Silent Hill 2 review: Insanity magnifique

For years since the Silent Hill 2 remake was first announced by Konami with Bloober Team developing, I have anxiously been waiting to see what would happen. I’m in the camp of big fans of the original, having beaten it enough to see every ending at least once. I firmly believe it’s some of the best horror the original games have to offer. So, I’ve nervously awaited the results of this effort to recraft a legend for modern audiences. Thankfully, Bloober Team has stuck the landing.This isn’t just a good remake of Silent Hill 2, it’s a great one, boosting the source material in a myriad of ways while remaining faithful and even augmenting the things that made the original work.

Where’s My Wife 2: Electric Boogaloo

For the uninitiated, Silent Hill is a fictional foggy mountain town set in rural Maine. It has a lovely lake, a verdant forest surrounding it, and it feeds on the psyche of those who enter it. Unpleasant as that last vacation destination bullet point might sound, James Sunderland has decided to visit. His wife, who died three years prior from a terminal disease, sent him a letter in handwriting claiming that she is in Silent Hill, in their special place, waiting for him. With guilt and depression heavy on his soul, James goes to Silent Hill in hope that there is some truth to Mary’s words.

Along the way, James finds that Silent Hill is seemingly deserted and filled with dense fog. What’s worse, in that fog are twisted monsters that attack him on sight. His only allies are a handful of other survivors, including the insecure and needy fellow Eddie, a bratty young girl named Laura, a sheepish and nervous woman named Angela, and a mysterious and playful woman named Maria that happens to look almost exactly like Mary. He also finds that spending long enough in the town takes him to terrifying nightmare versions of reality that he must fight through and escape if he wants to unravel the truth of Mary’s message.

Everything from a narrative and presentation standpoint in this remake has been improved. The town itself is probably the most important factor of any Silent Hill game, and it feels alive here, watching your every move and acting to thwart and punish you for getting too comfortable. Whether it’s the whirling fog, the crusty scenery, or the menagerie of updated creatures, this is the most well-designed version of the Silent Hill town. The only issue I saw in presentation was sometimes in cutscenes, when action was intense, objects would noticeably blur when animating.

The returning characters are immensely improved, too. Their interactions are almost one-to-one to the original script and the main narrative beats play out as they did before, so if story is your issue, this game won’t win you over. However, it’s their emotions that give so much more meaning to these scenes, not just in words, but expression. It was so vivid seeing their faces twitch in discomfort as they faced problems, or their eyes staring manically before snapping into catatonic, distant states as they calmed down. 

The voice-acting is top-notch, and it brings so much more value to the narrative of Silent Hill 2 and its characters, punctuated by an incredible sound and music design that work well to accentuate the game's moody progression. The original characters were almost robotic in their line delivery and felt very disjointed. Here, they feel like real, frightened and haunted people. It made me enjoy playing this story beginning to end again immensely, and fans will be happy to know that multiple endings have returned that change depending on how you progress through the game.

A fear that creeps like rain down your spine

Gameplay, on nearly all fronts, is another place in Silent Hill 2 that took some massive upgrades. I think it’s fair to say at this point that the gameplay of 2001’s Silent Hill 2 hasn’t aged well. The stiff controls, sluggish movement and weapon use, and difficult-to-read feedback on combat interactions were definitely pain points. I would agree some of that is part of the charm and aided the fear through difficulty. However, I also feel that Bloober Team has built a gameplay system from the skeleton of the original game that makes exploration and combat feel good while playing into the fear and paranoia elements and keeping the challenge stiff.

The behind-the-shoulder camera has simply become the norm at this point - it is what it is, but I will say that it’s close enough to James in most cases to keep you nervous about what might be behind you. This remake uses the camera style to effectively draw your eyes to where it wants you to look before striking at your nerves from another angle. The only thing I didn’t like about the camera is that it seemed to have problems with walls being close to your back and crossing through doorways, upon which it would jitter and shake as it tried to adjust.

Putting that aside, I feel like Bloober Team further upped the paranoia with the use of the radio and atmosphere in this remake. The radio will emit static if monsters are near, and it will increase in intensity if they’ve noticed you. On a DualSense controller, this comes through the controller speaker, which made for an excellently creepy touch, but as it intensifies, the controller will pulse like a heart as the threat of a fight increases. The static can get annoying after a while, but you can also turn the radio or its sound off and toggle a visual indicator to tell you when it’s responding to a monster.

Your means for fighting back are much improved as well. You start with a nail board for James to defend himself and eventually collect a basic set of weapons through the game, including a pipe, handgun, shotgun, and rifle. Simply put, the melee and gunplay feel immensely impactful compared to the original. When you get close to a foe, it’s dangerous. James can, at best, land three attacks in a row, but monsters will sometimes dodge and counter him, forcing him to do the same. They’ll even try to grapple him, tank his hits to reply with their own, or catch his attack and shove him off balance, but when you hit your attacks, those hits feel pulpy and dangerously satisfying.

Guns are far more safe, and feel so much better in this remake. A good three shots put center in a creature can take down most of the basic horrors, but ammo is scarce and later enemies demand far more bullets. I thought I was slick hoarding around 100 handgun rounds for a while, but then when I ended up in a tight spot, I found myself using most of it to survive and had little left when that section was done. In that way, as enemies escalate, the shotgun comes along just in time to feel like a satisfying answer, and the rifle does the same later. Add to this the scarcity of healing supplies and you quickly end up in numerous situations where you must decide on the fly whether to risk a fight in melee, spend precious bullets, or find a way to run.

Enemies in Silent Hill 2 keep shifting and escalating as well to keep you cautious. The game uses variants of the same creature at times, but they do things differently enough that they represent reasonably different threats. All in all, the game introduces danger and the means to deal with it at well-spaced timing, always sure to never make you feel too superior or comfortable that it can’t overwhelm you. It adds excellently to the tension throughout the game.

Finally, the puzzles are excellent in Silent Hill 2. Bloober Team has always excelled in environmental gameplay design, and it shines in their puzzle work. There are numerous situations in the game where poetry puzzles, numbers for locks, or various keys and resources must be combined. I especially liked several puzzles that used symbols and stories left in notes and carved into the space to make me formulate a solution to opening a lock or getting a key item.

What waits in our special place…

Hats off to Bloober Team. I was nervous about what this Silent Hill 2 remake would finally be when it launched. I came prepared to be disappointed. I was floored instead. This wasn’t left like the old Silent Hill 2 with just a visual brush-up, and that feels like it was the right thing to do. At the same time, Bloober keeps the spirit of everything that made Silent Hill 2 a classic, but also accentuates it in smart and reasonable ways. It feels sickeningly intense to fight creatures, it feels menacing and foreboding to explore the town’s foggy streets, and the characters actually feel concerned and responsive to the things happening around them. I never thought we’d see the day when Silent Hill 2 would get such a shine, but here we are, and it is gloriously terrifying.

This review is based on an early digital PlayStation 5 copy supplied by the publisher. Silent Hill 2 comes out on PS5 and PC on October 8, 2024.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.