There Was Worry Here. It’s Gone Now

Bloober Team knows how important Silent Hill 2 is. Konami’s 2001 survivor horror title, originally developed by Team Silent, means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. For some, it’s the quintessential psychological horror experience, one so important and resonant in its themes that even a change in font styles on a painted sign could tarnish the whole experience.

For others, it’s just that janky PS2 horror game that costs way too much money on eBay. For me, Silent Hill 2 was the first truly scary game I played, and while familiarity with the subject may mean I will never be as shocked or horrified while playing Bloober Team’s remake, it doesn’t ruin the experience. If anything, it may actually enhance it, as I learned during my three-hour hands-on preview with Bloober’s Silent Hill 2.

There are two different but distinct ways to remake a game. You could do a one-for-one remaster, changing nothing but the graphics and/or modernizing the controls but leaving the original level design, pacing, and gameplay intact. Then there’s the Capcom method (as seen in the most recent Resident Evils 2, 3, and 4), which completely reworks the core experience but maintains the story beats, themes, and vibes of the original. After roughly three hours with Silent Hill 2, I can safely say this game falls into the latter category, and the final experience is better for it.

James And The Giant Elephant In The Room

Silent Hill 2 Is Bloober Team’s Dream Project, And It Shows

Silent Hill 2 fans are vocal. A lot of online noise has been made about character redesigns and combat shown in SH2 Remake‘s pre-release trailers, and Bloober Team is aware of all of it. “We try to look at every comment we get,” Lead Producer Maciej Głomb said to me in response to a question about how the team has reacted internally to the online response.

”
We understand it.
Bloober Team consists of Silent Hill 2 fans. We are all hardcore fans.
If we were not doing this game, if it were some other studio, we would probably be those people on Reddit, on social media, just talking about and discussing the stuff that we’ve seen.”

It’s also been 23 years since Silent Hill 2 released, meaning that for many people this remake will be their first-ever introduction to the title. Inevitably this means there’s a need to balance the experience, to make sure that it is just as enjoyable for someone who has never played the game before as it is for those of us who never heal and keep checking Angela’s knife in our inventory, just to be safe. Bloober Team’s Silent Hill 2 does feel more modern as a result, but combined with pacing, puzzle, and massive level design changes, this works in its favor.

We knew we could not just copy it one-for-one… The
flow of the levels, we reshaped them and redesigned all of them mostly from scratch. I think we found a good balance between the memory of the original game, the atmosphere of it, the feeling of what the actual level was, and finding a way to surprise long-time fans of the series going into those levels, and give them more than they already experienced before.

And Silent Hill 2’s combat, so derided when shown off in videos, isn’t some massive swerve from where it was before in any way that ruins the experience. Monsters still hit hard and James is still pretty weak, and his ineffectual swings and clumsy dodges around enemy attacks made me feel just as vulnerable as it should have.

Yes, James can aim his gun now beyond simply standing in place and rotating left or right, but this is balanced well by a decrease in available ammunition and the behavior of the enemies themselves. New mechanics, like being able to break through glass and weak spots in walls, give melee weapons more use outside of combat, and when combined all these changes made up for a more unique experience than I was anticipating.

There Was Worry Here. It’s Gone Now

Silent Hill 2’s Remake Doesn’t Replace The Original

In the three hours I had with Silent HIll 2, I played from the beginning of the game on through meeting Red Pyramid Thing (that’s his real name, look it up) and I was pleasantly surprised by how surprised I was. Certain moments played out exactly as they did in the original, with the game’s opening minutes remaining practically unchanged.

Not very far into the descent towards town, however, it becomes apparent that this isn’t just going to be the same game again. There are new parts of Silent Hill to explore, with both wholly new locations and familiar-but-expanded ones. There are blatant moments where the game knows returning players are expecting one thing, and it gives them something else instead.

This isn’t a bad thing, and I’m honestly glad Bloober Team went in this direction. One thing we’ve learned from the now-decades of video game remasters and remakes is that they can often feel like you are just being resold the same experience again, often without the passion that made the original so intriguing.

In my Resident Evil 4 Remake review I spoke about this issue specifically, citing the lack of eccentric areas like the Ganado crane machine and questioning why we needed this when RE4 was already readily available. Konami’s Silent Hill 2 remake avoids this issue both because the original isn’t nearly as easy to get your hands on and by delivering such a different experience that it feels like more of a companion piece than it does in any way appear as if it’s claiming to be the “definitive” version of Silent Hill 2.

Quick
Silent Hill 2
remake facts:

• Will contain reworked versions of all the original endings, along with additional completely new endings for NG+ runs.
• The game includes a classic graphics mode.
• Robust accessibility settings for many of the game’s features, including a customizable High Contrast filter.
• I didn’t like the red haze on the screen that grows as you take damage, but you can turn this off in the settings mentioned above.
• I saw a quick animation of James taking out his map and making a mark on it after bumping into a door during gameplay.
• You can break the windows of storefronts and cars while walking around town, which is surprisingly satisfying and can lead to finding items.
• Running away from monsters is still a perfectly viable option, especially when you are low on ammo and health.
• The chainsaw returns!

Speaking graphically, Silent Hill 2 looks amazing on PS5. From the fog and wind on the streets to the shadows produced by James’ flashlight, this is definitely the most hauntingly beautiful Silent Hill has ever been. While I’m still not entirely sold on the giant zipper that’s been added to the straightjacket monster, everything looks appropriately disconcerting and grotesque.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of James’ SH2 Remake face redesign upon its first reveal, but it didn’t bother me at all while playing – nowhere near as much as hearing Angela correctly pronounce the word “Lost?” did, at any rate. By the time I met Eddie, I was just excited to see what changed and what didn’t, and that’s a feeling that stayed with me both while playing the game and long after.

We Live Inside A Restless Dream

What Do You Want Out Of A Silent Hill 2 Remake?

I can’t speak to what this game would feel like to someone who isn’t intimately familiar with Silent Hill 2 already, and I know I probably won’t be speaking for everyone who is when I say that I’m really, truly excited to play out the rest of Bloober Team’s take. The lack of an easily accessible way to play the original Silent Hill 2 is a games preservation issue, but it doesn’t mean that game doesn’t exist, and this remake isn’t trying to say it didn’t. If anything, playing the first few hours of 2024’s Silent Hill 2 felt like a celebration of the 2001 original, one clearly made by people with a deep respect for the source material.

The phrase “subverting expectations” comes with a lot of accumulated meaning. To me, there’s nothing wrong with subverting expectations when it works and when it doesn’t feel like it was done just for the sake of it, as long as you’re approaching the content with the right expectations in the first place. Don’t expect the same Silent Hill 2 again. Don’t think you know what’s around the corner, because it’s a different corner now, and there’s a desk where the corner was. There was a hole there, but it’s gone, and I’d rather see what comes next in that world than watch someone try to just make the same thing all over again.