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
02:30so close 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
02:41while staring into the recesses of Westvale's many overfilled dumpsters wasn't enough to ruin my day.
02:47That's because the opening scenes excel at nailing the atmosphere of Silent Hill as a location,
02:53turning it into an expansive, malevolent entity in itself. It might be more modern than fixed
02:58camera 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
03:27familiarity that keeps you on your toes. It's something that instantly drew me into Capcom's
03:32Resident Evil 2 remake back in 2019, and I'm relieved to see flashes of brave mechanical innovation
03:38in Silent Hill 2 remake as well. The addition of a single new puzzle while I was exploring Westvale
03:44involving a broken record is an example of this, proving formative in altering my path through the
03:50town as I was led on a wayward treasure hunt. Repairing the record and listening to the music
03:56triggered a memory, and where did it lead me? The next main area, Woodside Apartments. I found it a
04:03simple yet effective change to how James made his way there in the original, but purists may find the
04:09tweak too extreme. Hardwood plank in hand, I took on the iconic lying figure enemies with relentless
04:17aggression. I 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, trading the unwieldy clunk of
04:36the original's fixed camera angles for a more targeted approach that allowed me to off far more
04:42monsters than I would playing the original. The more I played, the more the puzzles and combat stood out to
04:48me as the biggest mechanical strengths of Silent Hill 2 remake, even if creative director Mashihiro Ito
04:54insists that the game is not heavily oriented toward combat. The former is something Leinar is
05:00especially proud of himself. I think we have been able to capture this smooth balance between the
05:05memory of the original game and new content that can, I think, surprise the long-time fans of the series,
05:12he says of the puzzle and level design reworks. As a fan of third person shooters and the way
05:18survival horror games have implemented them in recent years Alan Wake 2, I'm looking at you,
05:23I'm not mad about it. It just gives James more ways to fight, and makes me feel more confident in
05:29doing so should I be unable to sneak past a foe. But with games like Silent Hill 2, even the smallest of
05:36changes are bound to surprise its dedicated fans one way or another. At the very beginning we didn't
05:42want to change anything completely, because we were too afraid of touching the game, lead producer
05:47Maciej Guom admits, acknowledging the risks of remaking such a cult classic video game. But after
05:53time we saw that we needed to expand on the game in a way that would be competitive at this generation of
05:58consoles. These alterations might not be for everyone, but I found them refreshing. By the time I broke into
06:04the Blue Creek Apartments just over three hours into the preview session, I noted how well the
06:09expanded zones helped establish the world of Silent Hill for new and returning players alike.
06:15But there was one more surprise in store for me, in the form of a nasty new enemy variant,
06:20despite Ito-san claiming there were absolutely no brand new monsters in the game. I aimed my flashlight
06:26mounted handgun as I navigated the detritus of the nightmare apartment block. Relief flooded my body
06:33to see the coast somewhat clear. It was a brief respite, because I soon came face to face with
06:39the spider mannequins, or as I like to call them, the bane of my absolute stinking life. I mean that
06:47with lots of love. The monsters scurried across the floor, dodging my painstakingly timed shots with
06:53unfair levels of grace that James can only dream of in his drab khaki raincoat. Mannequins gave me the
07:00biggest jumpscares 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.
07:20For 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
07:31bring it in line with today's genre standards, falling just shy of making any truly huge moves
07:37to break with its core conventions, while showing new sides to a beloved franchise that's finally
07:43emerging from dormancy. Having a closer look at what Bloober Team is aiming for on October 8th,
07:49I'm more than ready to give Silent Hill 2 Remake the chance it deserves when it comes to PC and PS5.
07:55Will you be playing Silent Hill 2 Remake? Are you ready for the new changes?
07:59Let us know in the comments, and stick with GamesRadar for the latest news, previews and more.
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