videogameblog

(remake)

"You see it, too? For me, it's always like this."

I didn't want a Silent Hill 2 remake. Every time a trailer would play at a games showcase, I'd audibly groan at the sight of James Sunderland dodging like a Dark Souls (2011) character. To make things worse, the remake was being developed by the infamous Bloober Team. I've never enjoyed any of their games, and (still) actively dislike them as a studio based on what I'd heard about their handling of trauma in The Medium (2021). They really seemed like the worst fit to adapt a story with central themes of trauma and guilt. To my surprise, they managed to put together a decently competent remake of Silent Hill 2.

The most evident alteration in the remake is the switch from fixed-camera to over-the shoulder. It sucks. Fixed cam provides complete intentionality to where the camera is in a scene, giving the devs tonnes of creative expression. It's so scary in the original to walk into a room and hear 3 enemies making unfathomable sounds slightly off-screen. Without the ability to move the camera, you're forced to walk in further. It feels like the remake attempts to emulate these feelings in some ways, most notably with the 'mannequin' enemy. Once mannequins spot you they'll run into a room and try and hide, forcing you to walk in without knowing where they are. This kinda works - they were definitely able to catch me off guard a couple times. However, knowing 'there's precisely 1 mannequin enemy in this room' is nowhere near as scary as 'i have absolutely no idea what is infront of me right now until i walk directly at it'. Also, the mannequins are TERRIBLE at hiding!! I'm sure it's intentional but sometimes I'd walk into a room and they'd be posed up behind a shelf like this.

I'm really glad there was a 'retro' mode in the settings that turns off the UI entirely. In the original, you could only find objects/interactables based on James' (the player character) head turning to look at them. This was a great stylistic choice - it provides a level of connectivity between player and character that other games aren't really able to. When the only way to interact with the game world is through the slight movements of the player character, you feel alot more involved in the space.

The changes made to combat are definitely the most egregious. Areas in the original game were sparsely peppered with occassional enemy encounters to keep the player on edge. Systems were as bare bones as possible, the auto lock-on did all the work for you. All you had to do was press the attack button and hope you did more damage than the enemy could. It felt unpleasant - a feeling only heightened by the strange passive-ness of enemies. Alot of the time you could just run past them, so engaging in combat felt like a concious decicion made by the player to attack and kill. They'd likely be doing this to 'clear a path' through an environment. Killing a living being purely because you think they're 'in your way' is something James is all too familiar with...

Combat in the remake has been gamified to hell. You dodge, learn attack patterns and button-mash to throw enemies off of you. James is no longer an average guy who might have gone to a shooting range once or twice - instead he's fucking Doomguy. You'll bludgeon an enemy with a pipe with enough force to knock them over and scream with rage as you do, killing them and then quickly 180ing to blast another one with a shotgun. It doesn't feel nearly as unpleasant as the original and fails to capture the feeling at all. It's clear these changes were made to make the combat 'fun' but it wasn't supposed to be! They didn't make it like it was by accident in the original. Enemies are everywhere and extremely aggressive, forcing combat on the player with pretty much every encounter. There's no questioning if you need to attack anymore; if you don't they'll jump on you and force you into a QTE.

Puzzles have undergone some pretty heavy workshopping; Alot of the more unforgiving ones (horseshoe/lighter/wax combo) have been removed, and replaced with more accessible sequences. This would be fine if the new puzzles weren't so fucking easy! I breezed through Brookhaven Hospital, Toluca Prison and Lakeview Hotel without checking a guide (which I had to do countless times in the original) or being 'stuck' for longer than 5 minutes. The solution is always staring you in the face. I regret not choosing the 'hard' puzzle difficulty, but the original had me scratching my head for hours on normal.

The voice direction is so, so boring in comparison to the original. Characters no longer talk with this weird, dream-like cadence that made their interactions feel uncanny. Instead they're just having normal, bland conversations. My two least favorite lines from the original game ("I killed a... human being!!" and "It's time to end this!!") have thankfully been replaced, but the atmosphere of the game is sullied by the overall changes.

Every alteration made in this remake is clearly just an attempt to cash in on the current 'survival horror remake' trend and make Silent Hill 2 as frictionless and accessible as possible. All the edges that were largely responsible for making the original game as interesting as it was have been sanded off, leaving behind a still competent but not nearly as interesting experience. I'm sure Konami is gonna get a fat check from this and immediately greenlight Bloober to remake Silent Hill 1 and 3 (I wouldn't be surprised if they just skip 1 entirely even though it's so important to 3. They just want money). Why did we need this?? It was fun to re-visit Silent Hill, but it's so unfortunate that this is going to be the only version of Silent Hill 2 that most people experience from now on. Just play the original!!

(rereading this on 20/05/2025 as i make changes to the site and i was so harsh LOL. i open by saying its a competent remake and then just relentlessly rip on it for 6 paragraphs. I think it was able to capture the liminal/uncanny/unnerving feeling of pretty much all the locations from the original game and even improved on it in some places!! not sure why i didnt mention that)