‘Silent Hill’s unsettling soundtrack was always meant to give you nightmares

Silent Hill’s revolutionary soundtrack changed video game music forever. Released in 1999, the psychological horror romp charged you with guiding main protagonist Harry Mason through the haunted, cult-ridden town of Silent Hill in an attempt to track down his missing adopted daughter. READ MORE: AI, vinyl and indie supremacy: what’s shaping video game music in 2026? While the music of Resident Evil 2, Dino Crisis and other scary ‘90s PlayStation titles focused on high-energy getaway anthems and booming jump scares to get under your skin, Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka wanted to do things a little differently. “What I was trying to evoke wasn’t simple fear. It was a sense of psychological unease – the feeling that something is wrong, even if you can’t explain exactly what it is,” he tells NME. Taking influence from industrial rock, ambient music and film sound design, his creeping, subtle compositions were peppered with radio interference, unexplained mechanical noises and delicate textures that sometimes barely sounded like music at all. “I didn’t really feel like I was taking a risk,” he says. “But looking back now, maybe I was.” ‘Silent Hill’ composer Akira Yamaoka. CREDIT: P...