When Bloober and Konami announced that they were remaking Silent Hill 2 as part of a comprehensive series reboot , it made immediate if slightly deflating sense to me. Silent Hill 2 is the more feted of the Hills - if I were a calculating franchise custodian tasked with 'bringing back' one of the acclaimed original trilogy, that's probably the instalment I and my spreadsheets would fix upon. I mean, it's the game with Pyramid Head in it - the nearest thing Silent Hill has to a mascot, and it's not like there's an issue of cutting out plot material: each game in the Silent Hill series is, on some level, a distinct story with a distinct protagonist.
Still, the decision to 'skip' the first game in the series , whose world, narrative themes, music and art direction set the parameters for all the rest, made my brain itch a bit, and when I ran into Bloober's creative director Mateusz Lenart and lead producer Maciej Głomb at a Konami event, I had to ask about it. "I think Silent Hill 2 just matches our DNA way better," Lenart began. "It's much more emotional, a much more personal story than, for example, the first game or the third game.
And we at Bloober were always fans of telling personal stories about people's experiences, people's feelings and how they go through them. Not so much about, you know know, occultism and things from other worlds, right? So I think that was the main reason, basically." Some context: without giving too much away, the original Silent Hill is more of a supernatural affair, with your character Harry swept up in various diabolical doings, though it's also a work of psychological projection.
The sequel switches priorities, placing a sorely disquieted brain at the centre, though it keeps one foot in that lineage of occultism. Lenart added that Bloober prefers to tell stories that are similarly "grounded" and focussed. "Obviously [our games] feature some supernatural elements, but in the end it's all about a specific person, on a specific journey that they need to make to find out the truth about themselves.
" Of course, the choice of which Silent Hill game to tackle was broadly out of Bloober's hands. "Yeah, Silent Hill 2 is the best match for us as Bloober Team, in terms of our DNA and the games that we've done and that we did previously," Glomb agreed. "On the other hand, it's not like we were making this decision, right? The franchise is connected to Konami's plans.
"So we had this proposition, probably because of our DNA, our backgrounds with Silent Hill 2. And we were very glad to do this version of the game, just because it fits our feelings. Even in our previous games, we were so inspired by Silent Hill 2 in more specific aspects - in Layers Of Fear, which is a completely different game, but having those different endings, it was inspired by Silent Hill 2.
Having those small things during the game where we don't tell you that it'll lead to a different ending." As I said, if I were a canny Konami exec, I would probably greenlight Silent Hill 2 for the remake treatment before any of the others. As a player, however, I'm curious to know how Bloober's remake will land with people who haven't played the horror game that started the ball rolling.
It's still my favourite of the Hills, and Silent Hill 2 is a richer play for understanding how it responds to the original game - what it preserves, what it rejects. While there has been a "remake" of sorts in the shape of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, the first Silent Hill lives on today mostly in the shape of the retro horror scene: its PS1 graphics and visual direction have become a distinct aesthetic, evolving alongside the hi-fi photorealism of later Silent Hill sequels. I guess we'll always have Itch.
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