Observe: This text comprises spoilers for the story of Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 2 Remake. Learn on at your individual threat.
Silent Hill 2 gamers have been speculating about what’s actually occurring within the recreation since its launch in 2001. Even on its most floor degree, it is inconceivable to say definitively what’s occurring to protagonist James Sunderland. Is he trapped in a hallucinatory nightmare of grief and guilt? Has he wandered into some form of supernatural house located round a small American city, created by cultists and elder gods? Or is he useless and in Hell, paying for his sins?
With Silent Hill 2 Remake, developer Bloober Crew appears to supply extra particulars and clues associated to these questions. In doing so, the developer has expanded the story of Silent Hill 2. The remake, it appears, is not only a revision of the story–it’s an growth of the unique, present individually from the unique Silent Hill 2. In the identical method that Last Fantasy VII Remake revisits the identical story whereas including to it to make one thing new, Silent Hill 2 Remake is a secret sequel of Silent Hill 2.
The unique Silent Hill 2 included a number of hints that what James was experiencing was one thing greater than it gave the impression to be. Wandering by means of the city, gamers would come throughout a number of our bodies of individuals apparently killed by the vicious monsters James repeatedly fights off. What was bizarre about these our bodies, although, was that whereas their faces and heads have been usually coated or obscured, followers seen that they usually appeared to be carrying bloodied variations of James’s garments.
Within the 2001 Silent Hill 2, it is somewhat bit robust to inform what is going on on with this choice–did the builders intend for gamers to see only a bunch of nondescript our bodies, and used the James character mannequin as a cost-saving measure, as a result of the sport simply did not actually embody many different characters? Or have been these our bodies meant to be a refined trace at one thing deeper occurring in Silent Hill? A concept developed across the latter, culminating with a specific physique within the Wooden Aspect Flats constructing, which seems to have died by suicide, and although their face is roofed, they give the impression of being suspiciously like James Sunderland. It is a concept of the sport that means James is already useless.
Silent Hill 2 Remake makes some modifications to the weather of the Silent Hill 2’s story, puzzles, and fight, nevertheless it’s nonetheless fairly devoted to the broad strokes of the unique story. In actual fact, as you navigate by means of the city within the remake, you may discover our bodies killed by monsters. And identical to within the authentic recreation, these our bodies look loads like James Sunderland.
Scattered all through the city are notes, often discovered close to these our bodies, scrawled in a bloody and manic hand. A number of have the identical messages as have been seen within the authentic recreation, however there are extra within the Remake. They counsel these different individuals have been additionally trapped in Silent Hill, and for some, apparently for an extended time period. Just a few go away behind warnings and knowledge, comparable to a map of Silent Hill just like the one James carries that is annotated in the identical method he marks up his personal. Some converse on to the reader, hoping you need to use what was discovered earlier than you to maneuver forward.
The extra of them you learn, although, the extra they sound like they have been written with James in thoughts.
Considerably later within the recreation, you will discover notes subsequent to a James-looking physique that pertains to one of many recreation’s new endings. Although the handwriting is completely different from a number of the different notes–others seem like they have been written rapidly in all-caps printing–this one seems to supply some severe hints concerning the state of affairs.
“I can go away by not leaving,” it reads. “I can solely go away by not leaving. The deal is finished. He mentioned he left it for me. The place they as soon as have been.”
This word places you on the trail to unlocking the brand new “Bliss” ending, added with the remake. For those who comply with the clues, you may ultimately discover a hallucinogenic drug known as White Claudia. Taking it on the proper time in Lakeview Resort, earlier than James watches the video tape, triggers the ending. As a substitute of coming to phrases with the truth that he killed Mary, it is nearly as if James hallucinates one other course of occasions, keen himself to stick with Mary earlier than her sickness, comfortable in his delusion of denial.
What’s bizarre concerning the word is that it suggests the author has been struggling to depart Silent Hill, identical to James is. It additionally makes reference to “the place they as soon as have been.” That location is Pete’s Bowl-o-Rama.
Gamers aware of the unique recreation know that James finds Eddie and Laura on the bowling alley, the place he infamously berates the person for consuming pizza whereas the city is overrun by monsters. The bowling alley continues to be there within the remake, nevertheless it’s empty. You as an alternative encounter Eddie and Laura within the movie show; the gist of the scene is analogous, nevertheless it performs out barely in another way, with James being much less antagonistic. “The place they as soon as have been,” then, appears to counsel the author of the word is conscious that James beforehand discovered Eddie and Laura on the bowling alley, however they don’t seem to be there now.
In different notes, you get the sense that the author is driving James on. A message present in a protected in Brookhaven Hospital, within the workplace of the hospital director, reads as a letter written for James.
“Their pictures turned blurry, melting collectively,” it says. “Unsure if I can do it, however possibly you may. It will take you the place you could be, although most likely not the way in which you need to. And there is sure to be some ache concerned. There at all times is.”
Accompanying the letter is the important thing to the hospital’s roof. Just a few seconds after you rise up there, you encounter Pyramid Head, who throws you thru the ground of an elevator shaft so that you simply wind up in a beforehand locked-off part of the third flooring. It takes you the place you need to go, although not the way in which you need to, and there is some ache concerned.
There’s one other notably revealing word you will discover inside Wooden Aspect Flats.
“You will need to suppose I am merciless,” it says. “However this can be a jail of your individual making. The selection was yours. I watched you make it. Over and over and over. This time’s not gonna be completely different. And I will be right here. Watching.”
Silent Hill 2 Remake appears to be making it fairly clear. These our bodies are James; lots of the notes within the recreation are about him, or presumably even written by these different variations of him. He is trapped in Silent Hill, not simply in the course of the course of 1 playthrough of the sport, however by means of all of them. He is in some kind of time-looping hell, taking part in out the course of those occasions over and over. The unique Silent Hill 2 documented one set of James’s experiences. The remake is one other. He is experiencing all of them in some form of infinite torment.
Three completely different instances by means of the course of Silent Hill 2 Remake, you encounter Eddie close to a useless physique that he claims he had nothing to do with. These our bodies are more durable to establish than the others we have discussed–until, that’s, you attain your remaining scene with Eddie. On the finish of the labyrinth part, Eddie’s anger lastly reveals that he is been murdering these individuals all alongside. Shouting, he fires a revolver into the physique of his newest sufferer, and in case you look intently, you may see who it’s.
It is James.
Or no less than, it certain does seem like him.
You struggle Eddie in a frigid slaughterhouse warehouse stuffed with hanging cuts of meat, the place you ultimately kill him. However as these different James our bodies suggests, typically, he kills you. What’s extra, the 2 of you repeat this course of regularly. Eddie kills James. James kills Eddie. However each characters are trapped in Silent Hill, reliving their sins and their horrors over and over.
In your final encounter with Angela, the third soul seemingly condemned to Silent Hill, she walks up a staircase wreathed in flames. When James feedback on the warmth, Angela asks if he can see it. “For me, it is at all times like this,” she says, seemingly revealing that she experiences Silent Hill in a method that is markedly completely different from what James does.
Within the remake, in each scene the place you discover Eddie, you may see his breath, as if he is in a chilly room–even although you do not see James’s breath in those self same locations. It is like Eddie is at all times someplace chilly, even when nobody else is. Angela’s Silent Hill is alight with fireplace; James’s Silent Hill is foggy and stuffed with monsters seemingly meant to torment him over his lustful, treacherous emotions and actions; and Eddie’s Silent Hill, it will seem, is at all times chilly and stuffed with dying. Similar to you briefly see into Angela’s Silent Hill on the finish of her story within the fiery staircase, it appears that evidently within the slaughterhouse, you briefly see into Eddie’s Silent Hill.
All these tidbits and items of knowledge counsel that Silent Hill 2 Remake is not a remake per se; it is one other journey by means of the hellish loop for James, and everybody else. And in reality, each time you play the sport is one other repetition of that loop. Every conclusion of the story–whether it sees James coming to phrases along with his actions, changing the sick Mary with the idealized, sexier Maria, taking his personal life in Toluca Lake, or selecting a delusion the place he ignores what occurred to Mary–seems to additionally characterize one other loop. Each time you die within the recreation is a visit by means of the loop. Every physique you discover is James, a loop terminating in his dying, just for him to search out himself once more on the highway overlooking the city.
So each ending in Silent Hill 2–except, possibly, for the jokey Canine and UFO endings, though even that could be form of debatable–is as official as every other. They’re all, seemingly, occurring. James reaches all of them, however none of them finish his torment.
With Silent Hill 2 Remake, that fan concept about it being James mendacity useless in that chair, seemingly having shot himself, is confirmed, no less than on this recreation. And with that, the sport turns into far more horrifying. There isn’t a escape from Silent Hill.
