Review: ‘Silent Hill 2’ achieves the impossible and improves on the original game

I was sat in a darkened room, controller clutched in hand as I crept through the nightmarish rust-ruined corridors of what used to be a hospital. The soundtrack is grinding metal, punctuated by sickly wet cries from the unholy creatures stumbling through the halls. One shambled awkwardly towards me and, raising my pipe aloft, I mumbled in disgusted terror as I bashed its glistening head in, before stomping it to smithereens to ensure it was dead dead.

It was at this point I realized my girlfriend was quietly watching from the doorway. In a bemused tone, she asked “Are you actually enjoying this?” It’s a fair question. Strictly speaking no, I am not “enjoying” Silent Hill 2… but I am having the time of my life.

I first stepped onto these foggy streets a quarter century ago in the PSOne original, which dug its hooks deep into me with chills that left Resident Evil looking like a cheesy B-movie. A couple of years later Silent Hill 2 was a quantum leap forward for horror gaming: a mesmerizing, atmospheric, and technically dazzling experience that left scars on anyone who played it. 2001 would prove to be the high-water year for the franchise. Until now that is.

When I learned that Bloober Team would be tackling this remake I was skeptical. I’ve played many of their horror titles, but while none of them have been outright awful (well, maybe Blair Witch VR came close) they’ve all had glaring storytelling and gameplay flaws that made them difficult to wholeheartedly recommend. My hype was further dampened by a truly terrible combat-focused trailer that appeared to confirm every pessimistic fan prediction.

Then I played it. Within a few minutes it was clear Bloober had nailed the atmosphere. An hour in and it had exceeded expectations. By the mid-way point, I was blown away. This isn’t just a new way to enjoy the story of Silent Hill 2, it’s the definitive way to experience it.

That’s blasphemy, but it’s true. I replayed the original Silent Hill 2 earlier this year (via the excellent Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition fan project) and it was as amazing as ever, but this remake improves upon an already fantastic game in every conceivable way.

23 years of technological progress inevitably means better graphics, but Bloober has also nailed the aesthetic. Texture work is phenomenal throughout, this is arguably the dampest, most run-down, and decaying game ever. Regular Silent Hill is a gloomy and oppressive place, but stepping into the hellish Otherworld is genuinely horrific. These aren’t rust textures, they’re accreted rusticles, as if these environments have been dredged up from the lake floor.

I’m also pleased to report that Bloober nailed the fog, the signature visual element of the entire franchise. I was delighted to see fog physically drifting into spaces, as if the town’s misery was eager to swallow up any sanctuary. There are also subtly different types of fog, ranging from a thickly impenetrable nighttime fug to a subtly orange-tinted glow, as if distant sunlight is trying and failing to break through.

Masahiro Itô’s unforgettable menagerie of enemies has never been more horrible. Combat was never Silent Hill 2‘s strong point, and before release there were widespread gripes about “modernized combat” ruining the atmosphere. This, like so many other dire predictions, has proved to be so much hot air.

Combat is desperate and terrifying, with enemies having a wide array of attack animations that make it difficult to anticipate what they’ll do next. One key aspect of Silent Hill 2 is that your hero isn’t some grizzled combat veteran, he’s just some guy. The remake underlines that in every encounter, which become chaotic blurs of swipes, gunfire and foot stamps, all soundtracked by terrified gasps from the player character. Leon S. Kennedy, he ain’t.

And the story? It’s as heartbreaking and intense as ever. Voice-acting is uniformly excellent across the board, with the obvious highlight Luke Roberts’ James Sunderland. Going into detail as to precisely why Roberts is so great would mean spoilers, so let’s just say he brings fresh complexity and depth to the character. James’ mission is never remotely logical — something he apologetically admits when explaining to others that he’s searching for his dead wife — but Roberts sells it, with his James approaching the town’s many horrors with muted apathy and a borderline suicidal lack of self-preservation. I won’t go into the late-game plot details, but when the emotional intensity is at max volume, he’s superb.

All the above (and everything else in the game) combines into a truly terrifying experience. As a survival horror veteran I consider myself hardened to being scared by games, and previous Silent Hill games have been more unnerving than frightful. But, perhaps it’s the shift in camera angles, the soundscape, the visceral and deadly combat, or the visual wallop of these ruined environments, but this game got under my skin. Brookhaven Hospital in particular got so intense my smartwatch piped up to notify me that my stress levels are unusually high. Thanks, Garmin, I know!

Let’s circle back to my girlfriend’s question. You do not really “enjoy” playing Silent Hill 2, but it’s an enormously rewarding artistic experience and a mechanically satisfying video game with compelling combat and well-constructed puzzles. The only real flaw is that for general audiences it may be too intense — I can imagine many tapping out early into the apartment complex.

I’ve been harsh to Bloober in the past, but apparently every time they’ve previously stumbled they were taking notes and building experience. That hard-won horror knowledge has paid off in spades, resulting in a remake that fully understands why Silent Hill 2 has stood the test of time, perfectly recreates its best moments, and smartly and carefully adds new elements to expand and update it for modern audiences.

If there’s a downside it’s that this wild success may mean Bloober Team is shackled to Silent Hill for the foreseeable future. But, from now on, my gaming fantasy wishlist includes Bloober remaking Silent Hill and Silent Hill 3 in the same winning fashion or, heck, letting them run wild on a brand new installment. It’s taken a while to get there, but we finally have a team that can match what Team Silent achieved in the 2000s. It’s a good time to be a Silent Hill fan.

---