There’s a point towards the end of Silent Hill 2 where, having followed a trail of breadcrumbs left behind by your late wife, you eventually reach the “special place” you’ve been searching for all game long. More than just the action-packed finale of a horror title — where the challenge hits its peak and the […]
The moment in question couldn’t be more unassuming. For context, in order to get to Room 312 — where James believes his partner, Mary, is somehow waiting for him despite being, you know, very much deceased — you’ll first have to take a detour through Lakeview’s basement.
Doing so entails boarding the designated staff elevator, which has an impractical weight limit stipulating that only one (incredibly malnourished) person can ride per trip. Without any luggage!
Using the lift to ascend or descend floors will therefore require you to shed a few pounds and empty James’ inventory into a nearby locker. Taken at face value, you might assume that the developer’s intent here is simply to ratchet up the tension by denying you access to the gear you’ve come to rely on throughout your playthrough. And that’s at least partly true. After all, you’re required to forfeit your firearms, ammo, and health supplies prior to braving the basement, and, given what you already know is lurking on the building’s upper levels, that’s a pretty daunting ask.
Yet it’s not just these survival tools that you’ll have to give up. On the contrary, you must reduce James’ haul until he’s not a gram over the elevator’s ludicrous weight threshold, which means also parting ways with your keys, your flashlight, your radio, and, potentially, a few items of more sentimental value. For instance, you might decide to surrender a precious photo of your wife or the posthumous missive that represents your very last communication from her (because, again, the elevator really is counting the ounces!)
Technically, you can get away with holding onto both of those personal documents. But, unless you’ve read that beforehand in a walkthrough, you’re more likely to just completely turn out your pockets to board the lift. From a game design perspective, it’s a clever way of putting you in the shoes of a grieving protagonist who’s struggling to come to terms with their devastating loss. Like James, you’ve simply got to let go of Mary if you want to see things through. No matter how hard that might be.
The brief interaction is present in both the original Silent Hill 2 and its 2024 remake, yet it’s especially memorable in the earlier version, as there, you are forced to relinquish every item to the locker individually, rather than in one go. And that extends to Mary’s photo as well.
Looking your wife in the eyes and explicitly confirming that you want to rid yourself of her memento mori lends this farewell even greater heft and (ironically enough) makes you feel the weight of James’ sacrifice all the more. It might be completely in my imagination, but I could swear that there’s a slight delay on the button input when you select the “Put on shelf” option, as if James is hesitating to go through with your intolerable command.
That last bit may not even be deliberate, by the way. Still, the fact that I think it feasibly could be is a testament to just how purposeful every other element of SH2 feels.
You see, nothing else here has been done by accident or without serious thought being put into it. Indeed, it’s a project where you can tell that the creative team was utterly in sync across the board and where each decision made was in service of a coherent vision.
You might not appreciate all the little nuances and thematic layers on your first go-around, but take it from someone who has rolled the credits dozens upon dozens of times, there’s a reason behind the most inconspicuous of design choices here. The story, the gameplay mechanics, the puzzles, the collectable documents, the item descriptions: it’s all entirely of a piece.
That’s what makes it such a watershed release, and why Gans’ new cinematic adaptation is going to be under intense scrutiny. Silent Hill 2 represents the epitome of a franchise that already set a high bar for survival horror. Not because it’s got some of the most recognizable iconography the genre has ever produced (which it does). Not because it’s one of the scariest experiences we’ve ever been subjected to (which it is). Not even because it has one of the most compelling narratives in all of gaming (which it has).
Rather, it’s because it understands what the virtual art form is capable of when it embraces the things it can do that movies and TV shows can’t. It’s got a depth to it that rivals a classic work of literature, and it rewards repeat playthroughs and analysis in a way that we seldom see from the medium. So, hey, no pressure or anything, Christophe!
Before going any deeper down the rabbit hole, it’s worth doing a comprehensive plot synopsis. That way, we can talk about how the gameplay and story elements knit together so cohesively, without having to tiptoe around spoilers. Consider yourself warned.
As we’ve already discussed, SH2 has a supremely intriguing hook to get you invested right from the get-go. James Sunderland receives an invitation to Silent Hill from his wife — whom he is 99.99% certain passed away due to a fatal illness — and decides to respond to this impossible summons.
Upon arriving at the remote settlement, he soon realises that it’s not quite the idyllic vacation spot he so fondly remembers frequenting with Mary back in the day. To say that it’s gone to the dogs would be a profound understatement. The infrastructure has been neglected; the charming small businesses have closed their doors, and all of the residents have seemingly been raptured off the face of the earth. Not to mention, the town has been enveloped by a supernatural fog that prevents any interlopers from leaving its municipal boundaries, and the streets are infested with freakish abominations that are equal parts Jacob’s Ladder and living, breathing Francis Bacon paintings.
With no alternative but to press on, James follows a series of clues about Mary’s whereabouts that have him traipsing from the local bowling alley to the strip club, apartment buildings, hospital wards, and underground prison complex. Along the way, he encounters increasingly disturbing visions and interacts with other lost souls who’ve been similarly called to the town by forces unseen.
There’s the depressive Angela — whose perception of reality doesn’t quite chime with that of her companions — the paranoid Eddie — who has worryingly got his hands on a loaded gun — and the young Laura — a precocious whippersnapper who is somehow ignorant of the palpable danger she’s in. The stranger who really grabs James’ attention, though, is Maria, a flirtatious siren who is the spitting image of Mary and who miraculously reanimates whenever she is killed. More on that later.
Anyway, it’s a highly surreal journey that sees James doing everything from plunging his hand into a filthy toilet bowl (don’t ask) to watching two monsters getting it on (again, don’t ask) and eventually putting the trigger-happy Eddie down like he’s Old Yeller. All of which are trials he endures in the vain hope that he might be rewarded in the end with some answers about his darling wife. And boy does he get what he asked for!
You see, when he finally arrives at Room 312 of the Lakeview, after negotiating that elevator debacle, James finds a mysterious VHS tape that provides some much-needed clarity on his situation. Surfacing long-repressed memories, the footage reveals that the sickly Mary did not succumb to her disease as we were initially led to believe. Instead, she was suffocated by her husband in what could have conceivably been an act of compassionate euthanasia, bitter resentment, a selfish desire to be free of burden, or perhaps a combination of all three. Suffice it to say, it’s a major bummer for our “hero”.
In light of this new information, the audience can read Silent Hill as a kind of purgatorial realm that lures in wrongdoers and subjects them to personalised torment. It’s a fundamentally evil place that feeds off your innermost anxieties and traumas, in turn weaponizing them against you.
The obstacles it presents, the strange creatures prowling its streets, and the mind games it plays are therefore different for everyone caught in its thrall. In the case of James, it’s all been a literal guilt trip through his gravest sin. That’s why the town pointedly makes him visit locations like the strip club (tapping into his frustrated libido), the hospital (recalling the place he committed that uxoricidal deed), and a prison (satisfying his desire for punishment). It’s why he also has to endure watching Mary’s doppelganger getting murdered over and over again. In short, it’s a hell of his own making.
As you can tell, SH2 deals with challenging subject matter. James’ arc revolves around themes of misogyny, martyrdom, self-flagellation, and (depending on which ending you unlock) potentially even suicide. Meanwhile, the subplots relating to other characters variously broach such difficult topics as child abuse, gun violence, and sexual assault.
This is obviously thorny stuff that the most reputable forms of entertainment — like books and theater — can mishandle if sufficient care isn’t taken. And they’d had way more practice at it than video games circa 2001!
Indeed, the interactive medium was still in relative infancy when Silent Hill 2 launched and had yet to evolve into the legitimate method of storytelling that it is today. Whenever releases engaged with “adult themes” during those awkward growing years, it usually meant that they had a crude sense of humour and would occasionally flash a pair of polygonal breasts at the player. To put it into perspective, one of SH2’s contemporaries was Conker’s Bad Fur Day: a 3D platformer in which you controlled a potty-mouthed squirrel, suffering from a debilitating hangover, who at one juncture has to battle a pile of anthropomorphic shit. Which, to be fair, was about as sophisticated as video game writing got at the time.
It was, therefore, a gutsy move on Team Silent’s part to tackle the subject matter they did here. Given the practically non-existent standards for voice acting and dialogue in that era (just look at Resident Evil’s cutscenes on the PSOne), it could have easily fallen flat on its face and come across as comical. Or worse, tone-deaf.
But the remarkable thing about Silent Hill 2 is that it doesn’t fumble its tricky material at all; instead navigating it with surprising tact, delicacy and emotional intelligence. Angela’s domestic backstory, in particular, could have been outright distasteful if not handled sensitively. Yet it ends up being one of the game’s most accomplished plotlines because the developers knew exactly how far to push it and what parts were best left up to interpretation. Honestly, if a prestige film executed it half as well, you’d be impressed.
On that note, it does help that a lot of the bleakest aspects of the tale are only implied. Nothing is inelegantly spelt out, characters rarely orate their inner thoughts, and there’s no didactic moralising to make sure that you get the message.
Quite the opposite! Instead of being communicated through verbal language, most of the ideas are expressed through the unique language of video games. Case in point, the riddles you’re tasked with solving often tie into James’ preoccupation with crime and punishment, while the dynamic floating camera has us frequently looking down on our avatar, as if to corroborate his suspicions that he is being constantly persecuted.
Then there are all of the passive-aggressive ways that the game taunts you, paralleling how the town is similarly getting under your avatar’s skin. Take that aforementioned bit with the storage locker, for instance, or the sequence wherein a text prompt repeatedly asks if you want to continue descending into a dark abyss — knowing full well that you’re not really being given a choice in the matter.
Of course, this being a survival horror title, the main way you’ll be interacting with its diegesis is by bludgeoning to death all kinds of grotesque beasties. And, as with every other facet of their design, the developers ingeniously use these encounters as a way of getting you to identify with your lead character.
To reiterate, everything that James sees, hears and touches in the world of Silent Hill has been fabricated by the town for the express purpose of messing with him. That extends to all creatures, great and small, that stand between him and his desired reconciliation with Mary.
Effectively living manifestations of his personal demons, they’re not so much physical threats as they are psychological provocations. Sure, they can do some damage if you allow yourself to be mobbed by a large group. However, these skirmishes aren’t going to pose too much trouble unless you’re a proper casual player.
In fact, you get the impression that that’s almost the point. The enemies are supposed to be pushovers because the town is trying to make James (and by extension, you) relive his lowest point. It might not occur to you on a first run but, with the benefit of hindsight, it’s notable that they’re all either explicitly feminine or at the very least have heightened gender qualities. The mannequins are basically two pairs of women’s legs joined together at the waist, the bubblehead nurses have notably short skirts and exposed cleavage, and it doesn’t take a Freudian scholar to deduce what the so-called “flesh lips” are meant to symbolise.
There’s certainly a lot you can read into their visual designs (a popular theory posits that the nurses were conjured from the guilt James carries for having a wandering eye while he impatiently waited for Mary to flatline in the hospital), but the important thing is that they are mostly female. And you’ve got to brutally slaughter them over and over again.
The game doesn’t let you off easy either, cleverly using the tropes of its genre to make sure that these kills are as gruelling as possible. As per survival horror tradition, conserving ammo is encouraged in SH2. Resources are sparsely distributed and, more often than not, you’ll be dispatching the wretched feminine creatures you encounter with a durable melee weapon. This forces you to get up close and personal as you hammer the attack button until there’s no sign of life remaining. Sometimes, your downed foes will even let out eerie screams and spasm on the floor, at which point you can finish them off with a quick kick to the stomach.
As you can imagine, there’s nothing remotely triumphant about these wins. Unlike when you pop off a satisfying headshot on a Ganado in Resident Evil 4, it never once feels good to kill something in Silent Hill 2. You’re just forced to wail on them until they expire. It’s a depressingly hollow victory and a fitting penance, really, considering what James did to wind up in this scenario in the first place.
Speaking of which, the only male-coded character that emerges from our protagonist’s subconscious is the iconic Pyramid Head, and, crucially, he’s also the only one that you cannot kill (not until you reach a pivotal story moment anyway). If you don’t know the lore behind this unstoppable bogeyman, he’s basically a reflection of how James sees himself, insofar as he’s a ruthless executer of women who seems hellbent on slaughtering Maria (Mary’s double) at every chance he gets.
So, you can understand the significance behind which entities the town allows you to kill and which it does not. As part of its malicious psychodrama, you’ll have to defeat countless feminine creatures in order to make James relive his deepest regret on an infinite loop. But you can’t put Pyramid Head out of your misery, because he is you. And that’s something you’re just gonna have to live with.
As dour as all that sounds, there is hope for salvation. It just depends on you.
Games with multiple endings usually shepherd you towards one denouement or the other by presenting forks in the road at which you’ll have to make clear-cut Path A/Path B decisions. You may be familiar with this well-worn, choose-your-own adventure style of narrative from the likes of Mass Effect, Baldur’s Gate 3 and every single installment in The Dark Pictures Anthology.
It works a little differently in Silent Hill 2, though, as you’re not necessarily aware of how your actions are influencing the final outcome. It’s less about making conscious choices and more about how you subliminally characterise James in moment-to-moment gameplay.
Those who finished the recent Silent Hill f will immediately recognise this unusual approach. In that newer title, your ending was largely determined by whether or not you could help Hinako kick her addiction to pharmaceuticals by resisting the impulse to take any of the game’s “red capsule” healing items.
Meanwhile, in SH2, it’s all to do with how your playstyle informs James’ motivation for battling through the fog. The ending criteria is admittedly quite abstract in this respect. Yet should you keep on top of his vitals and heal whenever necessary, it’ll imply that his self-preservation instincts are intact and tee you up for the optimistic “Leave” resolution (in which James comes to terms with his wrongdoings and emerges from this nightmare as a better man).
Conversely, if you neglect to patch up his wounds and obsess over the kitchen knife in your inventory, it hints at a latent death wish and puts you on a course for a far gloomier conclusion. Then there’s the other canonical ending, in which your persistent clinging to Maria leads to James not learning his lesson, absolving himself of murder, and trading in his old lady for a healthier, sexier model. This novel approach to unlockable endings is yet another fascinating way that the developers break down the barrier between player and avatar in Silent Hill 2.
Roger Ebert famously said that “movies are like a machine that generates empathy”. If we accept that as writ, then video games arguably have the potential to go a step further by having you fully inhabit the role of another person. Perhaps somebody that you might not identify with under any other circumstances. In all frankness, I don’t think the industry manages to seize upon that potential as often as it should. Still, titles like Silent Hill 2 evidence that it can be done, so long as creators are smart and make thoughtful choices about how they use the medium’s language to their advantage.
James is a complex character, fraught with contradiction and obfuscated by his amnesiac backstory. However, the clever methods that the game employs to thrust you into his headspace make you understand him in a way that you never could by just vicariously watching his journey unfold on screen. It’s baked into everything from the subtle interactions it has you performing on his behalf to the combat mechanics and even the way you ultimately can determine his fate. That’s what makes Silent Hill 2 so special and why it still holds up to this day. Like a true work of art, its strengths are timeless.
Return to Silent Hill releases in theaters January 23, 2026 from Cineverse & Bloody Disgusting. Tickets are available now.
