Silent Hill 2 evaluate: trustworthy remake understands the project

Silent Hill 2

MSRP $70.00

“Silent Hill 2’s remake is a trustworthy tribute to a horror traditional that hardly holds something again.”

Execs

• Detailed characters and world
• Improbable sound design
• Robust puzzles
• Redesigned boss fights
• Authentic story continues to be impactful

Cons

• Padded with backtracking
• Fight will get previous

After hours spent hiding from twisted nurses, I’m lastly prepared to flee Silent Hill 2’s Brookhaven Hospital. I frantically seek for a entrance door key within the foyer, however I discover one remaining physician’s word first. The journal entry ruminates on an sickness that’s taken over the small city, one which’s left its victims misplaced past the borders of actuality. The medical world is on the hunt for a treatment, however this physician questions if it’s actually a illness in any respect. Certain, their sufferers are misplaced in a world inside their head, however they appear at peace there — glad, even.

“So why, I ask myself, why within the identify of therapeutic him should we drag him painfully into the world of our personal actuality?” the author wonders.

That’s at all times been the important thing to Silent Hill 2’s horror, and it’s fastidiously preserved in Bloober Workforce’s trustworthy remake. The PlayStation 2 traditional is crammed with creepy monsters that can stalk anybody unwise sufficient to enter the city of Silent Hill, however that’s not the supply of its concern. The actual scary half is what lies exterior of town limits: a harsh world the place monsters roam free on two legs as a substitute of hiding within the shadows. Possibly it’s safer within the fog.

Whereas it might be an pointless venture, Silent Hill 2’s remake retains the unique’s haunting essence intact by staying true to its unsettling ambiance, off-kilter tone, and uncomfortable moments. It’s a respectful revisit that solely veers off track when it tries just a little too exhausting so as to add kilos onto a modern horror recreation. Even with some additional weight, the tortured story instructed right here is each bit as harrowing because it was in 2001.

New look, identical really feel

Remaking Silent Hill 2 isn’t any simple job. Although many video games over the previous 20 years have been impressed by the PS2 traditional, only a few have fairly nailed its really feel. It shares DNA with style friends like Resident Evil, nevertheless it’s a horror recreation that feels as otherworldly as its personal alternate universes. It’s eerie, antagonistic, and at all times simply sufficient off-center to maintain gamers off steadiness always. I used to be skeptical that anybody might pull it off, not to mention Bloober Workforce; psychological initiatives like The Medium have at all times felt indebted to Silent Hill, however they’ve by no means fairly hit the mark. Maybe sensing its personal shortcomings, Bloober dials in on the unique recreation to actually perceive what makes it particular and ship a remake worthy of its legacy.

The core continues to be the identical. It’s a survival horror recreation about James Sunderland’s journey to a foggy, monster-infested city in quest of his “lacking” spouse. All the set items, disturbing bosses, haunting music, and iconic cinematics seem as I bear in mind them, however with a contemporary sheen. That begins with a visible overhaul that trades in PS2 dreariness for Unreal Engine 5 realism. Although the unique launch derives its energy from its filthy textures, Bloober finds a brand new eeriness in its uncanny method.

Characters are extra painstakingly detailed, capturing extra bodily nuances from its top-notch solid. Characters like Angela profit most from that change; she’s extra manic when she’s wildly swinging round a knife, extra indifferent as she ascends a flaming staircase. Eddie is particularly haunting, with a rougher face and lifeless eyes that distinction along with his complete psychological collapse. Then there’s James, delivered to life by a well-cast Luke Roberts, whose unsettling nature is barely emphasised by upgraded animations. He sleepwalks via a number of the story’s most annoying moments, seemingly unphased by all of it, however he turns into an aggressive killer the second he begins wailing on a monster with a lead pipe. You’ll be able to really feel that one thing’s off about him nicely earlier than the reality of his quest is revealed.

The city of Silent Hill is extra realized right here too, with extra explorable areas round city. A ratty American flag hanging from a porch offers me a greater sense of who would possibly inhabit its properties. After I run right into a laundromat, I’m met with dingy washing machines that appear like they haven’t been cleaned in a decade. Regardless of having a contemporary sheen, Bloober works extra grit into each nook of the deteriorating city. It seems like a real ghost city, however one which’s nonetheless simply left of actuality.

Extra technical updates double down on horror. Whereas the unique launch is a lot scary, it’s extra on a psychological stage. The remake brings extra horror to the fray via darker lighting that hides monsters in shadow. The sound design particularly stands out, making a wall of unnatural sound that persists all through. When an enemy is close by, radio static erupts from my DualSense speaker. At first, I feel that it too clearly telegraphs approaching enemies. By the top, it turns into a supply of insanity. When it begins to crackle, it triggers a Pavlovian response in me. I’m all of a sudden activated, despatched right into a blind rage as I attempt to smash each enemy I can discover simply to make it cease.

After all, essentially the most essential a part of Silent Hill 2 is its fog. That’s so essential that its earlier remaster was closely criticized largely due to its modifications to its density. Bloober opts for a white wisp haze over the ashen haze of the unique. It might be contentious with nitpickers, nevertheless it works right here. It’s much less apocalyptic, nevertheless it’s nonetheless a thick wall that’s exhausting to see via. After I hear an enemy creeping close by, I’m despatched right into a panic as I battle to search out it via the noise. It’s nonetheless an oppressive mystical drive that lords over me, solely exhibiting me what it needs me to see and when it chooses to. I’m powerless to its virtually holy presence.

Gameplay overhaul

The modifications right here aren’t simply technical ones; Bloober offers the unique a serious gameplay rework too that brings it extra consistent with Capcom’s Resident Evil remakes. There are execs and cons to that method that create a transparent distinction into how the scope of big-budget video games has shifted between 2001 and 2024. It seems like writer Konami’s directive right here was to make Silent Hill 2 really feel like a contemporary recreation. Past the makeover, it’s a much bigger recreation with expanded fight, extra puzzles, and far bigger explorable areas. Whereas there’s nothing about these modifications that’s actively unhealthy, they don’t at all times really feel additive.

As an illustration, areas like Toluca Jail are expanded into sprawling mazes that take a number of hours to finish. Bloober typically justifies that progress with deeper puzzles that really feel consistent with the unique launch, even after they’re solely new additions. One has me discovering weights all through the jail and accurately putting them on a scale to unlock completely different doorways. One other has me matching snippets of poems about execution victims to make sense of their crimes. Each very a lot feels within the spirit of Silent Hill 2, reimagining it as a extra strong collection of puzzle containers.

What’s much less efficient is all of the backtracking that provides to the expertise. The remake takes round 14 hours to finish, which is a number of hours greater than the unique, however most of that additional time is spent working backwards and forwards between corridors to resolve puzzles. Brookhaven Hospital is particularly exhausting at occasions, as I spend loads of time making an attempt to recollect easy methods to get from level A to level B once more as I stroll merchandise again to the place it’s wanted.

Fight has an identical dynamic. On paper, it’s a terrific improve. It’s a tense third-person shooter that successfully creates pressure via useful resource shortage. Enemies like Mannequins may be unpredictable, skirting away from my bullets. If I don’t wish to waste my pictures on a monster that skitters into the shadows the second my flashlight hits it, I’ve to take my possibilities with close-range melee fight. That may be harmful, as a brief evasive dodge is barely so efficient in opposition to piles of limbs that erratically lash out.

That system does put on skinny ultimately, because the remake forces gamers into battle much more due to its tighter areas. Within the authentic, I might largely select to depart monsters alone if I so desired. I might let a nurse hold roaming Brookhaven’s halls, leaving a creepy impediment in my path. It’s extra crucial to clear them out right here, which reveals how few monster sorts the unique recreation truly has. I’m largely combating variations of the identical three monsters who turn into simple to take care of as soon as I do know their patterns.

It’s moments like that which deliver the folly of remakes like this into mild. The unique Silent Hill 2 works in addition to it does due to its dated design selections, not despite them. Its smaller areas and concise runtime hold the story shifting whereas providing simply sufficient to do between cutscenes. The remake, however, stuffs padding into that modern sequence. The answer to creating the PS2 recreation really feel trendy typically interprets to including extra “content material,” however what does killing 30 extra Nurses or backtracking Brookhaven for an additional hour or two truly add to the story? Some selections really feel extra about justifying a price ticket to new at the moment’s audiences than supporting the story.

There are many moments, although, the place the remake does add significant modifications. The most important instance is available in its reimagined boss fights, which make a few of gaming’s most uncomfortable moments much more visceral. Within the authentic launch’s most upsetting second, James fights a boss dubbed “Summary Daddy” — a sentient mattress that visualizes Angela’s sexual trauma by the hands of her father. That second falls a bit flat within the authentic, as James merely weapons it down in a bland sq. room. The battle right here is big by comparability. The beast chases James via a labyrinthian house, smashing via partitions like a rampaging bull. Angela’s ache feels extra tangible in that second, her father getting higher represented as the damaging, harmful drive he’s. Interpretive modifications like which might be the place recreation remakes can supply worth, persevering with a dialog with the supply materials as a substitute of speaking over it.

By the fog

On revisiting Silent Hill 2 for the primary time in years, I’m struck by simply how unflinching it’s in comparison with at the moment’s large price range video games. It’s by no means out to please gamers, just like the B-movie romp of Capcom’s Resident Evil video games. It’s an actively uncomfortable recreation that skirts the boundaries of sensitivity, one thing which will shock trendy gamers. However that’s not executed with out goal: A narrative in regards to the ugliness of humanity must be ugly.

Silent Hill 2 offers with deep-rooted trauma by assembly its characters at their lowest factors. James is a guilt-ridden antihero who virtually begs to be punished by the menacing Pyramid Head. We meet Angela within the midst of a breakdown as she struggles to course of grief in tandem with grotesque abuse. Eddie, who is bound to uphold the title of the story’s most controversial character, finds himself pushed onto a psychopathic path after years of bullying. Every character is screaming out in ache, even when it’s via their disassociated eyes. And we’re trapped within the fog with them.

The remake barely filters the unique’s most grotesque moments. A canine’s homicide is described in brutal element. James stays a loathsome worm of a hero. One puzzle has him wrapping a noose round his neck because it virtually appears like he’s praying he’s truly receiving his remaining judgment. Creepy Mannequins are nice for a soar scare, however these are the moments of lasting horror that can stick with me without end. The actual concern is that there’s no hope for redemption in a world of unimaginable ache, a horror that feels simply as suffocating because the fog of Silent Hill. Who would wish to survive in that place?

“There is no such thing as a therapeutic of thy bruise,” one word scratched right into a wall threatens. “Thy wound is grievous.”

Silent Hill 2 was examined on PS5.