Review: Silent Hill 2 (PS5) - The Horror Great Remains So in This Excellent Remake

Silent Hill always has been and forever will be considered one of the greatest horror franchises ever made, but ask anyone under the age of 20 nowadays what game Pyramid Head is from and they’re perhaps more likely to name Dead by Daylight than the series’ legendary second entry. A few dire side games (PS3’s Downpour and the PS Vita title Book of Memories) along with Konami’s decision to step away from the video game industry have seen the IP fall into obscurity, only really mentioned when discussing its PS2 heyday. There’s no way to play any of the past instalments on PS5 or PS4, and due to how dreadful the HD Collection on PS3 was, the definitive console versions remain the originals.

It’s a sad state for such an iconic IP, but as Capcom goes from strength to strength with its excellent Resident Evil remakes, Konami finally seems to want to make amends with new instalments, and first and foremost, a full remake of what’s widely considered the franchise at its peak: Silent Hill 2. Bloober Team of Blair Witch and The Medium fame has been drafted in to help make the project a reality, working in close collaboration with Konami to faithfully bring back the classic. While there had been doubts over its ability to do so, the Polish developer has well and truly put any concerns to bed: Silent Hill 2 is incredible.

The two firms have come together to create a PS5 experience that wholeheartedly honours the PS2 masterpiece while expanding it and implementing new ideas, assets, and areas in all the right ways. What once was a roughly 10-hour game is now double that, with more things to see and do that still stick to the main story and its themes. It’s an impressive recreation of Silent Hill that manages to feel both familiar as you walk its same streets 23 years later, but also fresh as unforgettable locations like Toluca Prison and the Labyrinth receive significant touch-ups while retaining their scare factor.

It’s not an exact, one-to-one recreation; there have been changes made, yet the PS5 replacements still feel right and relevant. You’ll feel it most in the puzzles, where some have been swapped for completely new ones or updated with different features and mechanics. There’s slightly less of an emphasis on solving out-and-out riddles, exchanged for more exploration of the wider environments to find items. While this trade-off may become one of the few topical debates surrounding the release, many of the remake’s other additions and updates make for a much better playing game.

The camera, for example, has been brought much closer to protagonist James Sunderland with a modern over-the-shoulder perspective to improve immersion. This has aided the combat system, which — while retaining its weighty and deliberate roots — feels a lot better, especially with a gun in your hands. Of course, the control system has been overhauled to reflect all of this — modern button mapping makes interaction a breeze, even in the lovingly archaic-looking inventory menu.

And that’s exactly what Silent Hill 2 on PS5 manages to do so well: it continues to revel in the more classic gameplay styles of old, like delightfully convoluted puzzle-solving, while also still feeling, controlling, and looking like any other modern game. From a purely visual perspective, it may not quite compare to Capcom’s own remaking efforts, but everything else Bloober Team and Konami have achieved more than stacks up against a Resident Evil 2.

One of the things that’s allowed the PS2 original to sustain its importance for such a long time, though, is its narrative. The story of James and the trip to find his dead wife in Silent Hill is heralded for its handling of sensitive subjects and themes, and in itself presenting a gripping plot full of intrigue. Bloober Team handles this delicate aspect with respect as it faithfully restores the plot for the modern era, with little in the way of edits or cuts. The main beats all return as you remember them, along with every ending featured in the original game. A handful of entirely new conclusions have also been written into the PS5 remake. All in all, with the source text already there for Bloober Team to recreate, Silent Hill 2 still makes the same impact more than two decades later.

The intense and suspenseful gameplay loop of item searching and fighting monsters holds up too — through the help of its modern enhancements. Without the need for objective markers or quest logs, you’ll feel a natural urge to probe every room making up any given location — from the Woodside Apartments to the final Lakeview Hotel — hunting for items and resources. The classic survival horror loop of solving extravagant puzzles remains incredibly satisfying, combined with tense and heavily weighted combat to make any expedition away from a save point a dangerous one.

You see, James isn’t a military-trained soldier; he’s just a regular guy looking for his wife. He’s not been trained in the art of steel pipe swings, nor does he feel particularly comfortable with a shotgun in his hands. The game reflects his inexperience with a very deliberate, heavy combat system that prioritises melee weapons for standard enemies and guns for boss fights. James swings the 2x4 slowly, while reloading and popping off accurate shots takes time. Every action you take during an encounter feels intentional and calculated, because if you miss, there’s every chance the monster on the other end will bite back with a killing blow.

This goes both ways, though: seeing an enemy drop to the floor so you can beat it to death after a couple of successful hits is more gratifying when you’ve earned it. The only other move James has in his repertoire is a very basic dodge, so Bloober Team has successfully emulated the combat mechanics of old while giving them a modern-day feel, like over-the-shoulder aiming. Making you think about when you attack rather than going gung ho, it’s a measured mechanic that heightens satisfaction and relief.

Another way Silent Hill 2 taps into those senses is through the PS5 DualSense controller, with some of the most impressive implementations of haptic feedback in years. Work has been put into simulating a lot of the actions or environments portrayed on your TV screen so you can feel them in your hands. In the dead of night, when the heavens open and there’s rain soaking James to the bone, you’ll feel each individual droplet in the pad. As you’re exploring Toluca Prison, there’s a section where an alarm is sounded. Its grinding, unbearable pitch translates into vibrations inside the PS5 controller that genuinely make it unpleasant to hold. The effect makes you want to shut the alarm off as quickly as possible, intensifying the sequence as a whole as you begin to feel it in your own body. Some of Silent Hill 2’s use cases would make Astro Bot proud — it’s that effective.

The transformation of the game’s visuals, from PS2 to PS5, is another highlight. It doesn’t quite compare to top-of-the-line AAA titles, but to see how Bloober Team has faithfully recreated all of Silent Hill 2’s iconic locations, cutscenes, and moments for the current generation is impressive in itself. With a new soundtrack from returning composer Akira Yamaoka, it’s a sensual delight from both a graphical and auditory perspective.

The only proper disappointment is some slight visual bugs in the thick fog of Silent Hill, where you can sometimes see the outlines of buildings poking through. It looks a little unnatural, particularly when it’s difficult to see anything else beyond five feet in front of you. There’s also a slight fuzziness to character’s faces when analysed up close and during cutscenes, which looks a little strange. You get used to it, but it can be distracting from time to time.

Conclusion

Bloober Team has faithfully and respectfully recreated one of the survival horror genre’s all-time greats, modernising Silent Hill 2 in all the right ways. So much of what made the Konami classic a masterpiece in 2001 remains in this PS5 remake 23 years later, with the same unforgettable story, satisfying exploration, and weighty combat. There were concerns in the lead-up to release, but Silent Hill 2 speaks for itself: a spectacular experience that once again represents survival horror at its best.