The biggest question floating around Silent Hill f is perhaps one of the biggest spoilers that could be asked: how (if at all) is this game connected to the main series? How is Silent Hill f related to the titular town, related to the lore, and part of the overall canon?
Admittedly, the game actually doesn’t come out and tell you. However, in true Silent Hill fashion, it leaves a multitude of clues and information for us to uncover the game’s canon.
However, in order to understand the connection between these games, it’s important to keep an important tidbit of information in mind from the classic, Team Silent games: not everything is as it seems. Silent Hill f is no exception to this, especially not with the correlation.
My original theory going into the game was that the religion depicted was a Japanese sect of The Order, but it ended up being so much more intriguing than that. It ended up being so much better — fitting together with one simple item.
This article contains spoilers for Silent Hill f.
A Pull From the Classics
What is the White Claudia?
The White Claudia is a rare herb that’s native to Silent Hill, growing around bodies of water in a particular climate. The Order, the game’s main cult, has used this herb in countless rituals, inducing hallucinations in the consumer.
In the first game, you can find additional documents about the flower in the police station. In one, White Claudia is described as a “Perennial herb found near water. Reaches height of 10 to 15 inches. Oblong leaves, white blossoms. Seeds contain hallucinogen. Ancient records show it was used for religious ceremonies. The hallucinogenic effect was key.”
The first game also shows how the seeds of the herb can be made into a hallucinogenic narcotic drug, a red liquid called PTV. If you remember Lisa Garland, this is the drug that she had developed a crippling addiction to after treating Alessa Gillespie. We see her struggle prominently in Silent Hill: Origins and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, where it was used as a weapon against her so that she was forced to be complicit in The Order’s actions.
The drug’s spread into the community was accelerated by Dr. Michael Kaufmann, the lead doctor for Alchemilla Hospital. He was the main distributor and the one twisting Lisa’s arm into keeping her quiet with PTV. While reading through more police reports, we can find that he was responsible for having the narcotics officer and the mayor killed for opposing the drug (and by extension, the cult).
In Silent Hill 2 Remake, we can find the White Claudia again in a pure liquid form, used for the Bliss ending — a hallucination where James goes back in time to relive his past memories with Mary before her passing. This drug is quiet, yet crucial, so with it coming into play in Silent Hill f, it’s the perfect connection that we never saw coming.
Where is the White Claudia in Silent Hill f?
Hidden in Plain Sight
The raw, unprocessed plant version of the White Claudia can’t be found until about halfway through the game, when you get to Shu’s house. As the game has established by now, Shu comes from a family of doctors, ones specializing in herbal remedies in place of modern medicine.
So, their garden is filled with all manner of herbs and ingredients that are growing for their cabinet — but, tucked away by a foggy pond, countless White Claudias are blooming. It almost looks out of place, especially since it’s the only area where we see these flowers. At first, it looks like you’re standing outside Lakeview Hotel from the Silent Hill 2 Remake, but once you start to read and explore, everything focuses into clarity.
Going off the description in the first game, it’s very clear that these are the exact herbs that are being talked about.
The White Claudia was then carefully extracted by Shu’s family and made into medicine with a red hue. For Hinako, it’s her Red Capsule pills that slightly restore your health and sanity throughout the game. However, the ingredient is still a hallucinogen, and the game makes a point to discourage you from taking these capsules (at least to get other endings in New Game+).
How Does it All Fit?
Read Carefully, Read Everything
When you read several documents throughout Silent Hill f, many of them talk about an Exotic Herb (and a medical book on how to use it) that was brought to Japan from a foreign missionary in 1776 — it’s very easy to hypothesize this to be someone from The Order.
Here, the drug became known as Kakura-makakura, and it’s said to give consumers the ability to speak with divine spirits. However, in order to hallucinate talking with these gods, “one must first liberate one’s soul.” It even describes how the individual would fall into a state of unconsciousness, leaving them vulnerable to “malevolent spirits.” So far, it’s a perfect mirror reflection of what’s happening with Hinako.
More notes describe how Kakura-makakura is made by grinding up the seeds of Hakkokusou, described as “an extraordinarily rare herb” that requires a specific environment to grow, and is never really found in the wild. The anatomy picture of it depicts the same flowers in the Iwais’ garden, even nicknamed “the flower of the gods.”
Another document describes a patient’s clinical trial with the herb and how it didn’t do much for him at first. However, after some time, they started having strange dreams where they were talking to a different version of themselves. The concept of individual dichotomy, especially in terms of internal struggle, is so prominent in Silent Hill f that I was almost certain the clinical trial was of Hinako herself.
While the game doesn’t come right out and say that this flower is the White Claudia, it’s hard to ignore once you see the signs. In fact, once you realise what you’re looking at, the game takes on an entirely new meaning on top of what’s already going on.
It’s a simple yet genius way to incorporate original Silent Hill canon into a town on the other side of the world, even when you’d think that there’s no connection to the mainline games, yet that couldn’t be further from the truth.
After learning this, Silent Hill f becomes far more impressive of a title, doing so much subtle storytelling with just a small sliver of information from the first couple games. It’s as faithful as it is horrifying, and it makes the game just that much better.
- Released
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September 25, 2025
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Partial Nudity
- Developer(s)
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Neobards Entertainment
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