterwards, Harry finds Alissa Gillespie’s bedroom. To pass through the door separating this room from the game’s final stage, he must use a series of objects collected throughout Nowhere: the Amulet of Solomon, the Crest of Mercury, the Dagger of Melchior, the Disk of Ouroboros, and the Ankh. By using all of them together, Harry will manage to pass through this door of the five rites. Therefore, the significance of the ankh is only understood within the game if we consider it alongside these elements, which possess an evident esoteric significance in Silent Hill. A fanatical religious organisation in this town, ‘The Order’, performs secret demonic rituals. To introduce this ominous atmosphere, the game’s creators drew upon the magical, symbolic, and malevolent significance often attributed to the Egyptian civilisation in popular culture through the use of the ankh.
If you haven’t already, enjoy Silent Hill.

Author: Abraham I. Fernández Pichel