The Original Silent Hill 2 Is Still Well Worth Playing

Despite consuming survival horror games with more enthusiasm than a Resident Evil protagonist downing a mulched up mix of herbs, I’ve somehow never stopped for a fright-filled bite in Silent Hill. I can only presume I kept missing it due to all that fog. But with Bloober Team’s remake reviving the series’ most beloved entry, I figured I was long overdue an outing in James Sunderland’s first pair of boots. So how does the original Silent Hill 2, and crucially its scares, hold up to a modern horror fan experiencing it for the first time? As it turns out, scarily well.

Silent Hill 2: A survival horror classic

James Sunderland looks at a pair of mannequin legs in Silent Hill 2. They protrude from a doorway in a dark apartment block — It's definitely dead, right?
©Konami / Restart

There’s something about the era of late ‘90s to early 2000s survival horror. That unique atmosphere of unknown terror generated through murky, ill-defined visuals, minimal guidance, and clunky controls. It’s no wonder that many modern indie games attempt to replicate the style. The original Silent Hill 2 is very much a game of its time. So if you’re not prepared to tangle with tank controls or aren’t willing to play with a walkthrough ready to reference, you’re likely better off sticking to the remake. But those willing to push through these archaic systems – or even appreciate how they can add to the tension – will find a uniquely unsettling experience.

The first thing that struck me was the soundtrack. Akira Yamaoka’s score isn’t just excellently crafted, it’s deployed with insidious purpose. Unsettling tracks don’t just kick in when enemies are lurching nearby in the fog. Tense strings and discordant piano are sometimes tied to very specific regions – a short corridor, or a single sector of an apartment block. It’s often impossible to know if the score is warning you about an imminent threat or just trying to embed itself under your skin. It leaves your nerves frayed. You’re constantly second guessing, and always on edge. The approach to music is emblematic of Silent Hill 2 as a whole. Here, even the camera will act against your expectations and desires.

James Sunderland talks to a woman holding a knife in Silent Hill 2. He shows her a photo saying "her name's Mary. She's my wife... — Stilted dialogue somehow adds to Silent Hill 2's atmosphere
©Konami / Restart

A game like Resident Evil comes with relative structure to its scares. It almost holds your hand in the typical manner it builds up tension and terror, making you complicit in the rise to a crescendo. You need that key to progress, but taking it is sure to awaken something sinister. By contrast, Silent Hill 2 can be wildly unpredictable. Vital cutscenes and characters are hidden in seemingly unremarkable corners of a building. You’ll wander fog-laden streets in a malaise, then find yourself thrust abruptly into a brutal boss fight just for entering a simple stairwell. New enemy types arrive and attack without introduction or cutscene fanfare. Sometimes it isn’t even clear if you’re actually able to harm an enemy you’re facing.

That unevenness does, unfortunately, cut both ways. In one section, I was directed to follow a young girl who’d run out of a bowling alley. Heading one way up the street, another character interrupted via cutscene to state that she hadn’t gone that way. But which way had she gone? They weren’t prepared to say. What followed was 10 minutes of wandering in the other direction, before an eventual walkthrough check revealed I was completely off base. What I was actually meant to do was go directly behind the building I’d left and interact with a specific segment of a chain-link fence. But of course!

Silent Hill 2 delivers plenty of these moments of obtuse logic or obscurity. Early on, one apartment block includes a room with a blocked garbage chute. One of many environmental details James can comment on. What’s easy to miss is that this is in fact a miniature puzzle. Stand in front of said chute, open your inventory, and use the canned juice item obtained elsewhere, and James will dump the six pack down the hole. This knocks the blockage free so that you can head down to the output and collect a coin essential to a puzzle elsewhere. Obvious when you think about it, really. So yeah, keep that walkthrough on standby should you decide to dive in.

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Pyramid Head, puzzles, and pens

Entertainingly for a game with so little direction, one of my favorite features proved to be the map. Collect a new map and, as you explore, James will scribble your discoveries on it in marker pen. Blocked doors are scratched out, connecting rooms are linked with arrows, and points of interest are roughly circled. It’s delightfully immersive and, when applied to restricted areas like the hospital, surprisingly helpful in identifying where you should probably visit next.

The hospital map in Silent Hill 2 with sketches by James Sunderland — James adds details to your map by pen as you explore.
©Konami / Restart

In a similar paradox, puzzles can be utterly obtuse, but also one of Silent Hill 2’s greatest aspects. Before starting, you’ll need to select a puzzle-specific difficulty. Each of these rewrites the clues and solutions to numerous puzzles throughout the game, making them more or less challenging a test of your deductive reasoning. It’s an outrageously ambitious inclusion, and one that makes the game’s head scratchers an intriguing prospect rather than a chore when it comes to subsequent playthroughs.

I should probably also mention the metal-headed elephant in the room, for Silent Hill 2 is also the birthplace of Pyramid Head. An antagonist so iconic that he’s effectively become a talisman for the series. Famous even to those who despise horror games, Pyramid Head has been brought back several times, appeared in a Silent Hill movie, and even made the jump to other releases like Dead By Daylight. But in playing the original, what’s shocking is how little he looks like his more recent incarnations. Instead of a musclebound monstrosity, Silent Hill 2’s Pyramid Head is – rust-tinged metal top and blade aside – rather more uncomfortably ordinary in size. A sexually frustrated, moaning menace who gives the impression he might appear at any moment to fill you with sheer dread. His newer forms would do well to cut back on the protein. The extra inches on his biceps only make him seem more generic.

James stands in a dark corridor in Silent Hill 2. His flashlight just reveals a monster at the edge of his vision — The camera isn't fixed, but it still frames plenty of unsettling perspectives.
©Konami / Restart

There are significant logistical challenges to even playing the original Silent Hill 2 today. And not just in terms of the in-game controls. As such, Bloober Team’s remake is most welcome. But for those willing to put in the effort, the original game remains as much of a harrowing, mystifying masterpiece as ever. Play it if you can, and if you dare.