There are a few key Silent Hill 3 easter eggs in theSilent Hill 2 remake, from the Halo of the Sun sigil toDouglas Cartland’s hat. Considering that Bloober Team’s foray into the foggy town of Maine is alreadythe fastest-selling game in the series’ history, it feels inevitable that it will soon be lured back to the mist like a certain widowed young man. But remaking Silent Hill 3 as many suspect it will, or even just the first game, would be a monumental misstep.
Contrary to what you might think, Silent Hill 2 is a complete outlier, telling a more introspective story about several characters lured into a purgatory-like limbo to confront their trauma and their sins. It’s completely disconnected from the widerSilent Hillnarrative which tells the story of a cult known as The Order.
The Cult, Alessa, And The Masons — Silent Hill Gets Weird
Spoilers for the first three Silent Hill games.
It all started with Harry Mason looking for his adopted daughter in the original Silent Hill, in which he came face-to-face with fanatics claiming that she’s one half of Alessa, who seven years ago was part of a ritual to birth ‘god’.
The game ends with Alessa’s two halves reconnecting so that she can once again attempt to bring forward the cult’s deity, but the ritual is far too much for her and she ultimately dies trying. However, in her final moments, she is reincarnated as her own baby. Harry escapes town with the child, who he also names Cheryl, and never looks back. Silent Hill 3 puts us into her shoes 17 years later, only now she’s called Heather Mason. During a trip to the mall, she’s targeted by the cult once more so that they can try to birth their god yet again.
Whether the cult’s god is real or the town bringing to life the cultists’ ideas like with James and Maria is still up for debate.
I love these games. They aren’t nearly as atmospheric or unsettling as Silent Hill 2, leaning far more into the B-movie shlock of sister seriesResident Evil, but there’s an old ‘90s and ‘00s charm to a young girl finding out that she’s a witch while fending off gods’ cultist hordes. It’s one part X-Files, the other part Buffy. But that’s not what the remake hooked people on.
Silent Hill’s Future Is Anthologies
Given that it’s the fastest-selling game in the series’ history, already accounting for ten percent of its lifetime sales, it’s safe to assume that the remake brought in a new audience, not just old fans. And those newcomers fell in love with James Sunderland and his personal story, not a larger-than-life quest to thwart cultists from ushering in the apocalypse.
To go back to Silent Hill 3, which was developed in direct response to the unfavourable reactions and poor sales of Silent Hill 2, would be unbelievably confusing to these new fans. Everything you loved about the remake? It’s gone, here’s a game nothing like that! The future of the series — and Bloober Team’s collaboration with Konami — isn’t in more remakes. It’s in telling stories that capture what made James Sunderland’s time in Silent Hill so enthralling.
Masahiro Ito revealed that due to Silent Hill 2’s poor initial sales,Silent Hill 3 was nearly an arcade shooter. That’s how much Konami wanted to move away from the second game.
Bloober’s next entry should be as disconnected from the rest of the series as Silent Hill 2 was in 2001, with new characters who have their own pasts to unravel and trauma to confront. And these stories shouldn’t be world ending threats, they should be as intimate as a man grieving the wife he killed, forced to confront her after burying his guilt so deeply that he truly believed she might still be alive. Lore is never what made these games interesting.
This remake is everything the series needed, giving it a completely new lease on life after decades of floundering. Whatever comes next is even more important, though, because Konami needs to ensure that this new audience stays for the ride so that the series can continue to prosper, and I just can’t see the cheesy cultist plotline doing that.
Silent Hill 2 was far more earnest than any other game in the series, because it was raw and deeply unnerving, delving into the psyche of a broken, complex man. It might not have been the runaway hit Konami wanted all those years ago (though, thanks to the remake, it is now), but there’s a reason it’s one of the most fondly remembered survival horror games of its era.
It was a statement, that the future of this series wasn’t endless sequels reheating the same story over and over, but that Silent Hill could be anything, depending on who’s eyes we saw it through. Silent Hill 3, as great as it was, went back on that promise, and it’s time to finally right that wrong over 20 years later.
Silent Hill 2
WHERE TO PLAY
Investigating a letter from his late wife, James returns to where they made so many memories - Silent Hill. What he finds is a ghost town, prowled by disturbing monsters and cloaked in deep fog. Confront the monsters, solve puzzles, and search for traces of your wife in this remake of SILENT HILL 2.High-end Graphics and SoundWith ray tracing and other cutting-edge technical enhancements, the world of SILENT HILL and its unsettling ambiance is even realer than before.And with the inclusion of new, immersive soundscapes, you’ll feel like you’re standing in the thick of it.Larger EnvironmentsExplore locations and buildings that were once inaccessible, or are newly added in the remake. Enjoy the same acclaimed story, even while you experience the town of Silent Hill with fresh eyes across an expanded map.Over-the-shoulder CameraThe remake moves from the original’s fixed-camera viewpoints to an over-the-shoulder perspective, putting you closer to what James sees, for a more thrilling, more immersive experience as you explore the town and come face-to-face with monsters.Evolved Combat GameplayFamiliar weapons like the steel pipe and handgun make their return, but now with an updated combat system. Avoid attacks with carefully timed dodges, aim down sights, and more, making monster encounters more engaging and nerve-wracking than ever.
