While everyone could’ve expected the worst for theSilent Hill 2 Remakefrom Bloober Team, it ended up being one of the most faithful and solid horror game remakes to be up there with Dead Space and Resident Evil 2 and 4. A lot of the excellent horror craftsmanship and love for the original game shows up in the form of Easter eggs.
Throughout each of the iconic, harrowing, and wonderfully redesigned locations in Silent Hill 2, you might stumble upon something that nods to the original or another installment in the series. Secrets and hidden details are hidden everywhere, so here are the coolest you can discover!
11The Infamous 0451 Code
Silent Hill 2 continues the trend of video games using what seems to be a universal access code of 0451. If you’re playing with the puzzle difficulty set to ‘Light’ or ‘Standard,’ the correct combination used for the safe in Jacks Inn is tied to a note where some minor addition and subtraction of numbers will give you the 0451 sequence.
If you’re up for a challengeand are playing with puzzles set to ‘Hard,‘you’ll have a much more complicated clue that involves multiplication and results in a different solution. It all started with System Shock, and some other notable video games that use the 0451 combination are BioShock, Prey, and the Deus Ex series.
10Walter Sullivan’s Grave
One of the most peculiar things about the graveyardin the labyrinth portion of Silent Hill 2was a tombstone marked for Walter Sullivan. You never meet the character or know much about him in the second game, but he would ultimately become the main antagonist of Silent Hill 4: The Room.
Bloober leaves Walter Sullivan’s tombstone in the remake, keeping the connection from the original and perhaps teasing some new remakes still to come. Silent Hill 4 reveals why Walter Sullivan truly deserves to be buried there along with James, Eddie, and Angela’s graves.
9Maria’s Original Outfit
Like all the characters in the new remake, Maria’s modelhas also undergone a bit of a redesign. One of the most recognizable differences is her outfit, which now covers her bare midriff with a black dress that’s worn underneath a red leather coat. Before, she would have on a red crop top sweater with a matching skirt.
However, as a nod to her original clothing, Bloober Team did include it in the game as an Easter egg. When James and Maria are exploring Jacks Inn, Maria can discover her old outfit hanging in the closet of Room 108, and even asks James, “Hey. You think I’d look good in this one?”
There’s a mod created by Swiz19for Maria to don her OG outfit from the 2001 game in the remake.
8The Original Game’s Map
You can feel the amount of love and care that went into this remake with just about every detail. Another reference from the developers to the 2001 game is allowing you to see the old version of the map, which can be found in areas like the Woodside Apartments and then later in the Otherworld.
You’ll notice subtle differences in the names of certain establishments in Silent Hill, like the ‘Groovy Music’ now replacing the location where the ‘Pet Center’ once was, and ‘Cafe Mist’ becoming just ‘American Cafe,’ though the restaurant names are still kept the same. It’s a nostalgic Easter egg taking you down memory lane.
7James’ Chainsaw Animation
The chainsaw is also a returning weapon in Silent Hill 2 Remake, and you may get it near Silent Hill Ranch during a new playthrough of the gamewith New Game Plus. It’s a powerful weapon that should make taking down enemies much easier the second time around.
The other original feature that stuck around with the chainsaw is James’ idle animation in which he lifts it in the air with both hands and shakes the chainsaw with a grunt preciselylike the frustrated Leatherfacein The Texas Chain Saw Massacre films.
6Eddie’s Leftover Pizza With A Throwback Line
When James pays a visit to the town’s bowling alley in the original Silent Hill 2, he has an iconic interaction with Eddie Dombrowski, who is helping himself to some pizza. His quote was,“This town is full of monsters! How can you sit there and eat pizza!?“While this exact scene isn’t in the remake, evidence of Eddie nearly finishing an entire pizza can be found in Pete’s Bowl-O-Rama.
In the remake, James can interact with a box of old pizza filled with one remaining slice and some pieces of discarded crust in the same spot where Eddie would’ve eaten it in the original. As a reference to that moment, James' dialogue line is now changed to “Who could just sit here and eat pizza.“It’s a Glimpse of the Pastthat also gets you the ‘Leftovers’ trophy.
Some hidden details come in the form of trophies in Silent Hill 2. The easiest one to obtain, if you’ve just paid $70 for the game and decided maybe you don’t want to be in Silent Hill after all,is the ‘No Turning Back Now.‘If you try to leave Silent Hill by exiting the parking structure and going the other way up the road, you’ll be turned around by an invisible wall and earn this achievement.
The other hilarious Easter egg in Silent Hill 2 is the ‘It’s Bread’ achievement, which is earned through interacting with trays of old moldy bread in the kitchen area of the Lakeview Hotel section. This one is thrown in to continue poking fun at the infamous caption displayed when Heather Mason interacts with some bread at Helen’s Bakery in Silent Hill 3.
4Douglas Cartland’s Hat In Room 106
Jacks Inn is full of Easter eggs in Silent Hill 2, and this is one of the most clever and meticulous ones. If you walk into Room 106, you’ll find a hat hanging off a chair, and its color as well as the design and pattern of the band going around it convey that it belongs to Douglas Cartland.
Douglas Cartland is a private investigator who will join Heather Mason’s adventure in Silent Hill 3. The hat being in Room 106 is no coincidence, but rather a nice detail, as this is the room that he and Heather will stay in during the events of Silent Hill 3.
In the same room, you’ll find a spot with torn wallpaper that can be revealed to show part of the symbol for The Orderduring the South Vale night sectionand will earn you the ‘All Seems in Order’ achievement.
3Comic Sans Silent Hill Ranch Sign
The Silent Hill HD Collection remastered Silent Hill 2 and 3 for the PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles, and the reception was abysmal compared to the originals and the new remake from Bloober. If you want to know just how ridiculous some of the changes were, one of the silliest turned the original font of the Silent Hill Ranch sign to Comic Sans.
Thankfully,the Comic Sans is gone from the main signfor the Silent Hill Ranch in the remake, but the Bloober Team made sure to still include the Comic Sans sign as a nod to the HD Collection elsewhere. If you go out of bounds, you can peek inside the actual barn and find the old HD Collection sign in all its Comic Sans glory lying there among the rubble.
2The Placement Of Mary’s Body
One of the classic debates that spawned from Silent Hill 2 was whether James’ wife, Mary, is in the trunk of his car or lying in the back seat, because (spoilers) he did kill her. Back in 2012, Masahiro Ito, Team Silent’s former art director and creature designer,tweeted that “Mary’s body is on the back seat of James’s car, not in the trunk if I remember correctly.”
Bloober Team decided to officially put all this to bed and make canon that Mary’s body is indeed covered by a blanket in the back seat of James’ car. Going out of bounds with the camera and peering through the car window will let you discover this little important detail that the developers wanted you to know.
