I recently sat down to try out the first three hours of Silent. Hill 2the upcoming remake of the groundbreaking survival horror classic, helmed by developer Bloober Team. When I traveled back to the mysterious town of Silent Hill as protagonist James Sunderland, I liked a lot of what I saw.
The world of the 2001 title has been meticulously recreated in absolutely stunning detail. From the opening scene where James arrives on the outskirts of town to the abandoned rooms of the Wood Side Apartment building, everything is simply beautiful to behold. Although graphically revamped, the grim, sinister atmosphere of the first release has been fully preserved. Thick fog shrouds the deserted streets, sparsely populated by shambling horrors and the occasional rotting corpse suspiciously reminiscent of our protagonist.
The sound design is also almost perfect: a subtle mix of unsettling ambient noises, distant moans and a tastefully reworked soundtrack. Bloober Team has always excelled in beautifully executed settings and it is clear that Silent Hill 2 will be no exception.
Restless dreams
Although this is very promising, this remake of Silent Hill 2 has big shoes to fill. I was keen to find out what it takes to recreate one of the best horror games of all time, so I sat down with Lead Producer Marciej Glomb and Lead Designer Mateusz Lenart to find out how Bloober Team handles the heavy burden of fan expectations.
“I think the common misconception – and I would call it a misunderstanding – is that the pressure comes from the fans, from the original players, and that is the hardest thing to deal with. But I would say that the strongest pressure actually comes from the team, because we are all fans of the original game and we want to be as good as we can,” explains Glomb. “I can easily imagine a scenario where, if we were not the studio remaking the game, Silent Hill 2We were the first in the forums and read all the information, news and leaks. From the beginning, it was extremely important to us that we always got the best out of the results we achieved.
“I would say that our goal was never to compete with the original. We didn’t want to just make it exactly the same. We wanted to reinvent the original game while giving it our own Bloober touch,” he continues. “People usually remember certain parts or feelings they had while playing. They don’t remember all the locations, all the little corridors or puzzles. So we wanted players to feel like they had played the original, even if the game is different in many ways.”
“We knew from the beginning that we were dealing with the memory of the original game, not necessarily every single aspect of it,” Lenart adds. “At the same time, we’re trying as best as we can to keep all the details of the original game and twist them and expand on those ideas to make the game interesting for newcomers, but also for long-time fans of the series.”
Updated, overhauled
Although the parts of Silent Hill 2 that I explored seemed faithful to the original, or at least to my hazy memories of it, Bloober Team intends to expand the game somewhat with new content such as additional endings. “Of course it varies in the different sections of the game, because in terms of the story we want to keep the original themes, original revelations and original character arcs,” says Lenart, “but in terms of gameplay, in terms of mechanics, we obviously had to improve certain things to make the game more accessible, and especially in terms of controls (…), combat systems and stuff like that.”
However, it was with these new systems that I noticed the most obvious rough edges. The general change from a fixed camera position to an over-the-shoulder perspective is well done and seems to be a good fit given the success of other survival horror remakes like Resident Evil 2but it does draw attention to the slightly choppy combat. James can dodge enemy attacks, but the canned animation is clunky and looks unnatural. The same goes for his melee attacks, which make the camera shake in an awkward way. Shooting was little better, and when I was armed with a pistol shortly after my play session began, every shot felt weak and, frankly, quite disappointing.
Another area where the studio seems to have deviated from the source material is the remake’s character designs, which have seen some improvements. Given the iconic status of the original incarnations of these characters, I was curious to find out the reasoning behind this decision. Lenart explains that “from the beginning, the characters were very important to us and to Konami and to Masahiro Ito, who is the original creator and art director of the original game.
We’re still making a remake, so it’s an opportunity to rethink things, sometimes in ways that even the original developers thought were even better.
“His input on these topics was probably the most important thing for us in the beginning. We talked a lot with him about the backstory of the characters, about what these characters actually are, in order to portray them in the best possible way. We also did a lot of research ourselves with Konami, for example looking for old concept art for Angela and Maria and even trying to portray some unfinished visions of the original creators that (…) never went into production.
“We’re still doing a remake, so it’s an opportunity to reinvent things, sometimes in ways that even the original creators thought were even better. But we want to reassure (fans) that we’re definitely not changing the characters’ personalities. The story arcs have to be the same. We understand the background of all these characters’ stories and even enrich them in some ways.”
We will have to wait and see what this exactly means. Silent Hill 2 is scheduled to be released on October 8th and will be available for PC and PlayStation 5. Physical and digital pre-orders for the upcoming game are now available.
