Be aware: This text comprises spoilers for the story of Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 2 Remake. Learn on at your personal threat.
Silent Hill 2 gamers have been speculating about what’s actually occurring within the sport since its launch in 2001. Even on its most floor stage, it is unattainable to say definitively what’s taking place to protagonist James Sunderland. Is he trapped in a hallucinatory nightmare of grief and guilt? Has he wandered into some type 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 Workforce 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 approach that Closing 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 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 had been typically coated or obscured, followers seen that they typically appeared to be sporting bloodied variations of James’s garments.
Within the 2001 Silent Hill 2, it is just a little 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 embrace many different characters? Or had been these our bodies meant to be a delicate trace at one thing deeper taking place in Silent Hill? A idea developed across the latter, culminating with a selected physique within the Wooden Facet Residences 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 idea 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 trustworthy to the broad strokes of the unique story. The truth is, as you navigate by the city within the remake, you may discover our bodies killed by monsters. And identical to within the authentic sport, these our bodies look quite a bit like James Sunderland.
Scattered all through the city are notes, normally discovered close to these our bodies, scrawled in a bloody and manic hand. A number of have the identical messages as had been seen within the authentic sport, however there are extra within the Remake. They counsel these different individuals had been additionally trapped in Silent Hill, and for some, apparently for a protracted time frame. A few depart behind warnings and knowledge, corresponding to a map of Silent Hill just like the one James carries that is annotated in the identical approach 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 had been written with James in thoughts.
Considerably later within the sport, yow will discover notes subsequent to a James-looking physique that pertains to one of many sport’s new endings. Although the handwriting is totally different from a number of the different notes–others seem like they had been written unexpectedly in all-caps printing–this one appears to supply some critical hints in regards to the state of affairs.
“I can depart by not leaving,” it reads. “I can solely depart by not leaving. The deal is completed. He stated he left it for me. The place they as soon as had been.”
This be aware places you on the trail to unlocking the brand new “Bliss” ending, added with the remake. When you observe the clues, you may finally discover a hallucinogenic drug known as White Claudia. Taking it on the proper time in Lakeview Lodge, 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, joyful in his delusion of denial.
What’s bizarre in regards to the be aware is that it suggests the author has been struggling to go away Silent Hill, identical to James is. It additionally makes reference to “the place they as soon as had been.” That location is Pete’s Bowl-o-Rama.
Gamers conversant in the unique sport know that James finds Eddie and Laura on the bowling alley, the place he infamously berates the man for eating pizza whereas the city is overrun by monsters. The bowling alley continues to be there within the remake, nevertheless it’s empty. You as a substitute encounter Eddie and Laura within the movie show; the gist of the scene is analogous, nevertheless it performs out barely in a different way, with James being much less antagonistic. “The place they as soon as had been,” then, appears to counsel the author of the be aware is conscious that James beforehand discovered Eddie and Laura on the bowling alley, however they are not 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 photos grew to become blurry, melting collectively,” it says. “Undecided if I can do it, however possibly you’ll be able to. It will take you the place it’s essential to be, although most likely not the best way you wish to. And there is sure to be some ache concerned. There all the time is.”
Accompanying the letter is the important thing to the hospital’s roof. A few seconds after you stand up there, you encounter Pyramid Head, who throws you by the ground of an elevator shaft so that you simply wind up in a beforehand locked-off part of the third ground. It takes you the place you wish to go, although not the best way you wish to, and there is some ache concerned.
There’s one other notably revealing be aware yow will discover inside Wooden Facet Residences.
“It’s essential to assume I am merciless,” it says. “However this can be a jail of your personal making. The selection was yours. I watched you make it. Over and over and over. This time’s not gonna be totally different. And I will be right here. Watching.”
Silent Hill 2 Remake appears to be making it fairly clear. These our bodies are James; most of the notes within the sport are about him, or presumably even written by these different variations of him. He is trapped in Silent Hill, not simply throughout the course of 1 playthrough of the sport, however by all of them. He is in some form 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 type of infinite torment.
Three totally different instances by 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 determine than the others we have discussed–until, that’s, you attain your last 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 should you look carefully, you’ll be able to see who it’s.
It is James.
Or at the very least, it positive does seem like him.
You struggle Eddie in a frigid slaughterhouse warehouse crammed with hanging cuts of meat, the place you finally kill him. However as these different James our bodies suggests, generally, 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 all the time like this,” she says, seemingly revealing that she experiences Silent Hill in a approach that is markedly totally different from what James does.
Within the remake, in each scene the place you discover Eddie, you’ll be able to 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 all the time someplace chilly, even when nobody else is. Angela’s Silent Hill is alight with fireplace; James’s Silent Hill is foggy and crammed with monsters seemingly meant to torment him over his lustful, treacherous emotions and actions; and Eddie’s Silent Hill, it will seem, is all the time chilly and crammed with demise. 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 the hellish loop for James, and everybody else. And actually, 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 symbolize one other loop. Each time you die within the sport is a visit by the loop. Every physique you discover is James, a loop terminating in his demise, 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 is perhaps type of debatable–is as legit as some other. They’re all, seemingly, taking place. James reaches all of them, however none of them finish his torment.
With Silent Hill 2 Remake, that fan idea about it being James mendacity useless in that chair, seemingly having shot himself, is confirmed, at the very least on this sport. And with that, the sport turns into rather more horrifying. There is no such thing as a escape from Silent Hill.