Silent Hill 2 (2024) is most successful when it’s doing its best Silent Hill 2 (2001) imitation

Earlier than sitting right down to play three hours of the Silent Hill 2 remake at a latest Konami-led press occasion in London, we have been proven a brand new trailer. Just like the earlier trailers, it left me skeptical. Though I’m not against the undertaking of remaking Silent Hill 2, I’m cautious of any modernizing intuition that replaces the aged, the bizarre, and even the off-putting with the identical glazed genericism of the 2020s AAA sport.

After getting my arms on it, I believe a few of that skepticism is warranted. I additionally suppose that the unique Silent Hill 2 is a really, excellent online game.

Within the opening part, James jogging across the streets might be any sport with a multimillion-dollar finances which you could decide up on the PS5. Sure, it’s foggy, however aside from that it’s bland. The change to an over-the-shoulder digital camera, the breaking home windows to go looking by drawers for well being gadgets, and the white material marking locations which are interactable all really feel unspecific.

The latter two mechanics additionally level to the sport being greater, probably considerably so. We have been instructed the sport is 12+ hours, whereas the unique clocks in round eight. For instance, Neely’s Bar — as soon as a small, flavorful spot with a clue marked on a map — turns into a quest location that entails visiting one other new a part of the city to choose up an merchandise earlier than working again to resolve a puzzle. We have been instructed that these new puzzles add to the lore of the franchise, a promise that may excite some — however I do know I’m not alone in being exhausted by them.

I don’t suppose this can do good issues for the pacing. Konami PR beneficial a number of occasions that we spend solely an hour within the opening of the sport earlier than utilizing a pre-set save level to leap forward to the flats part. I did that, so I can’t inform you what lore might need been buried within the Neely’s Bar puzzle. I can also’t inform you the way it feels to need to spend an extended stretch within the trendy model of that city earlier than attending to anything, however the suggestion that we not do it speaks for itself, to some extent.

Then again, skipping forward to the flats wiped away the generic feeling. They’re claustrophobic, labyrinthine, and tense. Their design highlights a few of what made Silent Hill 2 nice within the first place however which isn’t widespread apply in trendy AAA video games. Progressively exploring with James’ scribbled-on map, for instance, feels incomparably higher than any sport with a minimap or a tagged overhead compass.

This part additionally brings the remake’s enhancements to the forefront. Watching a YouTube video of the unique flats section after taking part in, I used to be shocked by the distinction within the sound design. The unique James clunks with each footstep, however he hits enemies with a sort of silent disregard. Within the remake, he sounded frightened and horrified when he swung right into a model creature. The fight adjustments aren’t something gorgeous, however actor Luke Roberts deserves the credit score for promoting them.

Roberts and the opposite voice actors have been apparently additionally key in finalizing the script for the remake, says Maciej Głomb, lead producer at Bloober Group. “These have been all professionals,” he says. “In order that they typically had concepts on find out how to promote a scene or a selected dialogue line. So long as they have been in keeping with the tone we wished, we often [trusted] their expertise and their proficiency.”

The script has additionally been reworked barely to be extra “comprehensible,” says Głomb, and edited with regard to how newer expertise resembling face movement seize has allowed the group to “present and never inform” sure elements like emotional beats. However, whereas most of the mechanics have been up to date for the remake, it’s the narrative that Bloober Group is attempting to maintain “as shut as attainable” to the unique, says inventive director Mateusz Lenart: “The characters of the unique sport, their particular arcs and endings, and what these characters are.”

There’ll, nevertheless, be extra endings. “I believe that was one of many first requests from Konami, on the very starting,” says Głomb. The unique endings will all be current — “even the humorous ones,” though “with our personal twist for a little bit little bit of an growth.” However in new sport plus runs, there would be the risk to get different outcomes. Though Bloober Group wasn’t about to spoil something immediately, Głomb did say that the devs can be “including one thing from the totally different worlds; from the totally different sport,” presumably hinting at overlap with different Silent Hills.

In my final query for Głomb and Lenart, I ask whether or not they introduced any outdoors inspirations to the remake. Silent Hill 2 is known for drawing on movie — Jacob’s Ladder and the work of David Lynch — and work by artists like Francis Bacon. I’m hard-pressed to consider one other sport with 2024 Silent Hill 2’s finances that displays that sort of affect, and specifically I need to know if there’s something within the final 20 years of artwork that’s contributed to the best way the sport has been up to date.

The reply is generally no. Lenart mentions the work of Italian painter Nicola Samori and French artist and performer Olivier de Sagazan as having ongoing impacts on his work, starting way back to Layers of Worry. However this undertaking has largely concerned returning to the unique sport’s inspirations. “For the entire group, going again to these motion pictures was the very first thing that we wished to do,” says Lenart. However “there was no must search for far more,” he says. “We didn’t really feel the necessity to search for trendy references as a result of the sport is sort of caught into that period.”

On the time, I used to be once more skeptical of this. As I’ve mentioned, the remade Silent Hill 2 may be very a lot a product of its time in the way it’s been modernized. It typically appears and largely performs like another AAA sport; it didn’t need to. However then I noticed Pyramid Head for the primary time.

Like within the unique sport, you first run into Pyramid Head lit up in ominous crimson behind a flimsily barred-off hall in Wooden Aspect flats. In contrast to within the unique sport, you already know who Pyramid Head is.

I can not overstate the dread that I felt at seeing Pyramid Head for the primary time. Regardless of not having performed the sport earlier than, cultural osmosis had, unbeknownst to me till this precise second, put a concern of being chased and killed by this creature deep in my bones. I stood there, Pyramid Head by the bars, being checked out by the bars. After which the individual subsequent to me coughed, and I nearly jumped out of my pores and skin.At its greatest, Silent Hill 2 (2024)’s largest inspiration is Silent Hill 2 (2001). And, once more, Silent Hill 2 (2001) is a really, excellent online game. It’s, in probably the most crystalised sense of the phrase, iconic. The place the remake could make that iconism work, and draw on what made it that approach, it should even be very, excellent. That received’t be on a regular basis, nevertheless it may be for sufficient of it.

Silent Hill 2 shall be launched Oct. 8 on PlayStation 5 and Home windows PC.

Disclosure: This text is predicated on a preview occasion held by writer Konami in London, England on Aug. 12. Konami supplied epicgamejourney’s journey and lodging for the occasion. Yow will discover extra details about epicgamejourney’s ethics coverage right here.