5 hours in Silent Hill 2 Remake

GamesRadar

We got a hands-on 5 hour preview of Silent Hill 2 Remake and we were pleasantly surprised. Join us as we take a look at the newest additions and memorable moments in the Silent Hill 2 Remake.

Transcript

00:00I played the first five hours of the Silent Hill 2 remake, and was pleasantly, if not

00:05cautiously, surprised. It's clear that the Silent Hill 2 remake proudly holds tight to

00:10what the production teams identified as its core tenets, from its tension and atmosphere

00:15to the belter of a reworked soundtrack. But the time I spent with the game would also

00:19go on to unveil a curious sense of hesitancy, constantly pulling it back from being either

00:25a totally faithful remake or a brave reimagining entirely. There were plenty of bright spots

00:31throughout my hands-on experience, including the game's dynamic third-person movement,

00:36refined combat, and expanded exploration zones. So much so that, even with my concerns at

00:42this point in its development, I'm hopeful that Silent Hill 2 remake may yet make a lasting

00:47impression upon modern-day survival horror audiences, even if the creative teams sound apologetic

00:53for its very existence at times.

00:56Before I started playing, producer Motoi Okamoto walked us through the game's nine key new

01:01features. There's a thick and realistic blanket of fog enveloping Silent Hill thanks to the

01:06game's 4K graphics, including fatal recreations of key locations, down to miniscule items, and

01:13facial mocap to make the cutscenes as emotional as possible. On the technical side, he also mentions

01:193D sound design to heighten immersion, an over-the-shoulder third-person camera perspective, reworked combat

01:25featuring a dodge mechanic and aiming reticle, remapping of existing enemies, new and expanded

01:31areas and puzzles, and the inclusion of all the original endings. There will even be some brand

01:37new Silent Hill 2 endings that can, in the words of developer Bloober Team, only be accessed

01:42in New Game Plus, though the studio shies away from revealing more.

01:48The game picks up at exactly the same place as the 2001 original, with protagonist James

01:53Sunderland arriving at the small, deserted town after receiving a mysterious summons from

01:58his supposedly deceased wife. It's charged with as much creeping dread as ever. Creative

02:04director Mateusz Lehnart explained that the team discussed making the iconic introduction

02:09more action heavy, but admitted it did not feel like it was very Silent Hill, and this

02:14is why we made the choice to keep it as it was and only pick up the pace after some time.

02:19But after taking my first few steps into the mist, I found myself needing to swap over to

02:24performance mode in order to achieve a smooth 60 frames per second. It's a little troubling so

02:30close to release, especially with quality mode not seeming to boost fidelity much at all,

02:36though it's possible this is an older build of the game. But even instances of texture dropout

02:41whilst staring into the recesses of Westvale's many overfilled dumpsters wasn't enough to ruin

02:46my day. That's because the opening scenes excel at nailing the atmosphere of Silent Hill as a

02:52location, turning it into an expansive, malevolent entity in itself. It might be more modern than

02:58fixed camera angles, but the third person perspective does nothing to distract from how disorienting it

03:03feels not to be able to see more than a foot in front of you. Likewise, don't bother to memorise

03:09any of the puzzles and key item locations from the original game. You'll find many of them have

03:14been remapped entirely in the remake. Feeling so lost in a world I thought I knew pretty damn well

03:21is an appropriately jarring sensation, demonstrating Bloober's understanding of how to create uncanny familiarity

03:27that keeps you on your toes. It's something that instantly drew me into Capcom's Resident Evil 2 remake

03:33back in 2019, and I'm relieved to see flashes of brave mechanical innovation in Silent Hill 2 remake as

03:40well. The addition of a single new puzzle while I was exploring Westvale involving a broken record

03:46is an example of this, proving formative in altering my path through the town as I was led on a wayward

03:52treasure hunt. Repairing the record and listening to the music triggered a memory, and where did it

03:58lead me? The next main area, Woodside Apartments. I found it a simple yet effective change to how

04:05James made his way there in the original, but purists may find the tweak too extreme.

04:12Hardwood plank in hand, I took on the iconic lying figure enemies with relentless aggression.

04:18I know I didn't need to kill them all, and in some Silent Hill games you'd be wise not to,

04:24but the satisfying thwack of wood against the meaty carcass is worth every moment of overkill.

04:30The precision element is certainly refreshing in Silent Hill 2 remake,

04:34trading the unwieldy clunk of the original's fixed camera angles for a more targeted approach

04:40that allowed me to off far more monsters than I would playing the original.

04:44The more I played, the more the puzzles and combat stood out to me as the biggest mechanical

04:49strengths of Silent Hill 2 remake, even if creative director Mashihiro Ito insists that

04:55the game is not heavily oriented toward combat. The former is something Leinar is especially proud of

05:01himself. I think we have been able to capture this smooth balance between the memory of the original

05:06game and new content that can, I think, surprise the long-time fans of the series, he says of the

05:13puzzle and level design reworks. As a fan of third person shooters and the way survival horror games

05:19have implemented them in recent years Alan Wake 2, I'm looking at you, I'm not mad about it.

05:25It just gives James more ways to fight, and makes me feel more confident in doing so should I be

05:31unable to sneak past a foe. But with games like Silent Hill 2, even the smallest of changes are bound to

05:37surprise its dedicated fans one way or another. At the very beginning we didn't want to change

05:43anything completely, because we were too afraid of touching the game, lead producer Maciej Guom

05:48admits, acknowledging the risks of remaking such a cult classic video game. But after time we saw

05:53that we needed to expand on the game in a way that would be competitive at this generation of consoles.

05:59These alterations might not be for everyone, but I found them refreshing. By the time I broke into the

06:04Blue Creek Apartments, just over three hours into the preview session, I noted how well the expanded

06:10zones help establish the world of Silent Hill for new and returning players alike. But there was one

06:16more surprise in store for me, in the form of a nasty new enemy variant, despite Ito-san claiming there

06:22were absolutely no brand new monsters in the game. I aimed my flashlight mounted handgun as I navigated the

06:28detritus of the nightmare apartment block. Relief flooded my body to see the coast somewhat clear.

06:35It was a brief respite, because I soon came face to face with the spider mannequins,

06:41or as I like to call them, the bane of my absolute stinking life. I mean that with lots of love. The

06:48monsters scurried across the floor, dodging my painstakingly timed shots with unfair levels of

06:54grace that James can only dream of in his drab, khaki raincoat. Mannequins gave me the biggest

07:00jump scares of the day. Every time I entered a room only to have one suddenly move in the corner,

07:06I was thrown into a fear-fuelled frenzy and battered it to death with my melee weapon,

07:11hissing the vilest profanity known to the English language. Even this rage was born of love.

07:17For all of Silent Hill 2 Remake's reworks to the form, flow and style of the original,

07:25it more than succeeds at delivering a compulsive survival horror experience. Modern flourishes bring

07:31it in line with today's genre standards, falling just shy of making any truly huge moves to break

07:37with its core conventions, while showing new sides to a beloved franchise that's finally emerging from

07:44dormancy. Having a closer look at what Bloober Team is aiming for on October 8th, I'm more than

07:50ready to give Silent Hill 2 Remake the chance it deserves when it comes to PC and PS5. Will you be

07:56playing Silent Hill 2 Remake? Are you ready for the new changes? Let us know in the comments and stick

08:01with GamesRadar for the latest news, previews and more.

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