Silent Hill 2 composer Akira Yamaoka says making the game's soundtrack "felt almost like touching something divine" because he got to design sound for the game's many "smells"

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Hm, smells like lo-fi binaural beats for studying to

Silent Hill 2 Remake in-development screenshot
(Image credit: Konami)

Renowned Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka has been showcasing his incredible talent for spinning up creepy, spidery music for the series since 1999, but what makes the 2001 Silent Hill 2 soundtrack so remarkable is apparently the attention Yamaoka gave to unmusical matters – like the game's undoubtedly noxious stench.

"With the previous title, the first game, I had set myself the mission of creating something that hadn't existed in game sound or audio until then," Yamaoka explains in a new interview with IGN, according to a translation. "For Silent Hill 2, [...] I also tried to depict things with sound that couldn't be conveyed visually in the game – things like temperature in the game, smells, or the sensation of wind brushing against the character."

But these questions and the scents they conjure – poop and mold, namely – never deterred Yamaoka. If anything, the awful truths of Silent Hill's rundown motels and putrid hospitals only helped the composer telegraph Silent Hill 2's gameplay through music.

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Ashley Bardhan
Ashley Bardhan
Senior Writer

Ashley is a Senior Writer at GamesRadar+. She's been a staff writer at Kotaku and Inverse, too, and she's written freelance pieces about horror and women in games for sites like Rolling Stone, Vulture, IGN, and Polygon. When she's not covering gaming news, she's usually working on expanding her doll collection while watching Saw movies one through 11.

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