By the time you read this, the remake of Silent Hill 2, being developed by Bloober, is less than 2 months from its expected release. So nothing I write here can possibly change the game. But there has been something that has been nagging at the back of my brain ever since the first trailer for the remake released. Since most of the concern about Bloober's Silent Hill 2 is focused on their historically awful depictions of mental health and trauma, I haven't seen a whole lot of content addressed at this particular concern of mine. So I thought I'd share my thoughts.

First and foremost, I will be discussing the story and ending of the original Silent Hill 2, as well as speculation regarding whether Bloober will change this ending, or somehow botch its execution. As far as I'm concerned, the announcement trailer has already shown that it will be one or the other: a changed ending, or a botched ending. But in any case, if you haven't played Silent Hill 2 before and don't want to be spoiled, then don't read this post. You've been warned.

Before moving on, feel free to check out the announcement trailer in its entirety, above. You can also watch this complete analysis in video essay format on YouTube.

The original opening

For anyone still here after the spoiler warning, let's talk a little bit about the opening scene of Silent Hill 2, how it relates to the game's ending(s), how this same scene is depicted in the remake trailer, and what the changes to that scene mean for the ending. Silent Hill 2 opens as such:

A mostly calm and collected James Sunderland stares at himself in a dirty bathroom mirror, taking a deep breath, and then walking out to a scenic overlook to explain the premise of the game. He got a letter from his wife, who died of a terminal illness 3 years ago. The letter says that she's alive and waiting for him in Silent Hill. He knows it can't possibly be true, but if there's any chance that she is somehow still alive, he has to know.

This opening shows us a James who is supposedly 3 years removed from the death of his wife. He isn't necessarily grieving any more, but doesn't seem to have completely moved on; otherwise, why be here? Regardless, he is completely surprised by this letter and in disbelief. This is a subtle, subdued opening that gives the player little reason not to take this all at face value. And it goes on to follow this up with a slow-burn opening act to the game, in which James strolls casually through a wooded path along the lake and doesn't encounter anything overtly scary or threatening for a good 20 or 30 minutes, depending on the pace that the player is going.

The original is subdued and gives little reason to not take the premise at face value.

This puts the player in the same headspace as James. We are just as confused, surprised, and curious as him, but with that nagging certainty that all must not be as it seems. This allows the player to role play as James in good faith and sets up the game's eventual twist, and also sets a relatively clean slate for the various ending triggers. The player doesn't see James as anything other than a confused husband, desperately hoping to see his possibly-not-dead wife again. The player is able to play James as such, and how you role play as James will inform how he eventually deals with the game's twist revelation. But the game will be slowly pulling the rug out from under James and the player over the course of the game, gradually establishing him as an un-reliable narrator.

Considering the additional context that this is a sequel to Silent Hill (which was about a father trying to rescue his daughter from a demonic cult), players may have had even less reason to not trust James. They have no clue that this game is going to deviate from the first game's premise and be an introspective and metaphorical tale that is almost completely divorced from the first game's plot. They just know it has the number 2 in the title, so it probably follows from the story of its predecessor. Maybe Mary really is alive? Maybe she's another vessel for the cult's demon god? Or maybe her soul was also split and there's a psychic Mary doppelganger living in Silent Hill who is summoning James to help her stop the cult's plans? Or maybe that doppelganger wants to trick him into helping the cult? And hey, guess what? A few hours into the game, we do indeed meet a Mary doppelganger!

Based on the opening minutes of the game, Silent Hill 2 can go in a lot of potential different directions, either introspective, supernatural, cult-driven, or any combination thereof.

The rumors regarding new Silent Hill games are true. Well, some of them anyway. It doesn't look like Hideo Kojima or Guillermo del Torro will have anything to do with any of it. Konami finally broke the silence regarding its plans for the Silent Hill franchise, and announced 4 new games and a new movie! I have very mixed feelings about all of this.

Market saturation

First and foremost, announcing 4 new game projects all at once feels like overkill to me. I really hope that these games are spaced out and aren't all released at the same time or in quick succession. Remember the last time Konami tried releasing a bunch of new Silent Hill content in its 2012 "Month of Madness"? Yeah, that didn't go over too well.

I'm having enough trouble keeping up with the oversaturation of streaming Franchise TV series.

More generally, keeping up with the oversaturation of content from franchises like Star Trek, Star Wars, Marvel is already difficult, and I can't keep up. I don't need all my favorite video game franchises piling onto that oversaturation. People have lives outside of media consumption, and I'm sick to death of these corporations thinking that they have a right to monopolize our time by throwing dart after dart at walls in the hopes that some particular dart sticks in the bullseye. I do not owe Disney, or CBS/Paramount, or Konami any of my time, and I've gotten to the point that I don't offer my time unless I have an expectation that it will be worth it. So if any of these Silent Hill games does not look worth my time, I won't play them, and they can go in the pile of un-consumed content along with Book of Memories and most of the crappy graphic novels and comics.

That being said, I'm expecting that most (if not all) of these titles will be relatively short, niche horror games -- "short" compared to the massive open world grind-a-thons that other studios keep trying to shove down our throats. I don't expect any of these new Silent Hill games to be 100+ hour, open world, live service games that are designed explicitly to waste my time and try to steer me towards buying "time-saver" micro-transactions and loot boxes. That doesn't mean that Konami won't find a way to put micro-transactions and loot boxes into the games. But I expect these games will likely be more traditional, conservative 8 to 15-hour horror campaigns. This means that I will likely have time to split between these games and other games, and also between these games and each other (should they all be released contemporaneously, and I chose to play them all).