The Silent Hill 2 remake, developed by Bloober Team and published by series originator Konami, had a Herculean task before it. Any time such a beloved classic is subject to the remake treatment, it inevitably opens itself up to unfavorable comparison. That’s only been worsened by the remake’s marketing, which has consistently misrepresented the game’s focus and nature, and you have a recipe for disaster.
I’m of the mind that a remake can never fully replace an original. No matter how clunky the original’s combat, how stilted its voice acting, how blocky its graphics – and no matter how flashy the remake – I maintain that there’s always value in seeking out and playing the classics, especially something as groundbreaking as Silent Hill 2. (And sometimes, the clunkiness is the point.)
The best thing a remake can do is build on the original. Instead of attempting to offer an experience that’s equivalent, or worse, better, it should attempt to be similar, but distinct, to offer something new, whether it’s your first or your fiftieth time playing. Admittedly, it’s a tall order, but it’s one that the Silent Hill 2 remake delivers surprisingly well. I may not always agree with the choices it makes along the way, but it managed to impress me, surprise me, and leave me wanting more at almost every turn.
Silent Hill (Almost) Exactly As You Remember It
The SH2 Remake Gave Me Déjà Vu
It should come as no surprise that all the plot aspects of Silent Hill 2 are left completely intact in the remake. It’s the same horror story fans are surely familiar with: James Sunderland gets a letter from his late wife urging him to come back to Silent Hill, a small lakeside retreat where they once spent a pleasant vacation. But he finds only a ghost town, shrouded in fog and populated almost exclusively by twisted monsters. As he searches for Mary, he descends deeper into his own fear and guilt, eventually coming to face some uncomfortable truths buried deep within his own psyche.
This is backed up by pitch-perfect presentation across the board. The Silent Hill 2 remake nails every aspect of the original’s creepy atmosphere: the dreamlike voice acting, the Dutch angles, and the thick layer of fog that blankets it all. Silent Hill looks gorgeously grotesque in 4K. All the big set pieces, from the opening sequence in the cliffside parking lot to the long row across Toluca Lake, are stunningly rendered, and leave a lasting impression of terror and angst.
The Silent Hill 2 remake does replace fixed camera angles with a more standard third-person point of view. The original version uses these forced perspectives to create dread: you can never really see what’s coming around that corner until the game wants you to. The remake instead utilizes impenetrable darkness and some clever tricks of enemy AI to the same effect. James’ flashlight is weak, and always seems to flicker when you need it most. Sometimes, you’ll spot a monster in the corner of your eye for just a fraction of a second, before it darts away and hides.
Akira Yamaoka, the original game’s composer, has also returned for the remake, and all the skin-crawling creaks, scrapes, and scratches sound just as dreadful as ever. The haunting sound design is supported by an immersive new system of haptic feedback, in which the controller rumbles as Pyramid Head drags his knife around on the floor above you, or pitter-patters lightly as you walk through the rain.
In short, the Silent Hill 2 remake strikes the same perfect balance between creepy atmosphere, moral quandary, and emotional honesty, making excellent use of the PS5’s hardware in order to do so. I found myself moved by the same elements of the story and terrified by the same dark corners as I always have been.
The only major difference is that there are two new endings in the remake, and I can hardly fault Bloober Team for wanting to expand in that direction. I barely even noticed the otherwise miniscule changes, which mostly just consist of rearranged story scenes – necessary to preserve the pacing in this slightly longer take on the Silent Hill 2 story.
The Silent Hill 2 Remake Demands Your Attention
Remixed Puzzles & Story Elements
When I first started the Silent Hill 2 remake, the well-executed familiarity of its opening chapter lulled me into a sense of calm. By the time I had completed the long walk into town, muscle memory took over, and I started following the same route I’d always taken in the original version. But I quickly noticed that something was awry: I hit a roadblock I had never seen before. I had to fix a broken jukebox before I could pick up the apartment key.
This is probably the single biggest change made by the remake: the broad strokes of its puzzle-solving are the same, but the details are totally different. You’ll still be setting grandfather clocks in the Wood Side Apartments, but you’ll have to find all the hands first. The order in which you explore certain rooms has been rearranged, and some story beats take place in slightly different locations.
The
Silent Hill 2
remake also has a couple of new sets of collectibles, but these don’t add quite as much to the experience as the reimagined puzzles.
This had a fascinating effect on me: it forced me to pay attention to the remake in a way that wouldn’t be possible when replaying the original for the thousandth time. Without knowing the answers, I had to study the maps carefully and relearn all the bosses’ new movesets. The result was that I experienced Silent Hill 2 with a heightened intensity, almost as if I were playing it for the first time again.
The new puzzles aren’t all good – there are more of them in the remake, and that does cause it to drag in some places. In particular, the Brookhaven Hospital and Toluca Prison segments went on a little longer than I would’ve wanted them to. They do reveal some extra lore tidbits, but these weren’t always worth the effort – learning of the hospital director’s own declining mental health didn’t really add anything to my experience. Even so, these detours are generally brief, and the action always picks back up shortly after.
The Silent Hill 2 Remake’s Combat Is Different, But Effective
No Complaints Here
Combat has probably been the single most controversial aspect of the Silent Hill 2 remake. A heavily edited trailer from earlier this (via PlayStation), dubbed the remake’s “Combat Reveal,” presented it as a stock-standard third-person shooter, with James running and gunning down Bubble Nurses as he leapt between buildings. Many bristled at the idea that a game like Silent Hill 2 would need a “Combat Reveal” in the first place – its clunky combat sends home the idea that James is, at least physically, an average Joe thrust into a world of horror beyond his comprehension.
But rest assured, the combat is every bit as challenging in the remake. Sure, it’s a little snappier, and the enemies move a little faster. But James doesn’t have any fancy new maneuvers: if anything, his aim is worse. You really need to stand still and time your shots carefully in order to avoid depleting your strictly limited ammo reserves. When enemies hit you back, they hit hard, and you have to dash away and recover quickly (while also rationing your healing items) to stay alive.
The difficulty extends to boss battles, too, which I found harder than in the original Silent Hill 2. The bosses seem to move significantly faster, and getting a shot in is much tougher. Enemies I had defeated easily on my first-ever playthrough took me several tries this time around.
Honestly, the biggest complaint I can dredge up about the combat is that the camera movement is a little wonky. When James uses a melee attack, the camera lurches forward violently with him, making it easy to lose the enemy he’s targeting in the chaotic whiplash. But in practice, that only adds to the challenge, reflecting James’ anguish and panic as he’s wracked by the physical manifestation of his own guilt.
Final Thoughts On Silent Hill 2 Remake & Review Score
8/10: A Pleasant Surprise On All Counts
In an October stacked with incredible horror releases, Silent Hill 2 stands out. Not just because of the brand recognition (though it is strong), but because of its deft handling of its difficult subject matter and psychological horror presentation. The Silent Hill 2 remake is filled with great reverence and care for its source material. Absent a modern remaster, this is a perfectly suitable way to experience Silent Hill 2 for the first or the fiftieth time.
It’ll never replace the original, but the Silent Hill 2 remake has enough new to offer that it deserves its place in the series canon. In faithfully recreating the original game while providing new surprises for returning players, it justifies not only its own existence, but also the viability of a large-scale Silent Hill revival. If this is the start of a longer collaboration between Bloober and Konami, I look forward to what comes out of it next. For now, you can find me starting my second playthrough of Silent Hill 2.
The
Silent Hill 2
remake releases on October 8, 2024, for Windows PC and the PlayStation 5 console. A digital PS5 code was provided to
Screen Rant
for the purposes of this review.