I played the first five hours of the Silent Hill 2 Remake and was pleasantly, if not cautiously, surprised

Today, the marble-lined reception of Konami's Tokyo office opens up into an enormous black box room, choked with artificial fog, ominous red strobe lights, and rows and rows of PS5s. Not only am I here to play Silent Hill 2 Remake, but I'm also surrounded by some of the most iconic names attached to the franchise. Original music composer Akira Yamaoka is just a few paces away, as are other members of Team Silent and Konami – namely, original art designer Marahiro Ito and series producer Motoi Okamoto. Across the aisle, Bloober Team creative director Mateusz Lenart and lead producer Maciej Głomb weave a slow, steady patrol path of their own, casting lingering eyes upon screens and wringing their hands in a way they'd probably hoped to conceal. 

Their apparent anxiety (and pride) reminds me of something Okamoto-san has just told us, specifically of Konami's initial move to enlist the Polish studio in its remake of the best Silent Hill game ever. "What we wanted to seek in our partner was the strong passion towards the game," he said. "So we had a list of candidates that we were willing to work with, and we reached out [to Bloober Team]. I have first-hand selected them as my own decision." The unfinished game isn't without its hiccups even at this late stage, but that passion Okamoto speaks of is instantly palpable.

You promised you'd take me there again someday 

It's clear that the Silent Hill 2 Remake proudly holds tight to what the production teams identified as its core tenets, from its tension and atmosphere, to the belter of a reworked soundtrack. But the five hours I spent with the game would also go on to unveil a curious sense of hesitancy, constantly pulling it back from being either a totally faithful remake or a brave reimagining entirely.

I'm impressed by plenty of bright spots throughout my hands-on experience, including the game's dynamic third-person movement, refined combat, and expanded exploration zones. So much so that, even with my concerns at this point in its development, I'm hopeful that Silent Hill 2 Remake may yet make a lasting impression upon modern day survival horror audiences – even if the creative teams sound apologetic for its very existence at times.

Before we get started, Okamoto walks us through the game's nine key new features. We know to expect a thick and realistic blanket of fog enveloping Silent Hill thanks to the game's 4k graphics, including faithful recreations of key locations "down to miniscule items," and facial mo-cap to make cutscenes "as emotional as possible." On the technical side, he also mentions 3D sound design to heighten immersion, an over-the-shoulder third-person camera perspective, reworked combat featuring a dodge mechanic and aiming reticule, remapping of existing enemies, new and expanded areas and puzzles, and the inclusion of all original endings. There will even be some brand new Silent Hill 2 endings that can "only be accessed in New Game+," Bloober Team tells GamesRadar+, though the studio shies away from revealing more.

Keeping all of this in mind, I set out on my Silent Hill 2 Remake journey. The game picks up at exactly the same place as the 2001 original, with protagonist James Sunderland arriving at the small, deserted town after receiving a mysterious summons from his supposedly deceased wife. It's charged with as much creeping dread as ever. The team discussed making the iconic introduction "more action-heavy," says creative director Lenart, but admits it "did not feel like it was very Silent Hill, and this is why we made the choice to keep it as it was and only pick up the pace after some time."

But after taking my first few steps into the mist, I find myself needing to swap over to performance mode in order to achieve smooth 60 frames-per-second gameplay. It's a little troubling so close to release, especially with quality mode not seeming to boost fidelity much at all, though it's possible this is an older build of the game. But even these instances of texture drop-out while staring into the recesses of West Vale's many overfilled dumpsters isn't enough to ruin my day. That's because these opening scenes excel at nailing the atmosphere of Silent Hill as a location, turning it into an expansive, malevolent entity in itself.

It might be more modern than fixed camera angles, but the third-person perspective does nothing to detract from how disorienting it feels not to be able to see more than a foot in front of you. Likewise, don't bother to memorize any of the puzzles and key item locations from the original game – you'll find many of them have been remapped entirely in the remake. Feeling so lost in a world I thought I knew pretty damn well is an appropriately jarring sensation, demonstrating Bloober's understanding of how to create uncanny familiarity that keeps you on your toes. It's something that instantly drew me into Capcom's Resident Evil 2 Remake back in 2019, and I'm relieved to see flashes of brave mechanical innovation in Silent Hill 2 Remake as well.

The addition of a single new puzzle while exploring West Vale, involving a broken record, is an example of this, proving formative in altering my pathing through the town as I'm led on a wayward treasure hunt. Repairing the record and listening to the music triggers a memory, and where does it lead me? The next main area: Wood Side Apartments. I find it a simple yet effective change to how James makes his way there in the original, but purists may find the tweak too extreme.

Trigger happy

Hardwood plank in-hand, I take on the iconic Lying Figures enemies with relentless aggression. I know I don't need to kill them all – and in some Silent Hill games, you'd be wise not to – but the satisfying thwack of wood against meaty carcass is worth every moment of overkill. The precision element is certainly refreshing in Silent Hill 2 Remake, trading the unwieldy clunk of the original's fixed camera angles for a more targeted approach that allows me to off far more monsters than I would playing the original.

The more I play, the more the puzzles and combat stand out to me as the biggest mechanical strengths of Silent Hill 2 Remake – even if Ito-san insists that "the game is not heavily oriented toward combat." The former is something Lenart is especially proud of himself. "I think we have been able to capture this smooth balance between the memory of the original game and new content that can, I think, surprise the long-time fans of the series," he says of the puzzle and level design reworks.

As a fan of third-person shooters and the way survival horror games have implemented their combat in recent years – Alan Wake 2, I'm looking at you – I'm not mad about it. It just gives James more ways to approach a situation, as well as giving me a fighting chance should I be unable to sneak past a foe.

But with a game like Silent Hill 2, even the smallest of changes are bound to surprise its dedicated fans one way or another. "At the very beginning, we didn't want to change anything completely, because we were too afraid of touching the game," lead producer Głomb admits, acknowledging the risks of remaking such a cult classic video game. "But after time, we saw that we needed to expand on the game in a way that would be competitive in this generation of consoles." 

These alterations might not be for everyone, but I find them refreshing. By the time I break into the Blue Creek Apartments, just over three hours into the preview session, I note how well the expanded zones help establish the world of Silent Hill for new and returning players alike. But there was one more surprise in store for me in the form of a nasty new enemy variant, though it's important to note that accoridng to Ito-san, there are "absolutely no brand new monsters" in the game.

As I aim my flashlight-mounted handgun to help navigate the detritus of the nightmare apartment block, relief floods my body. The coast is somewhat clear, for now. It's a brief respite, because I soon come face to face with the Spider Mannequins. Or as I like to call them: the bane of my absolute stinking life.

I mean that with a lot of love. These monsters scurry across the floor, dodging my painstakingly-timed shots with unfair levels of grace that James can only dream of in his drab khaki raincoat. Mannequins give me the biggest jumpscares of the day, as many a lurking developer unfortunately becomes privy to. Every time I enter a room only to have a mannequin suddenly move in the corner, I'm thrown into a fear-fueled frenzy and batter it to death with my melee weapon, hissing the vilest profanity known to the English language to the gleeful titters of Team Silent and company.

Even this rage is borne of love. For all of Silent Hill 2 Remake's reworks to the form, flow, and style of the original, it more than succeeds at delivering a compulsive survival horror experience. Modern flourishes seek to bring it in line with today's genre standards, falling just shy of making any truly huge moves to break with its core conventions while showing new sides to a beloved franchise that's finally emerging from dormancy. Having had a closer look at what Bloober Team is aiming for on October 8, I'm more than ready to give Silent Hill 2 Remake the chance it deserves.

Silent Hill 2 launches on October 8 for PS5 and PC. Check out the other upcoming horror games slated to launch in 2024 and beyond if you already have your eye on the horizon.