Siren is divided into stages, each taking place in one of ten areas in the village of Hanuda, and organized chronologically in a table called the "Link Navigator".
In order to complete a stage, the player must accomplish a primary objective that usually involves reaching an exit point, subduing undead enemies called shibito, or finding an item.
Certain mission objectives require the player character to use items and/or the environment to distract Shibito from their activity, in order for them to achieve a goal.
The story of Siren is told through the alternating perspectives of ten survivors: students Kyoya Suda and Harumi Yomoda, professor Tamon Takeuchi, priest Kei Makino, teacher Reiko Takato, celebrity Naoko Mihama, hunter Akira Shimura, as well as visitors Shiro Miyata and Risa Onda.
These events are presented outside of chronological order as the characters try to both escape the town and find answers to what has happened in the three days immediately following the disaster.
"corpse people"), displaying severely damaged cognitive function, bleeding from the eyes, and violent hostility towards those not infected.
It is revealed that Hanuda, a strongly isolationist community due to historical religious persecution, follows a unique syncretic faith known as the "Mana Religion" which incorporates many Christian and Shinto traditions.
The senior figures of this faith, in particular the nun Hisako Yao, had attempted to call forth and appease their god Datatsushi (堕辰子) through the ritual human sacrifice of a girl named Miyako Kajiro who they considered holy for her psychic abilities.
When Kyoya Suda, an outsider who had arrived to investigate online ghost stories, accidentally stumbles on the ceremony, Miyako, unwilling to be killed, uses the momentary distraction he provides to flee and causes the ritual to fail.
The eponymous 'Siren' of the title, heard regularly all across the town throughout the game's events, is the Datatsushi's call, compelling Hanuda's residents to become infected by immersing themselves in the red water, thus creating the army of shibito.
They then go about building a nest to house the Datatsushi's corporeal form once it is summoned, as well as killing and converting any remaining humans left in Hanuda.
Despite Kyoya being able to slay the Datatsushi at the end of the three days, the story concludes with only Harumi escaping Hanuda alive and returning to the real world, as she is the only human in the town not infected in some way by the red water.
The game was developed by Project Siren, a team within Sony Computer Entertainment Japan consisting of employees that had worked on the original Silent Hill.
[10] IGN's reviewer Jeremy Dunham praised the originality of the concept, the use of Sightjacking, the graphics and the storyline, but criticized the difficulty level and the trial and error nature of the gameplay.