The Australian Classification Board has rated Silent Hill: The Short Message MA15+ and heavily detailed what the game is about. To the point it outlines a lot of the story.
The story details match those revealed earlier this year by DuskGolem after the game was first rated for PS5 late in 2022
It’s revealed that the game is a first-person exploration psychological horror set in an apartment building known as The Villa in modern-day Germany. The story follows a woman named Anita who is searching for clues that might tell her what happened to her lost friend.
If you’d like to retain any mystery beyond that about Silent Hill: The Short Message, I would advise you to read no further as this essentially lays out the entire plot, and the contents are potentially upsetting.
Spoilers Ahead
Below are the classification details for Silent Hill: The Short Message. They delve quite deep into the heavy theme of suicide and explain key aspects of the plot.
Rated MA15+ for Strong suicide themes, horror violence, and coarse language
An exploration‑based psychological horror game in which players control characters in an apartment building called The Villa in modern‑day Germany. The player assumes the role of a young woman, Anita, who must explore The Villa through first‑person gameplay in order to collect clues and uncover what has happened to her friend. Anita is exploring a bathroom environment which features a bathtub filled with bloody water, blood‑splattered tiles and a razor blade on a bloodied sink. Upon examining a razor, Anita experiences a flashback. In a cutscene depicted through a first‑person point of view, a voice yells, “This is all your fault! Bad things happen because of YOU!” and a hand holding the razor enters the frame.
The character’s left arm enters the frame with horizontal scars evident across the character’s wrist. The scene cuts to a black screen before the razor makes contact with the character’s wrist. The following shot features an image of the character’s left arm with old and fresh scars. In a cut scene depicted through a mixture of third‑person and first‑person shots, the player character stands on the edge of the building’s rooftop, looking down. It is implied that Maya committed suicide by jumping off the ledge of the rooftop.
The player character, in a distressed state of mind, speculates that she will never compare to Maya. Echoes of her mother’s abusive tirades are heard in the background as Anita prepares to jump and says, “Maybe I can be like her… Here goes…” In a first‑person shot, her feet are seen near the edge of the ledge before, in a third‑person shot, she steps off and begins to fall. Throughout the game, cutscenes depicting self‑harm and suicide are followed by black screens which feature white text encouraging players to seek treatment and help if they are at risk of self‑harm and suicide and to offer support if they see people around them struggling.
In the Board’s opinion, depictions of suicide and self‑harm within the game occur in the broader context of discourse exploring issues revolving around mental health which encourages players to seek help or offer support to those in need. As such, the impact of the depictions does not exceed strong in impact and can be accommodated within the MA15+ classification.
