Silent Hill 2: Remake – Not for me

Being a fan of the Silent Hill franchise, and a survival horror junkie, I had to give Silent Hill 2: Remake a go. And while it does look the part, at least from a visual standpoint. I find it falling way too short of capturing the feel of the original. Now, I have to point out. This is not a review. I have only played it for a couple of hours, so this will be my initial impressions, which unfortunately turned me off from completing it.

The issues
My main problem with the Silent Hill 2: Remake, that to be fair would be an issue with replaying the original as well, is that this story is not great for a replay. I’m not going to spoil anything, but considering how it ends and how the town of Silent Hill manifests itself for the people inside it, it ruins the whole exploration aspect of the game. I didn’t think knowing the narration would be this much of an issue, but it is. I don’t get this from playing Resident Evil again, a game I have played many times before.

Another major issue is the switch to third-person camera, which has a big effect on the gameplay, and atmosphere. At least going by this translation of the original. It feels much more like the modern Resident Evil 2 game, or something similar to The Last of Us. This transformation doesn’t play that well with the setting, as of now it’s much more of an action game with a dodge button. The number of enemies also seemed to have increased. It now plays like you are there to clean up the streets from monsters, instead of being a character dropped into a nightmare he does not want to be in. Not to forget that all deliberately strange and odd camera angles have been removed for a static point of view, outside a few cutscenes. Meaning, a huge part of the ambience has been ditched in favor of modern camera/control scheme. We are closing in on the singularity when it comes to AAA games, with every title looking and playing the same.

Then we have delivery of lines, and the general tone of the story and characters presented. The voice actors did their best, I guess, but the new acting doesn’t convey the same sense of unreal. It’s more straight-forward now, with the dream-like Lynchian vibes gone in the wind (fog?). This is a major hindrance if you want to experience the original as it was, but in an “improved” engine. Seeing as it has been made impossible thanks to these changes.

And my final issue is technical. Since the game is on the Unreal Engine, it comes with the usual problems, like stuttering. While it runs fine, locked at 60 FPS, every time I decided to jog instead of slowly walking through the town, it started to stutter badly. This has been a constant concern with many Unreal games, and I’m baffled that this is still a thing after this many years. That is not all, considering this is a completely different version of Unreal from what this headache started on (Unreal 4, now 5). So, nothing has been improved engine-wise, and unfortunately, it’s the engine of choice of many developers.

The good stuff
Silent Hill 2: Remake looks great. I really enjoyed the realistic visuals, with the gloomy weather of an overcast autumn day. It’s very cozy. The environmental detail is great, and a clear stand-out. The sound, especially the ambience town noises are good and add to the creepy atmosphere of walking through a dead city. The music is also excellent, and mostly remains the same from the original. The animations also seems competent, however, it clearly suffers from melee “sliding”. Every kind of connection, in the form of violence, must play out in a certain way. Meaning, your character, and the enemies slide into place before the animation can play out properly. It makes the combat look a bit janky and artificial.

Beyond this, the game appears to be a massive waste, when we could have gotten something new and interesting instead. I have played and enjoyed remasters myself, but I do think we are reaching somewhat of a crescendo in this regard. It has arrived at a stage where I have to question the creativity of developers and publishers involved in these projects. Taking four years to make something that already exists – that exists in an already better state. It just comes off as unnecessary and a total waste of time. It feels almost dystopian, how now every successful game from the past must be remade for profit. And with that, made for a modern audience. Meaning that certain tones, and themes must be removed, or people will start screaming on Twitter (X) how offended they are. Talk about a boring future we are walking into. 

Thanks for reading.

/Thomas