An unfortunate return to ‘Silent Hill’ (2024)

“In my restless dreams, I see that town. Silent Hill.”

The “Silent Hill” franchise is one of the most iconic series in all of gaming, with its titular town in Maine serving as the nightmarish background of some horrifying and occasionally depressing games.
It’s impossible to talk about horror games without mentioning “Resident Evil” or “Silent Hill.” However, while both franchises suffered a decline in quality over time, the former has been on a hot streak since its 2017 return to form: “Resident Evil 7: Biohazard.” Meanwhile, “Silent Hill” was seemingly abandoned … until now.
While I’m not the biggest fan of the franchise, I have been desperate for a new entry for a long time, especially after the infamous cancellation of “Silent Hills,” a new entry in the franchise that would have been directed by gaming legend Hideo Kojima (“Metal Gear Solid”) and Oscar-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro (“The Shape of Water”). Aside from the short 2014 game “P.T.,” we never actually got to play this full game, as Kojima parted ways with Konami after creative disagreements, resulting in the game’s ultimate cancellation.

Almost a decade after all the dust settled, Konami announced a relaunch of the “Silent Hill” franchise in October 2022, and I have some pretty mixed feelings overall. This relaunch has already gotten off to a bad start, with the interactive series “Silent Hill: Ascension” being torn apart by audiences and the game “Silent Hill: The Short Message” being an overall mess of a game. I laud the latter for trying to tackle themes of bullying, suicide and the problem with social media, as some moments in the story were genuinely effective. But the outdated graphics, repetitive gameplay and terrible writing make the game feel half-baked, as if the developers were more focused on the message than on making an actual video game.

The one game that’s coming out relatively soon is also the one that I’m dreading the most: the “Silent Hill 2” remake. When it comes to remakes of games, I’m usually pretty excited. The 2019 remake of the horror classic “Resident Evil 2” has shown that taking older games and revamping their graphics and gameplay can be successful. Granted, I’ll admit that some remakes were pretty unnecessary — like “The Last of Us Part I,” a 2022 remake of a game from 2013 — but quite a few have proven to either be as good or even better than the original. And as much as I enjoy “Silent Hill 2,” the age of the game keeps me from loving it.
My biggest problem is that this remake is being developed by Bloober Team, a studio I’m not a big fan of. I enjoyed the first few hours of their games “Layers of Fear” and “>observer_” mainly due to their atmosphere and art design, but after a while, they just started spamming me with excessive and predictable jump scares that abused my eyes and ears. “The Medium” is probably their best game to date, partially due to its unique gameplay which has the player navigate two alternate realities simultaneously, but mainly due to its fantastic music co-composed by Yamaoka. But even that game is only a 6 out of 10 for me, mainly due to its technical problems.
So far, the marketing for “Silent Hill 2” hasn’t quelled my fears, and I remember loudly groaning when it was announced that Bloober Team was developing this remake. The visuals look weirdly outdated, making the project look more like a port for the PS5 rather than a game being rebuilt from the ground up. Not only that, but the January State of Play showed a new trailer focused mainly on combat, which really shouldn’t be the case considering that “Silent Hill 2” is a harrowing psychological game focused more on a chilling atmosphere instead of action. If this were a “Resident Evil” game, then a focus on fending off enemies with guns and melee weapons would be perfectly suitable, but “Silent Hill” is very different tonally.
All in all, it seems that this relaunch of the “Silent Hill” franchise will be pretty bad overall. It’s frustrating seeing such an iconic series being reduced to a cash cow that disrespects what came before it. It’s possible that the rest of Konami’s lineup for the franchise can pleasantly surprise me, but at this point, I highly doubt that any of these titles can live up to the miserable glory of the original games.