Modern remakes of classic survival horror games have a gold standard – Capcom’s remake of Resident Evil 2.
It will therefore come as a great relief to Silent Hill fans that when we first played the Silent Hill 2 remake, we were quickly reminded of the current standard bearer.
Bloober Team's interpretation of the game essentially serves two purposes. It's an apology from Konami for the state the franchise has been in for years, and it's a reintroduction of the series to a new generation of gamers who have only heard of it in whispers.
“We wanted to evoke that feeling of 'Oh, I remember that,' even if it's not the same,” Creative Director Mateusz Lenart told us. “It plays differently, it's structured differently. What we think counts is the moment when players think they're playing the original, because that's what sticks in their minds.”
That's the real challenge with all these remakes. Do you design something that's structurally the same but beefed up to modern aesthetic standards, or do you take the ingredients that make a game iconic and apply them to the modern standards of the medium?
So far, Silent Hill 2 feels like the game faithfully evokes the spirit of the original, wrapped up in a satisfying and scary modern survival horror.
Our demo covered the first three hours of the game, and as we arrived in the hills, walked down the path to the graveyard, and then headed into the town center, the game hit its right note from the start.
As we followed James down the steep slope into the wooded area outside the cemetery, we were reminded of the stunning forests and ominous atmosphere of Alan Wake 2.
The descent into the mist, this time more of an atmospheric tool than a mechanical crutch, gives both new and old players an idea of what they're getting into. The game is played in third person and the controls are similar to recent Resident Evil remakes or the aforementioned Alan Wake 2.
Soon we were wandering around the city with nothing but an old piece of wood with nails in it to ward off the shambling creatures that shrieked at us as we ran from building to building.
James, the game's protagonist, is now much more agile than in the original and can dodge and counter enemy attacks. The timing isn't impossible, but you still have to be on your guard. We often found ourselves walking around with the red halo of impending death clogging up the screen after unsuccessfully trying to dodge properly.
While Silent Hill 2 captures the tone of the original, we were a little concerned about how some of the original horrors would translate into the modern era. In the eyes of some fans, this is a no-win situation. Either change things and upset the hardcore fans, or keep everything the same, cheesiness and all, and potentially alienate new fans.
“This is the most interesting aspect of remaking a game like this,” Lenart tells us. “In the original, the fixed camera allowed the developers to hide dangers. In addition, the old consoles were not able to show all the things that exist in space. A large part of the horror was created in the player's mind, so it is a challenge to recreate that feeling.”
“We had to expand the design of the enemies. Mannequin, for example, has more mechanics. She can hide, she can surprise the player.”
Can it ever? It's not a pleasant experience to be surprised by a jump scare in the middle of a packed room with other journalists playing the same demo, but more than once we were caught flat-footed when the mannequin charged at us from a dimly lit closet.
Every room we entered in the highly detailed complex at the end of the demo was full of misdirections and hiding places for enemies, and even in rooms where we could count on being alone, every dilapidated wardrobe or jacket hanging on a coat rack put us on edge.
We mentioned at the beginning that Silent Hill 2 is not only a remake for hardcore fans who have been left out for years, but also an introduction to the series for a new generation. With that in mind, there are probably more than a few gamers wondering if they need to play the nonexistent Silent Hill 1 remake before diving into this game.
Executive producer Maciej Glomb laughs when we broach the subject of starting a sequel. “If you ask why we start with Silent Hill 2, the decision was not ours. Konami wanted to revive the franchise with this game because it is the most famous and considered the best.
“It was definitely worth it because Silent Hill 2 is the best fit for what Bloober Team can do. For our employees, this is their absolute dream project. Everyone wins.”
As we played the beginning of the game, we couldn't help but imagine what it will be like for the series' most loyal fans to play through these exact sequences when the game comes out in a few weeks.
Even if they know the original game like the back of their hand, every deviation, every reimagined cutscene, and most importantly, every location now in stunning 4K will either be a moment of relief or a vindication of their doubts.
“We're often asked if we're under pressure from fans. To a certain extent, it definitely is,” Glomb tells us. “We know that every trailer and asset we release is being watched closely, dissected into little pieces every second. It's hard, we've never experienced that before. Our games weren't as popular in the past. We always say that the biggest pressure came from ourselves.
“If we weren't making this game, we'd be the people on Reddit reviewing every frame. That's enriched the gaming experience. After every trailer, we get a ton of feedback – negative or positive, we don't really care, as long as we can take something from it to improve the game.
“If we weren't making this game, we'd be the people on Reddit reviewing every frame. That's enriched the experience. After every trailer, we get a ton of feedback – negative or positive, we don't really care, as long as we can take something from it to improve the game.”
“There are things that people noticed that we didn't notice before, and that influenced some of our decisions. Not all of them – in some cases we had already tested something they suggested – but it was an isolated case.”
We left Silent Hill 2 with significantly more confidence in the remake than before. The gameplay feels great, the game is graphically impressive, and the atmosphere of the original has been perfectly recreated. The transition from the fixed camera to the third-person perspective is a very different experience, but at no point does it feel like the heart of Silent Hill 2 has been lost.
Crucial to the health of the series, Silent Hill 2 will be exactly the kind of shot in the arm that will bring the series back into fashion. The comparisons to Resident Evil Remake will probably be inevitable, but is that a bad thing when Capcom's recent efforts at modern survival horror games have been just as genre-defining as both Resident Evil and Silent Hill were in the genre's early days?