Also On: PC
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Bloober Team
Medium: Digital/Disc
Players: 1
Online: No
ESRB: M
After a lot of waiting and varying levels of excitement from fans, Konami and Bloober Team’s Silent Hill 2 remake is upon us at last. There’s been lots of speculation and concern circulating the internet, as there usually is when a beloved classic gets remade for modern platforms and modern audiences. Silent Hill 2 aims to keep all the feelings from the original release and remix things to really give you that freshness as if you’re experiencing the original for the first time all over again.
Visually, Silent Hill 2 is stunning, and it performs great. I played on the performance mode of the PS5 version and was blown away by how gorgeous the environments and effects were. From the darkest hallways to the foggiest parts of the town, Bloober Team never ceased to amaze me. The cutscenes being locked to 30fps is a bit jarring when you’re on performance mode, albeit that’s a niche nitpick. Playing at 60 frames per second and seeing it get yanked down to 30 for those cutscenes can be off putting sometimes, but you get used to it quickly. Very rarely were there performance drops, and when they happened they weren’t severe or anything of the sort. The part of the team behind optimization worked some magic to keep up the visual quality while maintaining a steady and fluid gameplay experience.
Speaking of the gameplay experience, the game plays exceptionally well. It’s not an action game like early impressions were fearful of. The combat requires mindfulness from the player, making sure you’re paying attention and dodging at correct timings or else you’ll take some serious damage. Of course, you can still toggle combat difficulty independently of puzzle difficulty. Guns are solid options, but you’ll be finding yourself lacking ammo if you use them as a get-out-of-jail free card in encounters. They can be great for downing enemies if you’re in a group fight, but don’t rely on them to solve all your problems. Melee combat feels great and impactful, but like previously mentioned you won’t be able to just spam your attacks in combat. You’ll come across enemies that will dodge and weave, block your attacks, or even outright parry them and counter with their own melee strings. Finding a good rhythm and learning attack patterns is key to escape combat unscathed.
The puzzles are great and can require some genuine thought from the player, even on medium puzzle difficulty. I did not experiment with “hard” difficulty very much, and I did not turn it down to “easy” difficulty. I regularly compared puzzles to their original counterparts from the PS2 version and was pleasantly surprised to know that solutions are not just rehashed. Even some key items for puzzles are placed in different places around the map(s). You’ll definitely be re-learning map layouts and puzzle solution locations, so don’t go in expecting to blitz through all the new content.
Elaborating on the map(s) as mentioned, it’s important to mention that the map is expanded from the original Silent Hill 2. This becomes extremely noticeable once you enter the first set of apartments, and is even more so noticeable in the hospital. It’s really nice exploring the existing areas from the original but with modified and expanded layouts, bringing forth a real sense of exploration just like the original release all those years ago. There’s some nice nods to the original scattered throughout as well.
It is truly and genuinely impressive that Bloober Team managed to maintain all the same feelings and vibes you got from the original Silent Hill 2 all whilst reimagining it with modern tech and some slight changes to really make it feel new. The voice acting/interactions between characters can still be uncanny at times, harkening back to the awkwardness of the original. Characters look amazing and exactly how you would picture them on a modern platform. The remake of Silent Hill 2 truly is just impeccable and nails all the same points as the original while standing on its own two legs, existing separately but still sharing the same space as the original. You won’t have to worry about not having played the original either, as this isn’t like Final Fantasy 7 Remake where it’s more of a sequel than a remake.
Assuming that this remake does well, I can easily see Konami giving Bloober Team the reins to work on other Silent Hill games. Seeing how phenomenal this remake is, I for one would love to see remakes of the original Silent Hill and 3 redone this way. Keeping all of the aspects from the original material that fans will love, all the same adding in new things and expanding on previous content to keep the experience fresh and new for fans of the series is an excellent way to go about the remake and I cannot help but give massive props to Bloober for this one. I cannot recommend this enough to fans of the series and anybody new curious about jumping into Silent Hill as a series for the first time with this remake of Silent Hill 2. This is an absolute must play for 2024.
Note: Konami provided us with a Silent Hill 2 code for review purposes.
