Silver Pines Review

Silver Pines is a $24.99 survival-horror metroidvania from a five-person Swedish studio, and the reviews agree on the shape of it: an unusually confident atmosphere piece with a combat system that never quite catches up. If you buy it for the town, you will get your money back. If you buy it for the fighting, you will notice the seams.

This page is a synthesis of the published critic scores rather than a scored review of our own. Every number is attributed, and the Metacritic page lists the individual outlets.

The verdict in one paragraph

Buy it if you liked the loop in the first two Resident Evil games or the exploration in a 2.5D metroidvania, and you are willing to accept slow reloads, no crosshair and bosses that soak damage. Skip it if you need responsive action, because the combat is the one part of the game that most reviewers could not defend.

At ten to fifteen hours for a first run and roughly $25, the value argument is easy. The question is whether atmosphere is worth more to you than feel.

What the critics scored

The spread is wide but not contradictory. The perfect scores come from outlets that weight art direction and mood heavily; the lower scores come from outlets that weight combat.

What it does well

The art direction is the consensus strength. The game is rotoscoped and hand-drawn in 2.5D, with parallax layers that give the town real depth, and the lighting is restrained enough that a dark room actually needs your flashlight.

The soundtrack is diegetic: music comes from radios and jukeboxes inside the world, drifting between grunge, dream pop and industrial. Several reviewers singled out the voice acting, with one calling it good enough to shame productions with far bigger budgets.

The structure also earns praise. There is no forced tutorial, the town loops back on itself, and shortcuts you open stay open. That is the metroidvania promise, and it is delivered without a map that fills itself in.

Where it stumbles

Combat is the recurring complaint, and the specifics are consistent: no crosshair, slow manual reloads, menus that run in real time, and bosses that take a long time to kill relative to how little they change.

Performance is the second. Reviewers reported frame-rate drops in busy areas, and the flashlight battery drains fast enough that some players prefer to walk in the dark rather than burn charge. The pacing sags in the back third, and more than one critic described the boss roster as repeats.

Resource balance is deliberately hostile. Enemies do not drop loot, melee weapons break, and ammunition is finite, so a player who fights everything will run dry before the next vendor.

How it runs on each platform

The console versions are the same build, with no platform-exclusive content at launch. The Switch 2 version was reviewed separately at 90 and runs well on the current patch, though a progress-blocking bug existed before it was fixed — update before you start.

The Steam version carries a Steam Deck Verified badge, and the PC requirements are modest. The PS5 version runs at the same content set and carries the extra platinum trophy.

If you are choosing a platform, the deciding factor is portability rather than performance. The Switch and Switch 2 versions are separate purchases with separate save data, which matters if you plan to switch devices mid-run.

Who should buy it

Buy it if you play horror for places rather than fights, if you like rereading documents to solve a lock, and if you are comfortable being lost until you find the map for that district.

Wait for a sale if you bounced off the combat in the demo, because the demo's combat is the retail combat. Also wait if you are sensitive to frame pacing; the dips are documented and not fully resolved.

Skip it if you want a metroidvania with tight action. The exploration is excellent, but the fighting is the price of admission rather than the reason to come.

What the negative reviews focus on

Three complaints repeat across the lower scores, and they are specific enough to check against your own taste.

Combat feel comes first: no crosshair, slow manual reloads and menus that run in real time. Bosses come second, with several reviewers describing them as damage sponges that repeat rather than escalate. Performance comes third, with frame-rate drops in busy areas.

None of the reviews call the game unfinished. The criticism is about design choices rather than bugs, which is why the scores cluster in the 80s instead of dropping further.

How the game has been patched

The launch build had a progress-blocking bug that the team fixed, and one reviewer specifically credited the response speed. A later hotfix adjusted Cat Collar timing and Nightmare difficulty.

No lock code is known to have moved in either patch, which is why the codes hub still matches the launch build.

If you are starting now, update before you play. The patch notes are short, but the progress bug is the kind that costs a save.

How it compares to the games it borrows from

The studio's own influence list is Silent Hill 1 and 2, Resident Evil 1 and 2, Alan Wake, Max Payne, Twin Peaks, The X-Files and Jacob's Ladder. The game wears those references openly.

What it takes from Resident Evil is the resource pressure and the save-room rhythm; what it takes from Silent Hill is the fog and the town as a character. The metroidvania structure is its own addition.

Whether that blend works is the review in one sentence. Critics who wanted a new Silent Hill loved it; critics who wanted tight action did not.

Is it worth $24.99?

Yes. Ten to fifteen hours for a first run, roughly nineteen for completion, and a town that is worth revisiting for the second and third endings. The Deluxe Edition adds a soundtrack and artbook for seven dollars more, but nothing in-game.

For the numbers behind that judgement, see the how long to beat page and the Steam page for pricing and demo status.