Silent Hill f Stairwell Puzzle Guide
Complete walkthrough for finding the Main Building 2F Stair Key at Ebisugaoka Middle School
When you reach Ebisugaoka Middle School, your first item of business is finding a way to reach its second floor. That will require you to find and retrieve a missing key. It's time to play detective.
Silent Hill f Stairwell Key Puzzle Overview
Your goal in this part of the game is to find the Main Building 2F Stair Key, which will let you enter the second floor of Ebisugaoka Middle School and progress further into the terrifying world of Silent Hill f.
The elusive Main Building 2F Stair Key needed to progress to the second floor
In every difficulty, this means you have to untangle the mundane problems of the school's vice principal, Matsuo, who's a great gardener but is absent-minded about everything else. The puzzle solution varies significantly depending on your chosen difficulty setting.
Story Mode
Guided experience with clear objectives
Hard Mode
More challenging with fewer direct clues
Lost in the Fog
Minimal guidance for experienced players
Story Mode Stairwell Puzzle Solution
Story Mode provides the most guidance for players who want to focus on the narrative with minimal puzzle frustration.
Step 1: Find the Note for the Vice Principal
Enter the office in the school's lobby and take the Note for the Vice Principal document off of the desk.
The Note for the Vice Principal on the office desk
You'll learn that the key you need is locked inside the desk's drawer, which makes it inaccessible to anyone besides the vice principal himself. Since he's probably been eaten by his undead students, we'll need to figure something else out.
Step 2: Locate the Student Note
From here, go further east and check out the single open classroom on the first floor. There's a crumpled ball of paper on the floor among the desks.
The Student Note found among classroom desks
Pick it up to obtain the Student Note document, where a future juvenile delinquent has written that the school's locks are so cheap that he was able to pick one with a hairpin.
Step 3: Retrieve the Hairpin from Rabbit Hutch
At this point, Hinako will note in her journal (but not out loud or in any other obvious way) that Sakuko left her bunny-themed hairpin in the rabbit hutch.
The rabbit hutch where the hairpin is located
Enter the schoolyard via the open window in the classroom. There are a lot of monsters on patrol out here on Story puzzle difficulty, including a giant and a few Kishimashi.
Avoid them and enter the rabbit hutch in the yard's southeast corner. You'll find the Hairpin in a basket on the floor.
The Hairpin sitting in a basket inside the rabbit hutch
Step 4: Unlock the Desk Drawer
Return to the office and interact with the desk drawer. Hinako will automatically use the Hairpin to pop the lock, so now you can retrieve the Main Building 2F Stair Key.
Successfully unlocking the desk drawer with the hairpin
Hard Mode Stairwell Puzzle Guide
Hard Mode provides fewer direct clues and requires more deductive reasoning to solve the stairwell key puzzle.
First Clue: Newspaper Article
The first key document on Hard mode is found in the west stairwell's 2nd-floor landing. There's a newspaper article tacked up on the wall that mentions how Vice Principal Matsuo raises award-winning chrysanthemums, which is apparently meant to amaze and delight the students.
Newspaper article highlighting Matsuo's award-winning chrysanthemums
Remember, it's the 1960s. People were easier to entertain back then.
Second Clue: Teacher Journal
A second clue is found in the school office. Pick up the open book on the empty shelves to obtain the Teacher Journal, where an anonymous teacher has complained that Matsuo has lost his keys and is making it everyone's problem.
The Teacher Journal found on empty shelves in the office
Finding the Key in the Schoolyard
This is all you get on Hard. Where might an award-winning horticulturalist have been when he dropped his keys?
Go out into the schoolyard via the open window in the first-floor classroom. There are a couple of big beds of blue and purple flowers out here, along with yet more scarecrows and a giant who's idle on the west landing.
You're looking for the big flowerbed with the abandoned watering can in front of it. Matsuo's keys are next to them. Pick them up to obtain the Main Building 2F Stair Key.
The Stair Key located next to the flowerbed with watering can
Lost in the Fog Stairwell Puzzle Solution
You get very little help on Lost in the Fog. You're only given a single clue, it's not where you'd expect it to be, and the rest is up to you to figure out from context.
Finding the Student's Prank Drawing
The only document in the school office on Fog mode is the Teacher's Journal, which informs us that Matsuo is kind of a dork. Insightful, but not terribly relevant.
If you check the students' shoe storage shelves in the lobby, however, one of them contains a new document: the Student's Prank Drawing. It suggests that Matsuo lost his keys outside again, potentially among the hydrangeas.
The Student's Prank Drawing hidden in shoe storage shelves
The prank drawing suggesting keys are lost among hydrangeas
Locating the Hydrangeas
The question then becomes: where are the hydrangeas? There's another subtle hint in the drawing: they're in a raised row of planters, rather than a flower bed, which means they aren't in the ground.
Use the classroom window to reach the schoolyard and make your way west. If you investigate the far side of the school's back walkway, you'll find Matsuo's hydrangeas are on the far side of the fence that's cut that walkway in half. The Main Building 2F Stair Key is at their base.
The Stair Key located at the base of the hydrangeas planters
Silent Hill f Stairwell Puzzle Tips and Warnings
Critical Warning: Schoolyard Danger
Regardless of your combat difficulty, the schoolyard becomes a scarecrow mosh pit the moment you pick up the Stairwell Key.
The schoolyard's remarkably quiet up until that point, so if you need to explore the yard for resources, do it before you take the key.
Once you've got it, run for the exit.
General Tips
- Thoroughly explore every room before attempting the puzzle
- Read all documents carefully - even seemingly irrelevant ones
- Pay attention to environmental details and character journals
- Take note of monster patrol patterns before entering dangerous areas
Difficulty Differences
- Story Mode: Direct objectives and clear progression
- Hard Mode: Requires connecting multiple subtle clues
- Lost in Fog: Minimal guidance with environmental storytelling
Video Walkthrough
Complete visual guide to solving the Silent Hill f stairwell puzzle on all difficulties
Mastering the Silent Hill f Stairwell Puzzle
The stairwell key puzzle in Silent Hill f's Ebisugaoka Middle School serves as an excellent introduction to the game's puzzle mechanics and environmental storytelling. By understanding how clues differ across difficulty settings, you can better prepare for the challenges ahead in this terrifying new chapter of the Silent Hill series.
Good luck, and watch out for those scarecrows!