Review: Silent Hill 2 (2024) adds another layer of interpretation

How to recreate a story that lives in interpretations?

In “Lost Memories: Silent Hill Chronicle”, a lengthy document published by Konami and Team Silent in 2003, the developers wrote that the original did not have a canonical ending Silent Hill 2which yields four main conclusions depending on your actions. Many of the narrative subtleties about the characters, the town beyond the cutscenes, and the scattered notes found throughout the game took on different meanings to different people. After more than two decades of existing fan theories and meticulously researched wiki pages, the story of James Sunderland remains a hazy amalgamation of fiction.

And now here’s Bloober Team Silent Hill 2reinvented in line with the norms of the gaming industry’s current zeitgeist. Even after the Resident Evil remakes paved the way for this possibility, it’s still weird. Initial trailers featured a familiar but modernized presentation, featuring an over-the-shoulder camera and faster, more standard combat. After the announcement was made, the developers at Bloober Team assured every interviewer that it would be faithful to the original to the highest degree – even some members of the original team involved in the remake wanted more changes, but were turned down.

During my first playthrough, which lasted over 17 hours, I could feel the designers’ hesitation as to what to change on the walls of each rusty corridor. As you can tell from my playtime, many of the original areas have been expanded compared to the 2001 game (which was about 10 hours long). The things you love are mostly still there. But there are a number of changes, some subtle, some bold, that challenge this familiarity, making for an intriguing return.

As early gameplay streams seemed to indicate, some encounters – such as the first sighting of the monster in the tunnel – were changed. When you interact with certain locations and objects, the game plays a scratch animation with a specific musical cue. I won’t mention any other examples because they are fun pockets of nostalgia that are worth (re)encountering. However, the overall conclusion drawn by some of the new text entries and collectibles is that the game does indeed rely on the assumption that you have already experienced the events of Silent Hill 2 at least once, both from a story and almost meta perspective as a returning player.

I’d love to tell you in detail how it all turns out in the end, but I can’t. First, review embargo restrictions prohibit me from covering the two new endings; I can only mention their existence. However, I couldn’t describe them anyway because I didn’t get any of them on my first playthrough – instead it was the “Maria” ending. Talking to peers who also had access to the game before its release, these additions continue to be discovered and discovered as other people progress through New Game Plus and try to find new types of collectibles. Someone has probably already seen them, but the details won’t (or shouldn’t) be revealed before the game’s release.

The Silent Hill 2 the remake doesn’t quite go well Final Fantasy 7 Remakeboldly reimagining classics to expand the narrative into uncharted territory. James continues to delve into the same core areas as the original. The ending of “Maria” remains (more or less) identical. The remaining endings are puzzles to solve, adding scattered, puzzling elements for returning players to find, incorporating the story’s outcomes into the existing list. But beyond the scavenger hunt experience of finding these endings, there are some fundamental changes to the base game that both expand on and, in some cases, soften what came before.

In terms of gameplay, my biggest concerns about playing this version were the camera and overall atmosphere, which go hand in hand. There’s a reason the original’s fixed angles were a staple. Walking down a dark hallway towards the camera, not knowing what’s in front of you until it enters the frame or the angle changes, has always been terrifying. The environments themselves, such as the iconic Toluca Prison, thrived in the technically limited conditions of the PlayStation 2 era. Changing the perspective to a shoulder camera means being closer to everything and having the freedom to explore the areas, but I was concerned that it would fundamentally change the oppressive tone of the original.

Fortunately, this is far from the case. The Silent Hill 2 the remake does a great job of suffocating you with a new perspective. Although you can now choose where to look at any time, enemies can still sneak up on you, and the mannequins perform all sorts of peekaboo interactions – much like the stalkers in The Last of Us, Part 2hiding behind furniture and sometimes running away from you after being spotted to find another unexpected location. Changes to movement, such as having connected rooms without doors separated by a loading screen or spaces to crawl or squeeze, can also be exploited by enemies.

Talking about darkness in a horror movie may sound trite, but it’s an aspect that the remake captures from the original to triumph. James’ flashlight can only illuminate so much of the screen, and the flickering of that flashlight, which – like the original – alerts you to moving enemies alongside radio static, is terrifying whenever it momentarily leaves you in a pitch-black room filled with monsters. Sometimes their presence can be a bit too much, which at best helps to cause anxiety, such as listening to the constant crawling of the Spider Mannequins until you take them all down or move them somewhere else, and at worst it’s an annoying reminder that the remake has a modern combat system, and the designers introduced more encounters to justify this.

In terms of story, most of the cutscenes show changes. When it comes to new character likenesses and voice acting, your mileage may vary. The original game’s campaign, while charming, has been improved, although the way the cast reads the lines is a bit stilted and somehow feels faithful. However, some of the actual story scenes depict a more drastic change.

Silent Hill 2like the series as a whole, it contained mentions of sexual abuse, suicide, and depression, among others. In the Bloober Team version, a notice appears every time you start the game, including a QR code that takes you to Konami’s website with a list of resources. However, some of the most disturbing images or direct mentions of these topics during dialogue (especially around Angela, Pyramid Head, and Mary’s videotape) are now more subtle. Considering Bloober’s track record in games like Mediumwhich, to put it mildly, has handled these topics poorly, these changes sound like a warning not to repeat the mistakes of the past. None of these change the story per se, but it’s an interesting decision in context Silent Hill 2. There’s a reason to actually revisit tropes and depictions that haven’t aged well, including recent cases like Deluxe Dead Rising Remaster. However, in the case of Silent Hill, reducing the impact of certain moments can cause some of the loosest narrative details to lose weight as the story is put together.

But here’s an example of the opposite that turns out to be surprisingly unique: James’ interactions with Maria when she joins up. Yes, this falls into the AAA trope where an NPC companion can’t enjoy peace and quiet for more than five minutes. But Maria’s new interactions and dialogue fit. He comments on certain places and your actions with a fun and flirty flair that serves the character well. The ability to dive deep into the details of the Heaven’s Night strip club while also watching a new cutscene are additions that bring substance. These are fleeting, small moments in the grand scheme of rhythms from the main story that add a steadier presence without being intrusive.

This subtlety is present in Silent Hill 2 remake as a whole. Some of the scariest elements of the original are those that cannot be seen or understood at first glance. Repeated whispers, footsteps in the prison, the occasional scream of an unknown person. Everyone was stoking the tension without having to say it openly. The designers behind the remake retained these elements, understanding that access to better technology doesn’t have to mean constant spectacle. You can now see the rust and mold of Silent Hill in 4K resolution, but the higher fidelity doesn’t make any of the locations more inviting.

It’s an interesting time worth returning to Silent Hill 2considering the original has been in a state of abandonment for years and the only remastered version available isn’t great. In the official sense, a remake is a current retelling of history. It is a faithful interpretation of the events that took place, capturing most of the important and minor moments of history, while at the same time refining some of the details in between. However, considering the legacy of the original game over the last 23 years, it’s hard to imagine Silent Hill 2 the remake will also be able to recreate this, allowing fans to spend decades discussing new endings and narrative additions with conflicting analyses. At least it will be another fantasy to theorize about.

Silent Hill 2 will be released on October 8 on PlayStation 5 and Windows PC. The game was reviewed on PlayStation 5 using a pre-download code provided by Bloober Team. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased through affiliate links. Additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy can be found here.