Konami and Bloober Team revealed their remake of Silent Hill 2 nearly a year and a half ago, and in the time since then, skepticism surrounding the game has grown quite a bit. There have been several reasons for that. For starters, the plain and simple fact that updates on the game have been as scant as they have been – with two trailers being separated by over 16 months, and those 16 months seeing radio silence from both Bloober and Konami – hasn’t been very encouraging, to say the very least. Bloober Team’s track record as a developer, too, has been called into question. Bloober isn’t a bad developed in the slightest, and from the original Layers of Fear to Observer, the studio has delivered some solid (if unremarkable) games in the past. But certainly none of its work has been anywhere close to the level of quality that would suggest that this is a developer that is ready to jump up to something as huge and beloved as Silent Hill (and Silent Hill 2, no less).
Recently, at least one of those concerns was addressed, in that we finally got to see a new trailer of the Silent Hill 2 remake. Konami brought the game to Sony’s recent State of Play presentation, showcasing a new gameplay trailer that focused on the game’s combat- but after having seen it, I’m only left with more concerns- or at least concerns that aren’t new, but certainly have been solidified. There was no one, big issue that set off alarm bells for me, no, but there were a number of smaller ones that certainly set of some alarm chimes, which, put together, are sounding a whole lot like bells to me.
Take, for instance, the plain and simple fact that Konami thought it was a good idea to break its year and a half long silence on Silent Hill 2 by showing up with a brief combat trailer. For Silent Hill 2– a game famous for its combat, right? Very much not, no. Fans have been waiting to see or hear more about the remake for quite some time now, and for a game like Silent Hill 2, the hope was that we’d be seeing more of the world and its locations, getting meatier glimpses of puzzles and exploration, getting a taste of how the story is being handled and how the storytelling is being modernized. The fact that Konami thought it was a good idea to resurface with a trailer for Silent Hill 2 that was focused on what many might argue is one of its least important (and worst) aspects is, to say the very least, more than a little concerning.
That lapse in judgment would maybe have been easier to forgive if what we were shown off was looking good- but sadly, even in terms of pure quality, what we’re seeing from Bloober Team’s remake of Silent Hill 2 simply isn’t hitting the mark. When we see James using his melee weapons to hit enemies, the impact of hits and the animations look flat and lacking any real oomph. When we see him using guns, there’s just no real weight to it, because either the weapons don’t sound good, or enemies don’t react to hits with the forcefulness that they should, or a combination of both. Individually, the issues that permeate the combat trailer for Silent Hill 2 might seem like nitpicks, or smaller issues that shouldn’t really raise any major concerns, but put together, they’re giving the sense that the game isn’t hitting the level of quality that it needs to.
Given the massive success that Resident Evil’s remakes have enjoyed in recent years, it’s only natural that that’s going to be the point of comparison for the vast majority of people here, but it’s not a comparison that’s doing a whole lot of favours for Silent Hill 2. Production value, animations, audio design, the level of detail- all of these are things that Resident Evil excel at, things that elevate its horror and atmosphere to completely unprecedented heights with each new game, and while some might feel that it’s slightly unreasonable to expect a Bloober Team game to be hitting those heights, let’s not forget that this is a Silent Hill 2 remake. It needs to be hitting those heights. This is one of the most momentous, beloved, and memorable horror games of all time, and if Konami has handed the reins of its remake to a smaller developer, it needs to be providing it with the sort of support – financial or otherwise – that ensures that that studio can raise its own level and hit the big time in a way that it hasn’t before.
Perhaps that’s exactly what’s happening behind the scenes. It’s worth remembering that Silent Hill 2 still doesn’t have an official release date, which means there’s every chance that Bloober Team is able to polish up and elevate the experience in the ways that are needed before it has to come out and hit store shelves. But that, incidentally, leads me to another one of my concerns- that we have no idea when the game is coming out.
Since the remake was announced back in October 2022, Bloober Team has said on multiple occasions that it’s in the final stages of development, and though the studio has said time and again that, as the publisher, Konami will be the one to decide when the game releases, or when to begin its marketing, or even how to market it, the indication from the developer itself has, time and again, been that on the development side of things, Silent Hill 2 isn’t that far off from launch. That, of course, has made the long stretches of radio silent that much more frustrating, but beyond that, when a new trailer for the game does emerge and it still doesn’t give a release date (or, hell, even a release window), it’s hard not to be at least a little concerned. Sure, according to an official PlayStation sizzle reel from earlier in the year, Silent Hill 2 is primed for a 2024 launch, but that’s a release window that neither Konami nor Bloober Team have mentioned so far (with even the recent combat trailer failing to mention a 2024 release).
It’s really a collection of a number of issues that are coalescing to create larger concerns. Will Bloober Team be able to take the significant step forward in its quality of output as it needs to for a remake of a game as legendary as this? Will the game’s combat, production values, animations, audio design, and what have you be in a significantly better state than they seem to be in its recent trailer? Will Konami stop missing the point completely and show us things from the remake that Silent Hill 2 fans actually care about, instead of bafflingly focusing on combat? Will messaging and communication be clearer and more consistent going forward? And will we get a release date or window anytime soon? Any single one of these concerns on their own would be relatively easy to dismiss (or at least put a pin in), but put together, they’re not painting a very bright picture of how things are shaping up for the game. And the fact that the game in question is a remake of the legendary Silent Hill 2 and one of the first things of significance this beloved franchise has done after years of dormancy? That just makes us sweat even more.
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