Highlights

  • Konami and developer Bloober Team are partnering to remake Silent Hill 2, one of gaming's most iconic horror franchises.
  • The remake of Silent Hill 2 will need to carefully approach the source material, considering the high bar set by recent horror remakes.
  • The success of a first-person perspective in Resident Evil 7 suggests that a similar approach could revitalize the Silent Hill franchise.

It's no secret that fans of horror games have had plenty to choose from in recent years, including two critically acclaimed remakes arriving just this year that successfully reimagined some of the most-loved titles in the genre. Not to be outdone by the Dead Space and Resident Evil franchises, Konami's partnership with developer Bloober Team to remake Silent Hill 2 was revealed in October 2022, though the game doesn't currently have a release date. Silent Hill is one of gaming's most iconic horror franchises alongside Resident Evil, which begs the question of how a remake of what many consider to be the best game in the series should approach its source material.

Looking at this year's two preeminent horror remakes, Dead Space and Resident Evil 4, it's apparent that both developers took careful steps to retain the core elements of what makes each game special while adding in quality of life features and trimming out sections that either aged poorly or bloated the experience. Silent Hill2 is arguably the best game in the entire series, and part of what makes the game special is that there were few other horror games like it at the time. In an era where horror has seen a massive resurgence as a gaming genre and other horror remakes have established a high bar of quality, a faithful remake of Silent Hill 2 has large shoes to fill.

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Psychological Horror in Games Has Come a Long Way Since Silent Hill 2

In terms of horror games available on 6th generation consoles, few other titles come close to competing with the type of fear Silent Hill 2 is capable of instilling. Still, the genre has come a long way since 2001, with some of the best of the newer horror games sitting firmly entrenched in the subgenre of psychological horror. When Silent Hill and its sequel first released, horror games were often campy, gore-filled affairs not offering much in terms of narrative depth, but the intervening decades have seen the genre evolve to tell some stories that expertly examine more mature themes and aren't afraid to turn the magnifying glass on the more troubling aspects of the human psyche.

Bloober Team has some experience in psychological horror, making it a fitting candidate to get the reins to a Silent Hill 2 remake. But saying that the remake will be faithful raises some questions regarding how Bloober will handle some of the twists and narrative beats of the original while updating them for a modern audience. Storytelling in games today is miles ahead of where it was in 2001, and Silent Hill 2 already has an excellent story worthy of a careful approach to its retelling.

One of the more surprising and, frankly, heartbreaking consequences of Hideo Kojima's falling out with Konami was the cancelation of the planned Silent Hills game both he and renowned filmmaker Guillermo del Toro were working on. The PT demo for Silent Hills is still rife with promise of what a first-person game in the franchise could entail. There's a possibility that a first-person perspective could do for the Silent Hill franchise what it did for Resident Evil with the series' renaissance in Resident Evil 7.

The lack of an update regarding Silent Hill 2's release date and progress recently prompted members of Bloober Team to take to Twitter, reassuring fans that the game was not canceled. The mixed reception to Bloober Team's own games, along with the protracted development cycle for Silent Hill 2's remake, understandably has longtime series fans concerned over the team's purported "faithful" approach. Rather than play with fire by attempting to faithfully remake a beloved game with a cult fanbase, Konami and Bloober could chart new territory with a different kind of "remake", potentially even embodying the spirit of the canceled Silent Hills.