Silent Hill 2 review

What is it? A remake of a horror legend with a few surprises of its own.
Expect to pay £60/$70
Release date October 8, 2024
Developer Bloober Team SA
Publisher Konami
Reviewed on Intel i9-13900HX, RTX 4090 (laptop), 32GB RAM
Steam Deck Unknown
Link Official site 

I don't envy Bloober Team. Nobody actually wants the difficult task of updating something as nuanced, emotionally sensitive, and revered as Silent Hill 2. The original has been praised for decades, and picked apart by fans eager to understand every last detail for just as long. It's a game where every strange texture and odd room decoration means something, the game's unforgettable atmosphere held together by the finest of threads. 

This modern remake of that legendary tale gets off to a great start, offering an extensive range of graphical settings and accessibility options. It doesn't take long to tweak the game into a smoothly running raytraced beauty, or to adjust the controls and their behaviour so they're just the way I like them. A personal favourite is the option to swap the standard 'mash to get monsters off me' action for a simple button hold instead—a small gesture that allowed me to concentrate on the horrors around me instead of being distracted by an aching thumb. 

Those horrors look impressively familiar, even decades removed from the game's PlayStation 2 debut. The rust-covered hellscapes, the signage, the glistening sacks of flesh scuttling past locked-up homes tumbling into the abyss—it's easy to believe Silent Hill 2 always looked this good, but that illusion takes a lot of hard work.

The remake's treatment of the series' signature fog is just as remarkable. It seems to roll over the scenery, pool in dirty corners, and settle on the ground. It's a choking physical presence that can move and change intensity, something protagonist James Sunderland has to force himself through, rather than a simple cloudy overlay trying to obscure my view.

In spite of the upgraded fog, Silent Hill 2 is easier to