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.
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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.