SIlent Hill is one of those series that became a cult two decades ago thanks to the iconic original and the sequel that established the series’ uniqueness. Unfortunately, since then, there hasn’t been a single game in the series that could confirm the significance of the series, at best they have not desecrated its legacy. This October, Konami released a remake of SIlent Hill 2, which was developed by the Polish studio Bloober Team (Layers of Fear, Medium). We will tell you whether this tandem managed to create something worthy of the original in our SIlent Hill 2 (Remake) review.
James Sunderland receives a letter from his late wife Mary asking him to meet her at «their special place» in the town of Silent Hill. Confused but curious about the unexpected letter, James arrives in a town that has changed a lot since their last visit, before Mary’s death. Back then, they stayed in cozy hotels and visited green parks by the lake. The city was once full of life, but now it has turned into a ghost.
Even though this is a remake of the 2001 game, I won’t spoil the story, as I’m sure many of you will be experiencing it for the first time.
With the remake, the view of the city has a new perspective, which the gaming industry got only four years after the release of the original Silent Hill 2, with the release of Resident Evil 4 in 2005. Thanks to the third-person camera, the developers were able to better show the city, its lowlands and heights, which only adds to the atmosphere. The hero, and the player along with him, finds himself in the epicenter of hopelessness, surrounded by fog and cold walls of an abandoned city.
What used to be a hardware limitation has become the game’s main recognizable feature. In the remake, the fog is not as thick as in the original, but it is more realistic and atmospheric. The fog still parted in front of the hero, but now it’s not just a white wall, but a real fog that has different densities. Through which you can see the silhouettes of monsters, closed shops, and traffic lights slowly blowing in the wind.
The game is creepy, with an atmosphere as thick as smoke that tries to get into your head. The developers of the original game tried to focus on the psychological aspect of the game by creating an oppressive atmosphere in which the character, and therefore the player, is always in. And the rare moments of calm only increased the fear of what lies ahead.
If you haven’t played the original game, then you can mention SOMA as a more or less modern analog. This game was scary primarily because of its story and the inevitable acceptance of what exactly happens to the character. And this approach is very close to what was done in the original Silent Hill 2 and what Bloober Team is doing in the remake.
The city penetrates the consciousness and turns all fears outward, giving them a physical form. This applies to both James himself and the few characters we meet along the way.
Angela, Maria, Eddie, and little Laura, in my opinion, have grown up. Not in terms of their age, but in the approach of the developers to the portrayal of these characters and the actors who voice them. You can feel the direction of each scene in the acting. Their emotional moods can change quickly, and some characters have quite polarized moods, from a calm, trusting tone to aggressive shouts that feel like a threat to life. And I have never heard any acting or sincerity in the actions and words of the characters.
Long shots, often close-ups, that show the characters’ confusion or a fading ray of hope in their eyes, add to the atmosphere.
It’s still the same story with the same characters and their inner demons. Thanks to the latest technologies and a modern approach to acting, it is perceived in a completely different way. It’s better.
The developers have even enriched the game with two new endings, which now total eight. Let’s just say that the “basic” endings depend on how you play the game. For others, you need to fulfill specific conditions, and they are only available on New Game+.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
The entire story is accompanied by Akira Yamaoka, who rewrote the entire soundtrack and enriched it with several new compositions. This music still gives orphans the chills. At one moment it terrifies, and a few seconds later it easily evokes melancholy and sadness.
The cherry on top is the Ukrainian text localization. The Ukrainian team UnlocTeam was responsible for it, so there are no «credits» instead of «credits». Absolutely everything that can be translated into text has been translated. Including street names and inscriptions on the map. Riddles in verse form have also been translated into verse, retaining their task of being a hint for the player. It is nice to see that the number of games with Ukrainian localization is increasing every year. It is even more pleasant to play these games.
In addition to the characters who often question James’ feelings and the goodness of his intentions, we also meet those who do not like unnecessary talk, but immediately rush to kill.
The main weapon to fight off such bogeymen is a pipe, which in the first third of the game replaces a stick with nails. We also have a pistol, a shotgun, and a rifle, but the game has much less ammunition than the average shooter.
The shooting is similar to The Last of Us Part II and Alan Wake 2. The hero is an ordinary citizen, not a trained policeman or agent, and he holds his weapon rather unconfidently. The sights are constantly moving, but if you concentrate, i.e. stand still and focus on the enemy, the bullet will reach its target in a second.
I beat most of the enemies with a stick because of the economy and because the enemies get punched very juicy. Here I would like to nod indignantly towards Konami’s PR department, which showed clumsy combat footage in the first trailers of the game. Сombat feels much better than it looks.
Preferring close combat, I hoped that the ammunition I saved would come in handy in the future. It turned out to be a good decision in part. And most enemies are not a problem, even if they attack in pairs. However, in claustrophobic rooms and corridors, sometimes even basic monsters can tickle your nerves and force you to fire one or two rounds from your gun that were so hard to find.
There are only four types of monsters in the game, including insects. Over time, I found myself missing at least three basic enemies, but gradually, from about the middle of the game, the developers endowed the enemies with additional abilities. A lying figure starts exploding with acid, and nurses get cutting weapons and behave more aggressively. The most noticeable changes are to the Mannequins, but I won’t spoil this discovery experience for you.
They compensate for the small number of enemies with their skills and skillful direction of certain moments. For example, Dummies like to hide behind a flowerpot or a cabinet and attack us when we pass by without noticing the deadly threat. Nurses can go into stasis for a few seconds during a fight, which makes it possible to inflict significant damage on them. Different combinations and numbers of enemies gradually keep you on your toes with each new location.
The picture is complemented by mise en scène. When the enemy deliberately runs in front of a flashlight or stands in a spotlight. But even when there is no one in sight, the sounds coming from nowhere or the noise of the radio announcing the approach of the hell spawn do not allow you to relax.
The biggest merit of the developers is the complete absence of screamers as a phenomenon. All the suspense is achieved by skillfully juggling music, sounds, bizarre surroundings, and the knowledge that a Mannequin, whose radio does not respond to calmness, may be waiting behind the door.
In general, the combat system and monster fights are exemplary. Sometimes it seemed that the developers lost their sense of proportion in the battles, and I just wanted to walk around the location and look for the necessary items. But this can be attributed to fatigue because I was marathoning the game for 6-8 hours.
However, the most interesting gameplay pillars of the game are riddles and puzzles. The developers have transferred them from the original game, but they have also come up with something new. Absolutely all puzzles are interesting and moderately difficult. And this complexity does not cause frustration or the desire to run to YouTube searching for a solution. Everything is very logical, the main thing is to be careful and pay attention to the hints in the notes and audio recordings.
The game doesn’t give direct instructions on what to do, but James writes down everything he needs right on the map: symbols, access codes, and other important clues. In addition to being convenient, it also doesn’t break the immersion and doesn’t make you feel like the game is being deliberately cheated.
The map is a separate and very important game element. At the end of the game, you can even see statistics on the number of times you have accessed the map. It’s a journal, a navigator, and ultimately a map on one screen. And it’s absolutely seamless, not a separate interface. James unfolds it and holds it in his hands like we hold a map in real life. At the same time, the game does not stop, so you should choose the right places to check the tasks and location.
Like weapons and monsters, the sights are also completely ported over from the original game. And just like in the case of monster battles, the developers are on the verge of adequate dosage of locations. For the first time, I felt that a little more and the game would tire me out in Brookhaven Hospital. The authors probably also felt that the player’s stay in this location was too long, but in the original, it was the largest area. This is also difficult to cut so as not to throw away important plot and gameplay episodes.Also, at some point, the confined spaces and brown corridors would have started to suffocate us a little more. But just in time, we are let outside to breathe in the hazy air with our lungs full.
This is probably a drawback of the genre. It’s hard to play a game for a long time that presses you with its atmosphere, music, and general mood of almost lost hope. But the overall gameplay cycle «combat-puzzles-exploration» in Silent Hill 2 is well-balanced. As a rule, the game does not have long runs without combat, or complex puzzles that require an hour-long dissertation to solve.
As with almost any modern game, especially those made on Unreal Engine 5, the technical state of the game raises the most questions and fear. At least on PS5, I can call it satisfactory, or even good with some reservations. The FPS has slight drops in both graphics modes, but only at certain moments with a lot of effects on the screen. The only visual problems that immediately caught my eye were upscaling artifacts in reflections in puddles or shiny surfaces, especially when moving. There were no such problems indoors. But you need to keep in mind that in this mode, working with lighting also becomes easier.
The only other technical problem I had was camera shake. If you stop in a cramped room near a door and twist the camera to a certain angle, it’s likely that it will jump around like crazy. I haven’t encountered any other bugs or glitches. So, in general, we can say that the game is quite well polished, although not perfect.
I want to be happy for the series. Finally, after so many years, fans have a game they’re not ashamed of, and new players have a great opportunity to get to know the series and understand why thousands of fans around the world love it. On the other hand, it’s a little sad that the best thing that has happened to Silent Hill in the last 15-20 years is not a new word for the series, but a retelling of an old one.
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