Silent Hill f – Ending Guide: Hidden Truth
This guide shows the truth of the curse on Silent Hill f has hidden ending.
SPOILER WARNING: Do not read this unless you have completed the game or wish to spoil yourself on the true unspoken lore of the game! This Guide will explain to you the actual cosmic stakes of what is going on and the hidden truth of Silent hill f.
You will not find this lore anywhere else, but it is most likely the truth that even the devs hide from you, kind of.
The Deception
To start off you might be thinking this is about the main protagonist – It is not. It is about something so much worse it reaches cosmic proportions. Hinako is a side-character in a more dangerous conflict and so is Mr. Fox mask who, is not even a fox to begin with but rather a monster posing as one.
Few realize this, even after getting all of the endings. The truth of the matter is that Kotoyuki Tsuneki(This spells Kitsune but again this is a deception) is generationally cursed by… Inugami.
This face, is not vulpine, it is canine. These statues that you have seen the entire game – Are not foxes.
The Actual Story
Take this with a grain of salt as I’m not infinitely wise but how did this happen, where did it come from and why. Well the game straight up tells you without telling you in artwork.
Before we talk about those forms of imagery: You best start believing in mythological stories, you’re in one.
In the beginning, starting in the Age of the Gods there was once a terrible eight-headed serpent named Yamata-no-Orochi who sowed endless destruction, was generally evil and notably devoured eight maidens. So Susanoo, who already had been exiled from the heavens wandered the land and ask a woman for marriage turning her into a comb and killed Orochi by getting it drunk and then lopping off its heads in a cave. A cave that was then sealed and his story moved on. The seal, was a divine white bark tree of which the village gave prayer and praise to that kept the seal strong long after Susanoo had left.
Naturally religion gets muddied the longer time goes on and that is where we get to the Taira and Minamoto clan who fought during the the Heian period which, glossing over the entire Genpei war resulted in the defeat of the Taira who were killed, its remnants scattered and likely hunted and killed across the land. This brings us to Ebisugaoka a village where some of them hid and took up residence unable to leave out of fear of being killed, naturally no trade took place because of it so they had to use their tools to the absolute limit which got incorporated and eventually succeeded the white tree faith out of necessity to live.
This killed the white tree faith so much so that lightning struck the tree, splitting it right down the middle because the seal on Orochi weakened. This caused Inari themselves to come down and become a new faith to restrengthen the seal with a new religion – But, this is where we get into the super bad stuff. Remember those pieces of art? It all tells a story. A story of how the Taira not content with waning power struck a deal with the Inugami, killed their own pets in ritual sacrifice for the strength to kill Inari and proceeded to kill Inari despite not realizing what they do so that they might reap endless rewards and riches – This, is why Kotoyuki is so rich. The yokai tore Inari apart and the Tsuneki family stole Inari’s face while the Inugami possessed Inari’s corpse and the Tsuneki family knew endless prosperity.
Were It so Easy
In all of that you might’ve forgotten something. Endless prosperity? Wealth? Power? A new home to call your own? Well, with the tree destroyed and Inari ‘dead'(Killing a God is not so simple) – Nothing existed to hold back Orochi who started to wake up again and both the Inugami and the Samurai who killed Inari said in unison: “Oh no.”
With nothing to hold back Orochi the land would be destroyed. So the Inugami put a curse on the family as if killing their pets and then a literal god wasn’t enough – Sacrifice a maiden every eight years to the serpent, Orochi to satiate it and keep it content.
But that presents a question – What is an Inugami.
An Inugami, similar to the stories of kitsunetsuki(Kitsune who possess people) a dog spirit can do much the same, in this case its usually malevolent – not to say that they are – But this one certainly is. In the very end parts of the game you can see a flashback of when Hinako saved Kotoyuki and you’d think from the doctors report or what he has to say that he got possessed by the fox – But this is entirely incorrect. Here is what actually happened in the park scene – The Fox bit Kotoyuki because it knew he was a threat to the Inari faith and knew his bloodline was cursed.
Hinako, saved him from the fox and the locals killed it because they no longer believed in Inari. But Kotoyuki survived the mauling and the curse activated in the ambulance as he became infatuated with Hinako. He was always cursed. “The blood gushing from the womb… is the Shimizu.” The dark library even states that it was a Shimizu, Hinako was the pure maiden needed to feed to Orochi that the Clan Mandate speaks of you can find scraps of in the game.
But again what ‘are’ Inugami. An Inugami is nine times out of ten the curse of a dog that has been extremely mistreated and sacrificed, turned into a dog spirit that can then be used to bring wealth and power at the cost of morality, and your beloved pet, into a family. The Tsuneki family did this in a dark bargain to kill Inari and an Inugami mochi(one who has a dog god as a pet) is a family that is cursed by the Inugami constantly and forever threatened with possession by the dog looming over them. Again note murals of dead dogs strewn about around the samurai – they look NOTHING like Inari and Inari is the one who dies afterwards. And so this is the secret cult of the Silent hill f.
Hinako and the Present
But now we get to the present and what this actually means for Hinako and if you’re this far in I got news for you. None of the endings are good ones.
With Inari dead, the white tree faith dead and the Inugami fast on your trail to wifeing you up. Her whole life gets cursed because of the Inugami. Allow me to air out some confusion – your friends are already dead. Kotoyuki cursed them in the Fox game early on and killed each of them. Each of those dreamscapes are just you coming to terms with the fact that all your friends are dead. Rinko burned alive, Sakuko suffered a heart attack, you disappear at the start of the game last seen supposedly being spirited away and Shu’s presence is the strongest because even after he hung himself his spirit still held onto the belief that you might still be alive.
But the truth is Hinako is trapped in a horror far worse than any of them could have suffered. The pills that Shu gave her begin to blur her world with the otherworld as the Inugami curse isolates you, taunts you with your dead friends. You’ve been in a drugged out fugue state this entire time that Shu put you in.
And by trapped, I do mean trapped. The issue is that none of the endings are actually good. Ending 1. Sees you go psychotic and kill everyone around you after going psycho from the pills Shu gave you because you overdose – World presumably ends afterwards.
2. Hinako allows the ritual complete stripping herself of her past self near entirely and is successfully groomed by Kotoyuki(Who is possessed but its still kinda creepy) and eventually sacrificed to Orochi lest everyone just straight up die. I.e She is ritually murdered, and her identity is annihilated as she becomes the latest faceless victim of the Inugami Mochi. Oh and last note, the only reason Shu appears in this ending is because Shu is dead and you are for the most part in the afterlife after dying so he tries to rescue you one last time only to end up failing.
3. Sees you play rebellion and choose self-preservation – She does escape the curse – at the cost of everyone dying, or at least leaving – maybe its not discussed further. In this ending she runs away with Shu(Shu’s dead remember-So this is likely another version of Hinako going mad-Otherwise… where are the rest of her friends, hmm? Yeah this is a lot more grim than you think it is. The ending grants her wish for companionship only by trapping her with the ghost of her dead friend, Hinako chooses love and freedom, but is only rewarded with a terrifying, permanent delusion.) and Ebisugaoka explodes in geysers of death proving the entire curse was real. Orochi awakens and destroys the town and potentially the rest of the world with it. In simpler words – The Orochi Seal breaks because the required bloodline is broken, and the land is destroyed, leading to global catastrophe.
4. It was ALIENS!
5. What I like to call the ‘Lost in Silent Hill.’ ending or Ebisugaoka in silence. It is by far the bleakest ending of any game I have ever seen and thats saying something. You might think this was a good ending but notice that she did get what she wanted – In the worst way possible. She is stuck there FOREVER With the curse neither activated nor averted as she sits there in perpetual thought for all of eternity. Silent hills – Ebisugaoka in Silence. Silence – Silent. Hills – Ebisugaoka. This ending has you creating a whole new Silent hill as Hinako sits there for eternity with her alterself the curse having successfully split her in two so hard that its an ending of Perpetual indecision. Her desperate wish to “think” is granted. She is trapped forever in a silent, foggy Purgatory with her conflicting selves, her spiritual damnation complete.
Its nothing but grim in a no victory scenario of the curse. There was never an escape, only an illusion of one.
It was about far more than Hinako
The biggest question to ask is if the stakes are this high why aren’t the gods doing anything? Well, they are. Inari despite being physically dead roves around in secret, even as the cursed family spirit puppets its corpse. Those shrines you pray at give you stats, restore your sanity, produce Omamori for you to use. Jizo offers you the sword after seeing you are worthy, the old sins of the Taira purged from the Muramasa blade after its entrusted to you.
And… Amasterasu, Goddess of Sunlight comes down in an act of literal Divine Intervention to smear you into the pavement to try and stop the curse from permeating further and potentially wiping the floor with Kotoyuki to get Inari’s body back. Using what vessel? Sakuko. It states ‘Sakuko-like entity’ but even Hinako mentions: “Whatever it is… that’s not Sakuko.” She is correct that’s a literal GODDESS coming down to try and fix the situation. Using Sakuko’s body because she was a Miko and thus had the most divine connection to the gods since she really believed in the shrine and her faith.
She was always quoted as weird but even when her father quit the shrine she said she’d stay no matter what. She died, dedicated and it allowed Amaterasu to possess her body to take control of her corpse and try to take Hinako to Takamagahara(Heaven in Japanese tongue) but she looks messed up because not only is Amaterasu projecting herself into Yomi(Hell), but using a vessel corrupted by the Inugami that murdered her to do what she can. The suzu bell attack you get an achievement for not being hit by(Because it wouldn’t be lore accurate if you did get hit by it) is Amaterasu literally trying to cleanse you of the Inugami as well as all of your regrets and sin and wash you clean. You die because the evil part of you… literally dies and thats not how the game is suppose to go.
A suzu bell ring would Kill evil beings if used by them, hence why Sakuko is able to use it, she’s already dead and its a holy spirit using it. Amaterasu is sitting over here with both hands tied behind her back trying to ‘kill you’ otherwise she would use your face as a mop. There are two very specific phrases ‘Sakuko’ says to you:
“You’re not suppose to be here Hinako!”
“Lets go back… together!”
She is trying to reach you repeatedly and inferring you are not meant to be in hell. Go back. Go back where? Sakuko is in heaven presumably. Her corpse however is corrupted and filled with regret and anger due to what the Inugami did – twisting her body into something its not. Hence why her corpse will tear your heart out but the reality of whats going on is far above that.
If you don’t believe me, I provide you with one big point of evidence.
This is the Only fight in which Kotoyuki helps you because killing a god is quite frankly impossible and she’s not here to help, she wants to potentially incinerate you. The thing Kotoyuki wants most and his words as follows: “Heed my command as law and obey me! Begone!” He set up this whole thing to make you suffer and break mentally and its the ONE time that he steps in during combat to save you. Nevermind all the other times you died in the other world – just this one, where his prize is about to get obliterated because the Force of Order itself, the Principle of Amaterasu was about to do an act of purification to burn out the Inugami’s kegare (filth/corruption) from Hinako’s soul to save her. The fact that a divine power of that magnitude had to intervene confirmed that the stakes were existential—the gods were acting to prevent a cosmic war that would destroy both the mortal and divine realms, with Hinako’s ritual being the sole point of failure.
I dedicate a segment to this but nothing explains why Sakuko is like this in the other world than a literal cosmic justification. And the only reason Kotoyuki’s command works is because heaven and hell are forever separated – Yomi is Izanami’s domain, something Izanagi barely even escaped from himself meaning the gods are not all powerful if they aren’t in their own realm. Amaterasu does not belong and was thus expelled from the realm for the rest of the game – but damn if she did not try.
Additionally here I provide more evidence that this is an Inugami. Again note the dog statues, they are emaciated, starving, corrupted – They look evil and malevolent. Sure, Kitsune can be tricksters but only the Inugami can be generational and in a secret note I got during Lost in the fog difficulty explains something obscenely dark in one of the Scrolls of Welcome during the mural puzzle that I lost. And finally one last piece of evidence.
If you want to know who has it worse than anyone else – Its the women who came before you. The lost souls whove lost their faces due to the curse and being fed to Orochi. When you reach for the ‘Inari’ idol in the room they don’t collapse toward you out of malice or to scare you – but to stop you from dooming yourself. Its question whether Kotoyuki even believes the stories despite what he’s doing – possessed by the Inugami as he is.
End
In the end, nothing gets resolved and while its a story to be your own person – the reality is Hinako never gets that chance. Go mad, marry a groomer, marry a guy who gave you drugs or sit in silence thinking for eternity. It doesn’t sit well with me. I liked that there was a huge hidden plot during the whole game but… its a letdown after that much suffering bumped down from a 10 to an 8. Its a wild story. I’m not exactly a lore nut and not used to writing guides on anything but this is my take, feel free to use it, reference it, build on it, whatever. I just feel like people were being misled. I could be entirely wrong.
That’s all. Stay safe, and don’t you dare go hollow.