Silent Hill 2 has never been my game. I didn’t own a Sony console until the PS3, and the only Silent Hill game on that console, Silent Hill HD Collection, isn’t well-regarded. I ended up skipping the series entirely, hoping my time would come when the series eventually got remastered for modern consoles. I’ve always known that the series is a big blind spot for me, but short of tracking down a PS2 and a physical copy, there wasn’t much I could do about that. Silent Hill 2 Remake is my first ever viable option for righting that long-standing wrong.
Though I hadn’t played Silent Hill 2 until now, you can’t spend much time on Gaming Twitter without learning about it through osmosis. When I finally booted up Silent Hill 2 on PS5, I wasn’t surprised to be greeted by iconic moments that broke containment and spread into pop culture over the 13 years since it was first launched. I was surprised to see how many of those defining moments show up within the first 30 minutes of the game.
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In My Restless Dreams, I See That Town
As a non-Silent Hill 2 fan, I’ve obviously seen the image of James Sunderland looking at himself in the mirror. It’s the most famous image from the game and, as we awaited the remake, side-by-side screenshots from the new version and the old version provided an early comparison point for fans who wondered if Bloober could get this right.
I guess I expected this moment to occur much later in the game — maybe because there’s a similar shot of Kyle Machlachlan’s Agent Cooper looking into a mirror, crazed, in the final scene of Twin Peaks‘ original run. I thought it might signify James having a moment of recognition, where he comes to terms with who he is, late in the game. But, nope, in Silent Hill 2, it’s the very first shot.
Shortly after that, I heard a line that has become similarly iconic to me just by being around gaming spaces for so many years. “In my restless dreams, I see that town. Silent Hill.” Again, this is incredibly famous (to the point that I saw somebody doing a meme copypasta of it on Bluesky this morning before I wrote this piece), and it hits within the first two minutes of the game.
The Gang’s All Here In Silent Hill 2
A few minutes after that, I headed down the stairs and entered the town’s decrepit cemetery where I immediately met Angela. I’m aware of this character for less positive reasons. For months, chuds have complained about Bloober’s new version of this character not being as “hot” as the old one. And that argument has been countered repeatedly by fans of the game highlighting that this character is a teenage abuse victim and it’s weird to be fixated on how hot she looks. Regardless, this is a character I was familiar with ahead of starting the game, and I met her like five minutes in.
Almost immediately after that, I walked past Silent Hill Ranch. Its sign, which is famous for its goofy-looking comic sans font, appears largely unchanged from the original game. It still looks kind of silly, but I probably wouldn’t have thought twice about it if it hadn’t been elevated to meme status over the past 23 years.
The game even homages that weird hole in the wall (which spawned “Enter The Hole” memes) from Silent Hill 4: The Room within the first hour or so.
At this point, the only thing I expect from Silent Hill 2 that hasn’t yet appeared is Pyramid Head. That Buster Sword-wielding geometric villain is my last major milestone. Given that I’m still only about 90 minutes into the game, that’s a strange, but exciting, feeling. Anything could be out there, waiting in the fog.
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