Last Updated on October 24, 2024 by Angel Melanson
The reviews are in – Bloober Team’s Silent Hill 2 remake is, to the chagrin of all the grumbling doubters, a hit. With over a million copies sold in its first week alone and overwhelmingly positive critical ratings, it’s safe to say that Silent Hill 2 is not only set to be one of 2024’s most successful games, but has also silenced those who believed a remake could never be done well. Thanks to Bloober, the foggy world of Silent Hill seems to have a new lease of life, and they’re more than happy to bring their magic touch to other entries in the series. But which Silent Hill game deserves the remake treatment the most?
The most obvious answer is, of course, the very first entry into the psychological horror franchise. Despite its graphical limitations, 1999’s Silent Hill is a marvel of atmosphere, reinventing the world of survival horror games for good with its cinematic influences and focus on creepiness over chaos. If its technical specs were to be updated for a modern console, with the powerhouse of the Unreal Engine 5 behind it, Silent Hill could send gamers to whole new realms of terror without the graphical limitations previously imposed upon it.
Further more, Silent Hill is absolutely ripe for a modern update, not least because it features most of the lore that those who’ve never touched a Silent Hill game are familiar with (Christophe Gans’ Silent Hill movie adaptation takes most of its story from the original game) – the siren, the fog, the shift into a darker Otherworld, and the Puppet Nurses who walked (well, shuffled) so that the Bubblehead Nurses could run. Years of imitations may have tried, but it’s time for Silent Hill to wake up and show the kids how it’s done.
Another often-maligned entry into the series that could use a fresh coat of paint is the black sheep of the Silent Hill family, Silent Hill 4: The Room. Released in 2004, Silent Hill 4: The Room marks the last entry developed by devs Team Silent, and as a result is the game people see as the last of the ‘glory years’ of Silent Hill. In their last hurrah, the team pushed the bounds of creativity, with the story taking place outside of the titular foggy town for the first time and featuring all new narrative and conflict styles.
Silent Hill 4: The Room has some of the most terrifying visuals of the entire franchise (plus the scariest opening), with Team Silent taking liberal cues from the horror movies of their home country, like Ring and Ju-On, for the design of the Ghosts. Then there’s the absolutely nightmarish Twin Victims, Eileen Galvin’s giant, twitching head and, perhaps most scary of all, Jasper Gein’s demands for chocolate milk. Done correctly, a revamped Silent Hill 4: The Room could be the closest thing we’ll ever get to Hideo Kojima’s Silent Hills, which was tragically culled by Konami despite delivering one of the scariest teasers in all of video game history.
As creatively impressive as Silent Hill 4 was, however, it leaves a lot to be desired from a gameplay standpoint, with the decision to emphasis combat over puzzles for the first time proving better in theory than in practise. Much of Silent Hill 4 is repetitive and tedious, with the restrictions placed on Henry proving to be more inconvenient than scary. Here’s where Bloober could (and should) come in. They’ve proved themselves capable of creating an adaptation that’s at once faithful to the visuals of the original source material while improving on the flaws that existed due to console limitations at the time the games were made.
Bloober could also fix another of Silent Hill 4’s weaker points; the characterization. Admittedly, following a game with a protagonist as charming and spunky as Silent Hill 3‘s Heather Mason was always going to be tough, but Silent Hill 4‘s characters leave a lot to be desired. The potential is there, however.
Killer Walter Sullivan is one of the more disturbed antagonists in the entire series and, with a little tweaking, even Henry Townshend could be a compelling and relatable protagonist (no offense, Henry) with the right vocal performance behind him. After all, Bloober (and actor Luke Roberts, of course) managed to turn Silent Hill 2‘s James Sunderland from a surly nothingburger of a man into an Internet heartthrob with his own stans.
Of course, there’s always the argument that neither Silent Hill or Silent Hill 4: The Room need a remake – after all, they’re both compelling, terrifying and well-crafted games in their own right. But many people also argued the same about Silent Hill 2, and look how that worked out. We’re a loyal bunch, us horror fans, and that’s admirable, but come on… wouldn’t you love to play as a fully-rendered Harry fight his way through a grotesquely detailed Midwich Elementary School?
There’s also the prospect that Bloober could make an entirely new game in the franchise. It’s a daunting task, sure, given the poor reception given to the last few titles in the series, but seeing the hype for Silent Hill f, the mysterious upcoming new entry into the series from Japanese creators Ryukishi07, kera and Moto Okamoto, and it’s pretty clear that fans are chomping at the bit for some fresh blood. Whatever the case, we’ll be watching Bloober’s next dive into the world of Silent Hill with great interest.