I wasn’t always interested in playing horror games as they have been something out of my comfort zone. But the most important thing I have learned since becoming a game reviewer and writer is sometimes one needs to get out of their comfort zone and experience new things. After all, that’s how we evolve and grow.
Easier said than done, right?
While there haven’t been many opportunities where I got to experience a game blindly from the get-go, the Silent Hill 2 remake was a welcoming change this year. I must admit it put my tolerance level to test in more ways than one. It made me realize this wasn’t just a video game but something deeper. I wasn’t only witnessing James’s fears but also experiencing my own all the while questioning my sanity.
Standing inside a dark, dingy, and dirty bathroom, with hands shaking, James Sunderland stares back at his own tired and sleep-deprived face against a mirror. It gives us enough context to know he is about to embark on a difficult journey. The story starts with a mysterious letter, one James has read so many times the words from it are narrated by the sweet voice of his dead wife, Mary. With the hope that she is still alive, James decides to look for her in the dreadful town of Silent Hill.
The eeriness of Silent Hill is hard to miss, especially with the town being so still; sometimes the only sound I could hear from my headphones was that of the wind. The game tricks your mind using sound so effectively that you’re aware of every creak and footstep, and sometimes even unnatural silence. What Silent Hill 2 lacks in jump scares, it makes up with the sheer power of sound design.
Another concept the game skillfully uses is fear of the unknown. Doesn’t matter if it’s the misty outside of town or the suffocating interior of Brookhaven Hospital, every area and corner in Silent Hill 2 is a long game of “expect the unexpected.” And as someone with severe anxiety, every step ahead was a test of my willpower. But, dear God, is the game so beautiful. In between the adrenaline rush, elevated heart-rate, and the fending off of terrifying monsters, there was something so poetic about Silent Hill 2 that filled me with melancholy when I wasn’t getting chased by Pyramid Head.
The more I played it, the more I realized it is not a survival horror. James isn’t surviving or running away from his demons. Instead, he aggressively faces them without flinching. Every monster seen within the game is a manifestation of his own struggles and regrets. But it is not just him, James also comes across several other characters in Silent Hill who are searching for something or someone. Each of them have their own inner demons they are struggling with and, in some way, this feels relatable on a personal level. There are so many layers to Silent Hill 2 that cement it as a miserable and messy psychological horror. Because, in the end, the game shows us that there is nothing more scary than the human psyche.
The beauty of any narrative-driven game is how the story can be interpreted in any way. Silent Hill 2 does this marvelously, albeit a bit differently than others. James is not a good man, but because he is the protagonist, players will naturally try to find any little evidence to paint him in a good light. But not once does the game slip and give you what you want. Instead, it does something else entirely. Silent Hill 2 takes into consideration how you play as James overall, including all the tiny details of your actions. And based on that, it automatically chooses a fitting ending. I was one of the lucky ones who didn’t know about this before starting my playthrough, so the ending I got was very unbiased. But more than that, the ending also reflected how I saw James – a terrible husband who is ultimately stuck in a cycle of his own misdeeds.
Personally, 2024 was the year of facing my shortcomings, accepting them and finding ways to not give up. It was the year of being kinder to myself each day and also putting my emotions first. As weird as it may sound, video games helped me to put all that in perspective, to an extent. Completing Silent Hill 2, a kind of game I never thought I would play (let alone enjoy) brought a new sense of confidence in me. It made me appreciate video games in a new light and, most importantly, it gave me the motivation to write and improve more as a writer. You might think, “How does a video game manage to stir up such a response?” Well, the answer is simple: The significance of art is limitless and you don’t know when inspiration will strike.
Silent Hill 2 might not be my pick for Game of the Year, but it’s definitely the game that took me most by surprise this year. And it will be a game that I cherish in this lifetime.
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