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Silent Hill 2 (2024) Review

Making a mountain out of an old hill

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The horror game remakes just keep coming, like creatures emerging from the mist. Last year we got two brilliant ones, which took slightly different approaches. Dead Space was a careful recreation, tweaking the story to keep things fresh. And Resident Evil 4 made significant level alterations while modernizing its gameplay. Not all worked out well, as Alone in the Dark failed to find the light. Now, Silent Hill 2 gets the remake treatment, and it goes down another road. The remake greatly expands on the original from 2001, inserting brand new survival-horror tasks inside bigger game spaces. It also modifies the action to resemble the new Resident Evil games. Thanks to the developers at Bloober Team, who were in a unique position to tackle this project because of their recent work, Silent Hill 2 is a strong remake that only trips up with combat variety and performance.

Silent Hill 2 (2024)

The remake begins just like in the original, with James Sunderland entering the small town of Silent Hill in search of his wife, who died three years ago. He recently received a letter from her, telling him that she was waiting in their ‘special’ place. Against all logic, he hopes she’s alive but is not sure where to start looking. To make the hunt more difficult, the town is abandoned and being suffocated by a pervasive fog. Shambling mutated figures emerge from the dense fog and attack, forcing James to flee or fight. There is something horribly wrong with this town and its problems are not skin deep.

Behind the misty veil lies a darker alternate version of the town, where surfaces are like putrefied rust and abrupt ledges drop away into a black abyss. James will transition back and forth between these two contrasting renditions, sometimes by jumping into the darkness like in a surreal nightmare. The alternate reality is unsettling, with complex liminal spaces that test both sanity and navigational skills.

Just like the town, the narrative is layered and interesting. Most events are related to James and his wife but it is all a little bit weird. The game regularly challenges players to judge what is real, and then question whether it matters. Fortunately James is not completely alone. He meets four great characters: a young woman looking for her mother, an obnoxious girl who causes problems, an overweight man that forgets things, and a woman named Maria who is the spitting image of his dead wife. Maria tags along for a short time and their smart interactions help direct the emotional themes. The entire cast enhances the intrigue as the story delicately holds on to secrets.

Silent Hill 2 (2024)

While the story is basically a copy of the original, the remake has made some welcome changes to the gameplay. Now the camera remains in a straightforward over-the-shoulder position behind James at all times, instead of it being fixed to the corner of some rooms in the original. Boss battles give players more room to move, compared to the shoebox arenas of the past. And although the general progression through the town remains the same, many encounters have been tweaked.

But the biggest change is that there is just more game to play. At 13 hours long, it is close to double the original because James has far more stuff to do. Instead of merely winding a clock to the correct time to access a hidden room, players must first locate all three individual hands by thoroughly exploring an apartment complex. And the apartment building has more rooms to search and more locked doors to open. Most objectives and puzzles would be right at home in a Resident Evil game, with many wonderful steam valves and padlock codes. There are unconventional tasks too, including reaching into overflowing toilets, but this suits the narrative’s hokey-pokey dance with reality.

Combat will also remind players of Resident Evil, although without as much variety and depth. The melee attack is a simple one-swing affair of a wooden plank (or steel pipe) with a generous dodge, replacing the original game’s block, that makes the action a bit like The Callisto Protocol. It is satisfying to bash the mutated freaks, plus you also have a stomp when they fall down. Sadly there are only three projectile weapons: pistol, shotgun, and hunting rifle. These are at least satisfactory killing machines, with fair ammo distribution that encourages intermittent melee attacks. But with no grenades, weapon upgrades, or other combat surprises, the action is barebones.

Silent Hill 2 (2024)

There are not quite enough enemy types to keep the combat fresh either. You will be fighting the same three enemies for much of the game, and they’re all primarily melee attackers. Many look like they’re wearing a straight-jacket hoodie made of skin, although this type does spew toxic vomit. Sexy hostile nurses swing pipes in your direction after their introduction within an ominous hospital. And the third type has legs where their head and arms should be, although these ‘mannequins’ are fantastic opponents because they hide in corners, leaping out to provide dynamic jump scares. Even though Bloober have added some variation, including creepy wall-climbing mannequins, there are not enough unique threats. Adding the extra content is a double-edged sword because while the remake is much longer, the combat is not deeper and it can get dull.

Silent Hill 2 looks amazing, although that is expected given the developer’s portfolio. Much of the game feels like a collage of Bloober’s previous work. The grim alternate world is like the one in The Medium (sans split-screen) and although it is not as unique, it still looks awesome. The fascinating grimy apartments are like the ones in their horror game Observer. Even the hand-crafted scares are similar to those in their Layers of Fear games. Bloober is almost the perfect team to tackle this remake. The town’s atmosphere is phenomenal, with excellent fog thanks to UE5’s volumetric magic. Character designs are high-quality, with accurate lip-syncing and animations. And Luke Roberts and Salóme Gunnarsdóttir do a fine job as James and Maria, respectively.

While the remake looks smart, there are some performance and configuration issues on PC. The biggest concern is the general stutter when exploring, seen mostly when walking down the foggy streets. Combat encounters and interior spaces tend to run fine, so it is not unplayable. The game does have horrendous temporal anti-aliasing (TAA) trails by default, making blowing leaves look like a charcoal smudge. Thankfully this can be negated by increasing the resolution and disabling TAA altogether, although this can raise some performance issues.

Silent Hill 2 (2024)

Fans of the original Silent Hill 2 should have a glorious time with the remake, and newcomers will find a highly competent third-person survival horror game with tremendous narrative intrigue. The remake preserves the original’s story practically verbatim, and it is probably the game’s biggest strength. New and decent adventure tasks help to make the game substantially longer, and combat alterations bring it closer to that popular series from Capcom. Unfortunately the action is a little plain given the lack of weapons and limited enemy types. And the performance stutters are a shame given the high quality visuals and captivating atmosphere. We have seen a few strong remakes already, each taking their own route, so it will be interesting to see what comes out of the fog next.

Our ratings for Silent Hill 2 (2024) on PC out of 100 (Ratings FAQ)
Presentation
85
Silent Hill is an alluring town to explore thanks to the oppressive fog, captivating interior spaces, dark alternate world, detailed characters, and strong actor performances.
Gameplay
70
Most of the tasks and puzzles are good, although some are abstract. Combat is fine but also shallow with a limited number of weapons and only a few basic enemy types.
Single Player
85
The story oozes intrigue as it plays with reality. Grief and sanity remain the core themes explored across the 12-16 hour adventure.
Multiplayer
NR
N/A
Performance
(Show PC Specs)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600
GPU: ASUS 6700 XT DUAL OC 12GB
RAM: 16GB DDR4
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
PC Specs

65
The framerate stutters when exploring the town and the performance could be better.
Overall
79
Aside from some bland combat and performance concerns, Silent Hill 2 is a good remake that takes the original’s intriguing narrative and crams it with more survival-horror gameplay while upgrading the visuals to do justice to the fascinating setting.
Comments
Silent Hill 2 (2024)
Silent Hill 2 (2024) box art Platform:
PC
Our Review of Silent Hill 2 (2024)
79%
Good
The Verdict:
Game Ranking
Silent Hill 2 (2024) is ranked #553 out of 1984 total reviewed games. It is ranked #16 out of 72 games reviewed in 2024.
553. Silent Hill 2 (2024)
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Screenshots

Silent Hill 2 (2024)
8 images added 18 days ago
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