If you love to be scared while playing games, there has thankfully been no shortage of games over the last few years that have delivered horror in spades. From the chilling claustrophobic nightmare that was P.T. to the visceral and deep, dark terror of Dead Space, from the relentless tension of Alien: Isolation to even something less high-profile but still deeply unsettling like MADiSON, there’s a good number of games out there that are capable of chilling you to your core- and now that we have been able to fully experience Bloober Team and Konami’s remake of Silent Hill 2, we can safely say that that game very much belongs in that group as well.
Of course, Silent Hill 2 is a known quantity, to say the very least, which means it being as scary and atmospheric as it is shouldn’t come as a surprise, but though a lot of the game’s scares obviously come from things that were a big part of the experience in the original as well, the remake does do quite a bit to elevate those strengths in a multitude of different ways. People often underestimate how important it can be for a horror game to be able to make players feel on edge in a variety of ways, and Silent Hill 2 certainly knows how to keep things from getting monotonous on that front.
Take, for instance, the technical enhancements that the remake comes with. This is one area where even Bloober Team’s biggest skeptics would not have doubted the studio’s ability, even at times where there were few who thought the studio would be able to pull of what it ultimately did with the remake, and sure enough, the Silent Hill 2 is an absolute technical masterpiece. Visually, there’s so much that the game does that enhances its scares and atmosphere tenfold. From the dark, damp, and claustrophobic interiors of locations such as the hospital and the prison to the foreboding lighting that makes every dark corridor feel like an insurmountable challenge in and of itself, this is a game that knows how to visually present itself in the more ominous way possible every step of the way. And of course, there’s the iconic fog of the town of Silent Hill itself, which looks better than it ever has, and adds just so, so much to the experience as far as atmosphere is concerned.
And it’s not just visually that Silent Hill 2 impresses, because the sound and audio design here is equally important, if not more so. The horror genre as a whole relies more on audio design than most other games do, and we’ve seen plenty of examples of that in even some recent years. Whether it’s the echoes of Mr. X’s booming footsteps in Resident Evil 2, or the creaking and cranking of the USG Ishimura in the Dead Space remake, or the eerie atmospheric whispers that you hear so often in the Dark Place in Alan Wake 2, we have plenty of examples of horror games that are elevated by incredible audio design.
Silent Hill 2 is in that group as well. The fog muffling the sounds around you with its thickness, the unsettling static of the radio when there are enemies in your vicinity, the ambient noises in your surroundings that somehow sound way more sinister than they should, the dread-inducing things that you can hear out of nowhere to make you question whether it was the game that was made that sound or something maybe in the real world- this is a game that knows how to mess with your head, and the fact that it does that so often with its audio should not go unnoticed.
Massive credit also goes to the roster of enemies and creatures that you face throughout your journey in Silent Hill 2. This is a game (and really, a series) that has always been known for its incredible monster designs, and those monsters somehow seem more terrifying than they ever have in this remake. Pyramid Head, who has always been a symbol of Silent Hill 2’s most unsettling tendencies, is a formidable foe who lives up to the hype, while other foes – from the Nurses to Flesh Lip and more – bring their own brand of twistedness to the proceedings. And yes, we obviously have to mention the mannequins as well, who just love to hide themselves in any crevice or corner they can find to then try and ambush you.
And of course, we can’t really talk about Silent Hill 2’s monsters without also talking about what they represent- because that, too, is such a huge part of why this game is as unsettling as it is. This was obviously true about the original as well, but this is a game that will make you feel sick to your stomach not just because it is conventionally scary (which it definitely can be), but because of its more cerebral and psychological brand of horror. More often than not, it’s stories on that side of the horror spectrum that stand out the longest in memory, and Silent Hill 2 is another example of that. No, this isn’t to say that horror games that don’t follow the same philosophy aren’t effective at scaring you – Resident Evil 2 is plenty scary even without any attempts at psychological horror, thank you very much – but that’s just such a different brand of horror, which isn’t even trying to have this kind of long-lasting, profound impact.
We obviously won’t be going into any spoilers here, because we’re well aware of the fact that this remake is many people’s first time experiencing this story, but the way this game pulls the rug out from under you, the way it deals with heavy themes of trauma and pain, the way it ties those themes together with its design and gameplay so coherently- all of that contributes a massive amount to how affecting this game is. Bloober Team’s remake smartly decides to remain very faithful to the original with its script and story, which is good, because in doing so – while also enhancing all of it with improved visuals, performance capture, and what have you – it tells a story that, time and again, finds ways to confront players with heavy, uncomfortable themes and topics that it never fails to handle well.
Scariness is obviously a subjective thing. Different people find different things scary, how affected you are by something billed as horror can vary based on how experienced you are with the genre, different brands of horror can appeal to entirely different tastes. With all of that in mind, we obviously cannot say for anything that it is going to be the scariest thing that anyone is going to experience- but Silent Hill 2 is a game that succeeds in many, many different flavours of horror. Conventional methods of building tension, jumpscares to get your blood pressure spiking, cerebral narrative rug-pulls to burrow its way into your brain- Silent Hill 2 expertly balances all of these tricks and more, and the end result ends up being a game that, by the time the credits have rolled, will have left you a wreck in more ways than one.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
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