10 Video Game Facts That Aren’t True
3. Silent Hill Is Based On A Real Town
I’ll stand by that the 2006 Silent Hill film is actually, by video game standards, a more than reasonable watch. However, it changes some of the town’s history a little bit as part of its inspiration and that's where this so-called "fact" trips everyone up.
Director Christophe Gans based his interpretation of Silent Hill on the town of Centralia, Pennsylvania. In all fairness, it’s a great touch. Centralia today is a ghost town and, as of the 2020 census, is currently inhabited by five people total so walking around its streets at dusk is sure to feel like the spookiness of Silent Hill.
This is due to a coal fire under Centralia that began in the 1960s and still burns today. If you were to visit the town it's entirely possible to see smoke still rising out of the earth. For the film, this justified the fog of the original games.
However, since the film’s release there has been a lot of confusion and many news sources have claimed that Centralia is the real life inspiration for Silent Hill as a whole. Not true - it merely informed some of the changes for the film.
The video game version of Silent Hill is set in Maine and, whilst it takes inspiration from many different things, is not based on any particular location.