Unless you’ve been living under a rock, it’s safe to say thatthe discourse surrounding Bloober Team’s take on Silent Hill 2 has been polarizing, to say the least.
Initially announced in 2022, the Silent Hill 2 remake has been simultaneously one of the most anticipated and loathed projects in recent years, as the very thing it set out to remake is one of the most iconic survival horror games in history. Bloober Team, whose track record largely focused on narrative-driven horror projects, had the unfortunate distinction of falling into a very specific profile that had previously plagued the Silent Hill franchise for years:
- They were a distinctly Western developer, and similar studios had a notoriously negative history with the Silent Hill franchise. So much so that, after the release of Silent Hill: Downpour in 2012, the mainline series effectively went into a decade-long hiatus after a number of failed follow-up projects.
- They were handling Silent Hill 2—the very sameSilent Hill 2 that would go on to definethe series and survival horror games as a whole in the gaming zeitgeist.
So, how did they do? Did Bloober Team really find a way to reintroduce one of Konami’s most culturally pervasive games to a modern audience? Did they successfully step outside their comfort zone to reinterpret one of the most iconic survival horror games in history? Did they fall flat on their face?
Return to Silent Hill
In Silent Hill 2, you are James Sunderland: a quiet, mysterious man who finds himself drawn to the strange town of Silent Hill after receiving a bizarre letter. It’s from James’ wife, Mary. The thing is, Mary is currently deceased, having died three years prior.
In my restless dreams, I see that town. Silent Hill. You promised you’d take me there again someday. But you never did. Well, I’m alone there now… in our ‘special place’… waiting for you.
Upon entering the town, James finds himself at the center of a supernatural journey, battling monsters, solving puzzles, and forging connections with the few “friendly” faces he can find within Silent Hill. Though the town looks fairly normal upon first arriving, things slowly take a turn for the worse. A strange, otherworldly presence gradually takes hold of the town’s streets. Drywall turns into rusted fencing, flooring becomes dilapidated and dirtied, and the rules that govern reality fall away for surrealistic terrors and grotesque environments. Is it all in his head? Or is all of this real? For James, all that matters is finding Mary.
It’s a great setup, and it’ll carry you from the game’s humble beginning to its terrifying end. Luke Roberts (Holby City, Black Sails) does a fine enough job translating Guy Cihi’s esoteric performance as James into something less dreamlike and more grounded. Salóme Gunnarsdóttir, Gianna Kiehl, and Scott Haining also do a fantastic job in their respective roles as Maria, Angela, and Eddie. They’re not one-to-one replications of what came before, but the personal touches they give their respective performances make for a cast that feels more down-to-earth as opposed to being more surreal. Some may argue that’s a downside compared to the original game’s detached, Lynchian atmosphere, and it’s a valid critique to note. In the context of the remake, at least, the more naturalistic performances felt appropriate.
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The length is a bit much. The actual story beats are fine as they are, replicated wholesale from the original game, and they even benefit from some additional scenes to flesh out the cast further. But you definitely feel the length at points if you’re at all used to the original game’s pacing, largely stemming from some new additions to the game’s main areas. Thankfully, repeat playthroughs cut down on the playtime substantially once you figure out what to do and when. We’ll get into the nitty gritty of that in a bit.
It’s worth mentioning that Akira Yamaoka, famed composer of the original Silent Hill games and other fantastic titles, returned to remaster the original game’s soundtrack and add additional compositions. Just like before, it’s absolutely stunning. The new compositions fit in seamlessly, and existing tracks’ remasters even feature subtle changes to keep your ears perked up. Are they better than their original versions? It’ll come down to preference, mostly.
Graphically, the game looks pretty stunning, too. There were a few framerate dips when playing in Performance Mode on PlayStation 5, and the game’s cutscenes are seemingly locked to 30 FPS regardless of your choice of Quality or Performance Mode. But otherwise, it was a fairly stable ride throughout. Silent Hill and its nightmarish locales, along with its grimy monsters and troubled residents, look absolutely gorgeous in this modern rendition. The shift between reality and the Otherworld is all the more prominent here, with the game’s cinematic presentation really shining throughout its most unsettling moments.
But how does it play?
A Modern Makeover
It’s different. That’s for sure. Like before, the game features two separate difficulty options: one for combat and one for puzzles. You’re free to adjust either one as you wish, though you’re locked into your choice for the game’s duration.
In lieu of fixed camera angles, Silent Hill 2 opted for a more contemporary over-the-shoulder camera with a claustrophobic field of view and a short flashlight to boot. This is the biggest change brought to the table, as the original game’s use of a somewhat fixed camera for both framing crucial events and eliciting specific emotional responses has now been supplanted by freely looking around. It’s a pretty fundamental change. The entire game has been adjusted to accommodate this shift in presentation, even extending to how you fight things.
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Gone are the days of having multiple melee weapons to use; instead, you’re now restricted to a single blunt weapon with a total of three firearms to collect. A single button swings your blunt weapon, whereas you can aim and shoot your current firearm separately. You also now have access to a dodge, which will become immediately useful in dealing with how aggressive enemies have become. The returning radio also plays loud static whenever you’re in close proximity to a potential enemy.
Famously, the original Silent Hill 2 wasn’t very difficult. At least, not as difficult as other games in the series. Ammo was plentiful, enemies were mostly easy to circumnavigate around, and the game itself is fairly straightforward to get through once you accumulate some prior knowledge. Not so here.
For the sake of transparency, I played on the “Hard” combat difficulty. I was legitimately surprised to see just how much punishment enemies can dish out and take in equal measure. Any of my first encounters with a brand-new enemy took me a good four to five tries just to nail down their attack patterns, and even then, I’d still occasionally flub my dodges or get too greedy with my attacks.
Speaking of enemies, the classics are all here, albeit with some additional tweaks to accommodate the new camera angle.
- Lying Figures: Horrifying, armless beings that expel gross bile from their carcass-like body. Their name applies to how they move around as well. Though they shamble around on both legs, they can also drop to the floor and slither across the pavement at incredible speeds.
- Mannequins: A little more cunning than the Lying Figures, Mannequins are seemingly formed by two sets of legs meeting in the middle. They’re also incredibly sneaky. You’ll rarely find them walking out in the open, as they instead opt to hide behind corners or under pieces of furniture.
- Nurses: Arguably the most iconic (and deadly) of the monsters you face, the Nurses are twisted, perverse recreations of medical staff with oblong, bloated bubble heads.Wielding metal pipes, they can interrupt your attacks to counter with their own seemingly at random.
There are a few other surprises in the bestiary, but we won’t spoil them for you here. They’re surprises, after all.
Puzzles weren’t spared from some significant alterations as well. While some do make a reappearance in some form or another, Bloober Team opted to stuff Silent Hill’s coffers with several brand-new puzzles to tackle. While not completely divorced from reality, they feature enough surreal edge to force some creativity out of you. Puzzles that were ultimately omitted from the game occasionally reappear in a handful of small Easter eggs, at least.
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In fact, much of the original game’s progression underwent a similar treatment. Familiar landmarks and otherwise prominent items or areas are still available in the remake, though they exist in the form of the aforementioned Easter eggs. You’ll hear a music cue and be treated to a unique view of what you found whenever you find one. It was fun to see which ones I could find, as some are more intricately hidden than others.
What isn’t as fun is the complete absence of the scoring system. The original four Silent Hill games ranked your performance based on a set of specific criteria once you successfully completed them, netting you additional rewards and bragging rights if you ever grabbed the fabled 10-Star rank. In the remake, it’s completely gone. You get two additional endings here that allow the narrative to shine, but a lack of in-game rewards for playing well dampens some replay value. Even the Resident Evil remakes opted to keep some form of a ranking system.
I wouldn’t usually fixate on that sort of thing, but it’s a pretty substantial staple from the original four Team Silent games. Hopefully, it’ll reappear in the near future.
James Sunderland’s Terrible, Awful, No Good Day
Is the remake a direct improvement over the original game? I’ll be diplomatic and say no, I wouldn’t say so. I can understand how many would feel the opposite way, however.
How combat is handled in Silent Hill 2 feels like a pendulum swinging in the opposite direction. Combat in the original game was practically nonexistent if you weren’t playing for ranks or aiming for a specific ending: it was just as easy to run past anything that you’re not locked into a room with as it was to brain something to death with a stick. Here, the exact opposite is true.
Combat is not only prominent, but it’s what you’ll be doing for most of the game. Combat is everywhere—you can’t really avoid it anymore. Enemies chase you through doors, and the environments you navigate are tightly packed outside the town’s streets. Combined with the additional length, enemies are also as common an occurrence as stepping on concrete cracks or tripping over your own shoes. There is a lot of combat here, and it presents an issue.
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The limited bestiary does admittedly sour the experience a bit. Again, the actual act of fighting things isn’t necessarily bad. It’s functional and even really satisfying. But the sheer amount of times you need to engage with it versus solving puzzles, for instance, tones down the horror into something a little more mundane. Imagine trying to solve a cryptic riddle after blowing a hole in a Nurse’s head and stomping on them systematically about half a dozen times in three minutes beforehand. Thankfully, the resource management required to do something like that becomes much more involved on Hard. Rarely would I ever use my ammunition unless I felt I absolutely had to. Even then, I’d only have about one full spare magazine max for any gun at any time.
The game’s bosses saw a significant shake-up as well due to how combat has been fundamentally changed. The iconic first battle with Pyramid Head, the bona fide face of the Silent Hill franchise, no longer places you in a cramped, flooded stairwell with the chance to be instantly killed. Instead, it’s a more traditional arena gradually smashed apart by Pyramid Head’s massive weapon of choice.
The Abstract Daddy, meanwhile, saw a significant revamp that gradually interweaves cinematic storytelling into the battle. I won’t necessarily say if these changes are good or bad; rather, I think that they’re more appropriate for the direction that the remake is taking.
In general, You could argue that the original game’s arcade qualities have been nearly completely eschewed in favor of something that more closely resembles the kind of big-budget, narrative adventures that dominate critical reviews and commercial sales alike. It’s not as if this isn’t done well, mind you. It’s nothing short of unreal to see the many iconic scenes of Silent Hill 2 brought back to life with unprecedented detail. The commitment to using cutscenes exclusively instead of relying on a mix of pre-rendered video and in-engine animations certainly helps. If there was a game that could benefit from such an elaborate makeover, it would’ve been this one. Aesthetically, it’s unmatched, and it continues to be what most associate Silent Hill with as a general concept.
It’s just a shame that there isn’t more enemy variety here when you really dig into it. Sure, peering around corners for a loose Mannequin is creepy and all, and finding them in the most unexpected places still gets your goat every now and then. A careful balance needs to be struck, and I feel it isn’t being landed consistently enough. At least in something like The Evil Within, another third-person over-the-shoulder horror game with lots of combat, there’s a level of complexity in its encounter design that’s explored much more thoroughly in comparison.
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Enemy variations do, thankfully, give the game a unique edge over its predecessor. On Hard, the mere sight of an upgraded enemy is enough to put me on edge, let alone in the few instances where they’re seemingly playing dead. Sure, James is more physically capable than before, but he’s not Kratos. Getting double-teamed or surrounded is a quick way to meet an early death, and barring a handful of instances where you’re given checkpoints, that means you’re booted all the way back to your last save.
Should You Buy Silent Hill 2?
I had fun with Silent Hill 2. Really, I did. I never had a significant connection to the game it was remaking—heck, I would even consider it to be one of the weakest of the original four games made by Team Silent, just in terms of gameplay. But that’s not to suggest that my overall feelings towards the remake are negative.
I think a big part of why this game, in particular, drew such a significant response from either end of the critical spectrum is because of that weird placeSilent Hill was in as a franchise for so long.To quote The Sopranos, it was that “pygmy thing” from Konami. It was a franchise that, for the longest time, had been shopped around to a different developer with almost every single successive entry—the studio that made Downpour, mind you, made a single game for Konami only a year prior. They also went bankrupt and shut down the year it came out.
Then came P.T., short for “playable teaser,” that would’ve kickstarted the series into a brand-new direction under the guidance of the prolific Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro, of all people. It was nothing short of a viral hit. It looked incredible, and the atmosphere was absolutely terrifying. The eventual reveal that it would’ve led into Silent Hills—with Norman Reedus starring as the game’s presumed lead—meant it would’ve been one of the most highly-anticipated horror games in years.
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Then Konami’s relationship with Hideo Kojima blew up, which meant no more Silent Hill for almost a decade.
As someone who enjoys the Silent Hill games without necessarily being too attached to them—in terms of aesthetics or actual gameplay mechanics—I find the remake to serve its purpose well. It’s a stepping stone, in some ways, for those who’ve never had readily available access to the series and for the series as a whole after nearly skipping an entire console generation.
Yes, Silent Hill 2 is worth getting if you fit into the former category. It’s less of a remake and more of a remix of what came before, leaning more into the traits that really seemed to resonate with most of its player base as opposed to the more niche elements that, while still appreciated, haven’t spent as much time in the limelight. If you’re the type of person who loves doing repeat playthroughs for a better rank, maybe wait for a price drop instead. The novelty of a remix is still fun, but maybe not for $70.
Silent Hill 2 is currently available on both Steam and PlayStation.
Rating: 4/5 Stars
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