What do we mean to achieve when we remake or remaster a video game? I’m not sure that there’s any consensus. In the case of Tomb Raider I-III Remastered or the Monkey Island Special Editions, it feels like the developers acted as expert caretakers. They’re taking those games out of a dusty vault with gloved hands and presenting them to a new audience, usually completely unchanged, at least from a content perspective. Graphics and control schemes often have to be modernised to fit contemporary hardware demands, but the best remasters allow you to revert back to the original key bindings or art style. You might see the restoration of some cut content at a push, but that immediately raises questions about implementing it into the game’s structure and harming its intended pacing.
I would consider those aforementioned games as remasters and then something like 2019’s Resident Evil 2 or Bluepoint’s Demon’s Souls as a remake. For me, the delineation is that a remake is built from the ground up instead of working with an existing code base. The process naturally invokes the ancient paradox of the Ship of Theseus. Imagine if Valve launched Portal in 2007 and immediately got to work remaking Portal with the same team and tools. Would it still be the same game?
I’d argue that, by design, the answer is no, because despite how much you may try, you cannot bottle the lightning of a piece of art made in its own creative and cultural vacuum, regardless of whether it dropped ten years or ten minutes ago. You can only evoke the past with a remake, and a nostalgic, rose-tinted audience will determine the success of your efforts. And then you have to balance that with the need to deliver an uncompromised experience for new players. It’s an unenviable line to draw, and it doesn’t help that the naming system is a total mess with plenty of edge cases. Take The Last of Us Part II Remastered, which, by my logic, is a remake.
And if this trend wasn’t complicated enough, we have games like Pathologic 2, NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139… and Final Fantasy 7 Remake — all postmodern reimaginings that contain a knowing appreciation of the discourse and context that followed the release of the work it is ruminating on. In some regards, they can be considered sequels to the inspirative text, pushing the story in contemplative, often surreal directions. As Bertolt Brecht once said, “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it,” in lieu of a remaster, I think this approach is the most consistently worthwhile and thought-provoking, especially if the original work remains preserved.
A corpse can’t laugh
With this foundation, we can pivot towards Bloober Team’s Silent Hill 2, or, as I’d prefer to call it, Silent Hill 2 Remake. For the most part, this is a restrained and thoughtful tribute to Team Silent’s defining effort from 2001, one that understands most of its atmospheric desires. The trendy over-the-shoulder perspective definitely harms the environmental storytelling, though, and while the combat in the original wasn’t much to shout about, the remade combat is awkward and leads to messy camera scenarios — it pales compared to a more visceral and engaging modern horror game like Alan Wake 2.
Thankfully, the remake is quickly justified by its meticulous sound design, environmental flourishes and acting performances. Trembling mouths and drifting detritus in the fog adds so much to the experience, making the more by-the-numbers parts of this classic story all the more enjoyable. There are some really cute details for the Silent Hill nerds as well, and their inclusion makes me feel cautiously optimistic about Bloober Team remaking Silent Hill, Silent Hill 3, or Silent Hill 4: The Room in the future.
The remaining Team Silent games are wonderful and broadly underappreciated, but crucially, they boast less contentious narratives than Silent Hill 2, making the remake process far more approachable. But herein lies my issues with Bloober Team’s Silent Hill 2. It’s not strictly a remake nor completely self-aware, and Bloober Team doesn’t make a firm commitment to either side. This, paired with the fact that there is no easy way to play the original game on modern hardware, raises existential questions, muddying the game’s already-troubled identity.
For starters, the remake adds two new endings (Bliss & Stillness) that complicate the conclusions fans had drawn since 2001. It also includes entirely new areas that buffer the storyline, introducing new interactions and conversations between the game’s cast that aren’t all successful or warranted. I vastly preferred the terse, gut-punch handling of boss encounters in the original, and the scenes in the newly-added Moonlight Grove and Revere Theater (where Bloober Team went off script) felt like a drop in quality compared to the rest of the game. The original Silent Hill 2 had problems, don’t get me wrong, but the additional bloat added here hurts the cadence of the game’s storytelling and worsens its replayability — while furthering the idea that this is a reinterpretation, rather than a remake.
Metatextual misgivings
This is backed up by the inclusion of new memos that James can find, which hamfistedly allude to Silent Hill 2’s subplots and the protagonist’s eventually revealed role in the story. This is by far my least favourite change because it shines a light on what was previously up to the player’s interpretation. Other memos suggest that James is trapped in a time loop and that This Is Happening Again, ad nauseum. It’s not a bad idea, especially if it was executed with conviction. But in the end, Bloober Team doesn’t commit to this self-aware interpretation of Silent Hill 2, so it is just set dressing, a bit of ‘what if’ theory-stoking for returning players that takes something away from the experience for first-timers. It feels like the developers are ‘confirming’ some of the interpretative elements present in the original game, replacing the vaccuum left behind with new provocative additions that aren’t handled nearly as well.
Broadly, I think there should have been more consideration about what adding to a game like Silent Hill 2 can do to a player’s initial interpretation. It may seem minor to throw in a tongue-in-cheek memo or a knowing Strange Photo caption, but new lines of text can make certain throughlines feel heavyhanded. It’s a confusing position because remakes aren’t just for people who are nostalgic about the original game. In this case, I think it’s safe to assume that for many players, this will be their first experience of Silent Hill 2, and they will assume that it is the best version. Yet it doesn’t even have Born From A Wish!
It’s a shame because there are some tasteful additions in the remake that don’t take away from the story of Silent Hill 2. The Comic Sans ranch sign being dismantled out of bounds is a clever meta-gag that you could only find if you *really* care about the details, and Douglas Cartland’s hat popping up in Room 106 is a subtle nod that works within the canon and may indicate what Bloober Team is up to next. There’s also a blanket with human-like protrusions in the back of James Sunderland’s car in the opening scene. It’s always been a fan theory and has been backed up by the original developers in recent years, so to confirm it with a remake is a bold choice that will rekindle the theorycrafting fire. But, like the ranch sign, it’s an optional piece of information that you can only find with some modding know-how — not a memorandum with half-baked implications that you can be influenced by during a playthrough.
The Verdict
Ultimately, I’m mixed on the Silent Hill 2 Remake. I enjoyed revisiting a masterpiece from a different perspective, but I wouldn’t say this is the best way to experience Silent Hill 2. As a modern video game, divorced from the context of its inspirations, it’s a fun, gorgeously atmospheric experience, but it’s a little rough around the edges, gameplay-wise, at least compared to its contemporary peers. Without the beloved, tried-and-tested narrative to back it up, there’s not a lot to shout about here. But when we fold in the existence of Silent Hill 2, it all gets far more complicated. It’s clear as day that Konami and Bloober Team gave a hoot about exhuming and upgrading the finer details of the original game, but I would have loved to see that same holistic care applied to the remake’s new additions, some of which feel carelessly implemented, and raise existential questions about the game’s identity. In light of this, the confidence to name the game ‘Silent Hill 2’ feels brash, and suggests that Bloober Team has delivered a superseding reinterpretation rather than a remake. And as it becomes increasingly more difficult to play Team Silent’s take on Silent Hill 2, that’s a concept that makes me feel uneasy.
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