Return to the town synonymous with fear that has influenced pop culture for decades! Find out more in our Silent Hill 2 Remake Review!

Silent Hill was Konami’s 1999 answer to survival horror. After Capcom’s hit release of Resident Evil, the original Silent Hill team created a new form of fear. Their idea was based around psychological themes and fear of the unknown instead of straight up terrifying creations. That isn’t to say there aren’t any here but sometimes the scariest thing is our own imagination.

“In my restless dream, I see that town”

After many sequels, spin-offs, and even a few movies, Silent Hill is back with a remake of possibly the most celebrated entry, Silent Hill 2. Whilst the last main entry was over a decade ago, the team at Bloober Games, known for the relatively recent game Medium, has given this classic a full-blown makeover to kick off a new age of horror. However, does this misty town retain the element of surprise, or is this remake just smoke and mirrors? Find out in our Silent Hill 2 Remake Review!

Silent Hill 2 Remake Review – Story

Not dissimilar to the Resident Evil franchise, every entry into the Silent Hill games are generally separate, aside from the fact they all take place in the same titular town. In this second outing you play as James Sunderland who is searching for his missing wife. Here’s where things get a little spooky, his wife Mary died 3 years prior, yet James only just received a letter from her asking him to come to Silent Hill and find her.

Nice day for a stroll in the woods!

The game immediately sets the tone as you wander from a highway through a misty forest to reach the outskirts of the town. After finding his way through a storm in town and the creepiest apartment block known to mankind, you run into someone that seems familiar, Maria. You meet her on a pier next to a garden where James had expected to find Mary, and whilst she insists she doesn’t know who James is looking for, Maria reminds him too much of his wife that he misses dearly.

James just likes a girl with a choker, spicy boy…

Maria then joins James through a hospital where they try to rescue a little girl named Laura, who doesn’t think she’s in any actual danger. However, in the brief conversations James has with her, it’s apparent that she knows something about Mary and he’s determined to find out what. Their journey goes from bad to worse as Maria has some unfortunate luck and James finds himself deep underground in an abandoned prison.

Usually it’s a lot harder to find nurses in real hospitals.

Hunted by grotesque creatures and his own internal demons James must battle his way to freedom. For those of you who have no idea how this story turns out (like myself) then not all is as it seems and this will leave you guessing right up to the very end/s. Whilst the overall story is the same, returning players will get new scenes that expand upon James and Maria’s relationship enhancing one of the few endings you may find yourself in.

Need some window cleaner action here.

Silent Hill 2 Remake Review – Gameplay

A lot of survival horror games give you increased opportunities to upgrade or receive better weapons. Here it is mainly your wit and the limited ammo you can find against a horde of nightmarish creatures from another world. With a pistol and shotgun for the bulk of your adventure and a rifle in the third act, there isn’t a whole lot to work with, leaving you balancing supplies and trying to dodge incoming attacks from enemies.

Batter up!

You do have a melee weapon that gets upgraded once through the story and whilst going one on one is pretty manageable, you will run into trouble if you face more enemies in a single encounter. These mechanics have all been enhanced in this remake to take on a more fluid approach with the combat, puzzles and enemies all completely overhauled. Boss encounters have also been refreshed offering a good challenge for each of the half a dozen or so unique baddies. Puzzles are quite intense for the unvitiated with players having to piece together what they need to do on their own with only scraps of paper lying around a your handy dandy map.

The end stats even highlights how often you looked at the map, which some may be ashamed how many times they got lost.

Silent Hill 2 Remake Review – Graphics

Are you afraid of the dark? Well you’ll find a lot of that here in Silent Hill. As you progress through the game, it gets darker at every turn and not just thematically. By the time you reach the prison, it’s so dark that even with your flashlight it’s incredibly hard to see. This heightens the original idea of unknown horror as you are constantly in a heightened state on the lookout for the next surprise attack.

Hide and seek isn’t a game you want to lose here.

When you aren’t looking into the abyss, Bloober Team has done an incredible job of bringing these old areas to a new level of clarity and grittiness. Every mould spot, dirt patch and blood stain is remade perfectly for next generation gaming and fills the world of Silent Hill with a much creepier aesthetic. They have also added breakable elements to the world, which can offer a fresh source of critical items like ammunition and health packs.

This wasn’t even as dark as other levels, some you could barely see the flashlight in front of you!

With the enemies getting a fresh and bloodier new coat of hi-res pixels, the same can also be said for the small cast of characters. James has quite a few close ups and not one suffers a miss, making this look like it’s made by a triple AAA studio with top notch motion capture faces. He doesn’t act like a boring old everyman now, here he has emotions that is clearly shown, especially in the big reveal towards the end of the game.

Those hair particles though.

If you weren’t aware, this isn’t the first time Silent Hill 2 has been re-released, with a HD collection being made available on PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2012. This featured Silent Hill 2 and 3 with some mixed results, mainly that of the fog surrounding the town. Due to incomplete source codes and odd particle effects, the developers at the time had trouble faithfully porting these games leaving Silent Hill looking not as spooky as the original. If that HD remaster went in one direction then Bloober Team has gone the complete opposite, showcasing an incredible about of foggy detail and pitch black levels to leave us wondering what is lurking just out of sight.

If you want some comparison to the original, check out this video uploaded by one of our other reviewers, WindyCornerTV.

Silent Hill 2 Remake Review – Audio

The only thing scarier than facing down otherworldly entities is hearing them but not seeing them. Screams, metal scraping, chainsaws and banging are just some of the intimidating sounds you’ll hear making as your palms turn white from holding your controller too tight. Monsters also make less than ideal noises but are loud enough to make sure you have at least a split second to react to a surprise attack.

An iconic video game villain…

One of the most anxiety-inducing inclusions to the game is the radio, this alerts you to the presence of nearby enemies (ones that aren’t deliberately hiding of course). This is enhanced even further for PS5 players as the radio white noise comes straight out of your controller, just in case you needed a little more realism. Each voice actor does a great and believable job for each character, from the cheeky little Laura, timid yet destructive Angela and the seemingly innocent but volatile Eddie.

So, come here often?

As this period of gaming was released in the 90s, some of the soundtracks in important story beats and at the end of the game have some classic rock vibes to go with it. Featuring guitars and spooky themes, these songs are an ode to the survival horror theme of that place in time.

Silent Hill 2 Remake Review – What Else?

Any Silent Hill fan knows that most entries into this series have several endings, one of the good things about having non-related sequels. In Silent Hill 2 there are a total of 8 endings to discover with two of them being brand new, albeit they are arguably pointless. Three are available for your first playthrough depending on puzzle choices and certain interactions, whilst the other 5 must be done in New Game Plus.

Hopefully he found a cure for the T-Virus…oh wait wrong survival horror game.

In order to get the Platinum or all achievements, players must obtain all different endings along with a few more difficult tasks like not using guns for a whole playthrough. This is made easier in New Game + by picking up the chainsaw at the start for some long overdue payback.

The real horror is global warming, don’t forget to recycle, kids!

Silent Hill 2 Remake Review – Conclusion

Some may make comparisons to Resident Evil or even Dead Space but these are generally based off themes where the good vs the bad. Silent Hill’s psychological route offer a more nuanced approach to storytelling and whilst the horror survival aspect is similar, the tone, characters and outcomes are not so black and white. With more meaningful connections between the characters and faithful yet improved gameplay system, this remake perfectly encaptures Silent Hill at its core.

I really mist walking down these streets…

Team Bloober have somehow managed to increase the tension that the original Team Silent founded down all those years ago. Carefully editing out the most frustrating parts and upgrading it to suit modern audiences whilst still giving returning fans something new to encounter. Some sequences and puzzles may feel slow or deliberately cumbersome but there are great accessibility options for all types of players to help makes things easier. This is the ultimate way to play a Silent Hill game for everyone and whatever comes next in this series will find that the Silent Hill 2 Remake is a tough act to follow.

So, why should you play Silent Hill 2 Remake?

• Fantastic horror aesthetic
• Incredible graphics and great quality of life changes
• Deeper story elements

But why shouldn’t you play Silent Hill 2 Remake?

• Some puzzles may slow players down
• Newcomers won’t find any explanation of the town itself
• Don’t enjoy scary games

A review code was kindly provided by Konami for the purpose of our Silent Hill 2 Remake Review.  You can check out our other reviews here and if you haven’t already, be sure to join the Qualbert Discord to find out about the latest game and review updates!