For the third year in a row, I’ve been scared out of my wits by a new Silent Hill game. First it was the modern remake of Silent Hill 2, then the Japan-set spinoff Silent Hill F.

Now I find myself slowly crawling through a quaint Scottish town in Silent Hill: Townfall, trying my best not to get brutally murdered by demonic creatures chasing me through the streets. It’s been a remarkable turnaround for a franchise that once seemed like it was on life support.

And when you combine it with a strong run from Resident Evil across games and film, you have gaming’s two biggest horror franchises both at the height of their powers. For Resident Evil, it’s been a steady buildup, but it really started with Resident Evil 7 nearly a decade ago.

It jolted the series back to life with a first-person perspective that made its scares feel more visceral. Since then, Capcom has settled on an effective strategy of alternating between bottom-up remakes of classics like Resident Evil 4, and new spins on the formula, like the vampire-tinged Village.

This has allowed the studio to be more experimental with the mainline titles; this year’s Requiem, for instance, was a bold attempt to merge two types of Resident Evil games together, mixing straight-up action with first-person terror. Resident Evil has always had an uneven track record when it comes to adaptations, like the largely forgettable live-action Netflix series.

But that may be changing. Last week a reboot of the film series premiered, called simply Resident Evil, helmed by Weapons director Zach Cregger.

It explored the zombie franchise from a new viewpoint: Instead of following iconic characters like Leon or Claire, it was centered on a hapless delivery driver who served as a stand-in for a player who is terrible at survival horror games. Like the Exit 8 movie, Resident Evil explores its source material through the lens of the player.

The result was equal parts hilarious and horrifying — there were scenes where gore dripped from ceilings, and a particularly terrifying long-limbed baby — and it also had the best box office opening in franchise history. Silent Hill has followed a similar trajectory, albeit on a smaller scale.

After lying largely dormant following the 2015 cancellation of Silent Hills, a reboot led by Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro, Konami signaled a return for the franchise with a series of announcements in 2022. Not everything has been a winner — a film came out earlier this year with little fanfare, and the less said about the bizarre interactive TV series Ascension the better — but when it comes to games Silent Hill has been on a roll.