Silent Hill 2 Remake Dev Taking 'Very Safe Approach' to Any Changes

It's nice to know they're treating this legendary release with some level of respect.

It bodes well that they're trying not to make big changes. Watching this closely though.

I think it's a great sign that's it's being remastered(which is what this clearly sounds like it is), by a group of individuals that genuinely loved the original title.

Kudos to a labor of love

I'm cautiously optimistic about this. This is a great game that I would love to play with a modern coat of paint. I don't have any experience with Bloober Team's work so I don't have strong opinions about them either way.

I’m for Bloober doing it. If you played the Medium, you’ll see how they’re a perfect fit. Not saying you had to love The Medium, I’m saying you just had to see and hear it.
Personally, my only issue with The Medium was the sluggish movement, that’s it.

Ι still don't trust Bloober, specially for action sequences. Hope they prove us wrong

Ok, I’m completely confused about what I’m not allowed to say, maybe someone could contact me directly.

All I basically said was that refusing to comment on whether something has been cut or censored is basically an admission that it has been. Which is obvious, as well as obviously insulting, and clearly just trying to pander to the sensitive people of today. That’s clear right? And completely on topic. I even quoted what was said…

@thefourfoldroot1 You ignored the fact it's a rape scene just to say it's being removed to appease the modern generation. It's a literal rape scene. Your comment was far more insulting than any possible content removal in the game. End of.

@LiamCroft
Ah, thanks for letting me know. I wasn’t aware portraying a rape scene (which wasn’t made clear in the article btw) was in any way negative (unless it tries to say it’s an acceptable thing to do of course); although I can of course understand why it would be triggering to some people (in the same way people mentioning cancer can be upsetting for me due to numerous people I know dying of it). I still think a piece of art, and an adult horror game in particular, shouldn’t be forced to censor topics by removal, but I don’t want to go off topic so I’ll leave it there.

They refuse to elaborate on whether a controversial scene made it in, directly after saying it's a faithful remake. Not sure how to feel about that.

Also, for any dev doing a remake, they almost always say something along the lines of "We are being really faithful while trying to draw in a new audience." You can almost put a stopwatch to it, it is absolutely boilerplate at this point to say it. It's reached a Pavlov's Dog level of conditioned response. Could be true, could not be - gotta wait for the game to come out to see.

Positive is they brought back some of the original Team Silent guys to oversee this, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

Yknow Bloober might not be as bad as I initially thought for this. Their biggest criticism was with the story and messages of some of their games. If they’re just yoinking the story from SH2 with minimal changes then it should be good. But I still don’t fully trust Bloober and modern Konami.

I like the bloober games in general, I think they’re interesting. Just hope they nail the combat as they don’t seem to have done much in the way of combat in the past as far as I know, although I’ve only played the layer of fear games, the medium and part of the Blair witch. Fingers crossed it’s as faithful to the original as they say. Looking forward to this as silent hill 2 is one of my favourite horror games.

@thefourfoldroot1 "One specific scene Jasińska is queried on occurs fairly early on in the game, where Pyramid Head sexually assaults an enemy in a kitchen."

The article does make it clear.

I rewatched the trailer just to be sure, and it contains at least the beginning of THAT Pyramid Head scene. Unless they make some dramatic changes to it, I'm sure they kept it in this remake.

This is a great opportunity for Bloober Team to show what they can really do. I liked Layers of Fear alright for the type of game it was, but putting Bloober Team up against Team Silent is like a junior varsity high school basketball team up against an all-star NBA team.

I'm rooting for them though. Everyone loves an underdog and maybe they just never had the right opportunity until now.

It's a good idea to stay faithful but help modernize outdated concepts. So many people hold SH2 as one of the best horror games to ever release, but at the same time, the original game does show it's age in several areas.

@LiamCroft
You think people can’t be sexually assaulted unless it’s actually rape? I assure you, there are many sexual assault victims that would disagree with that. The two are not synonymous.

Wish they would keep the OG script but you know dialogue is gonna change a ton as they always do in remakes.

Remake. But with added stuff, areas new enemies etc etc..Playing it too safe , it not branching out, which I would have liked For a Remake...Oh well..

"we just have some ideas on how to make the peculiar scare factors more appealing to the contemporary audience."

This is exactly what I'm worried about.

Personally I feel that particular scene mentioned is crucial to James's projection of Silent Hill and it's part of why Silent Hill (2) is looked on as one of the horror greats. There's pretty much 0 thematically pointless/irrelevant inclusions of violence in the game. I think they'll edit camera angles and timing of the scene to try and appease those who would look for issues with it but to remove it entirely would just be odd after saying all this, to say the least. Not to mention disingenuous in approach to the subject matter.

I don't envy bloober in the slightest in trying to placate the many vocal critics of not just themselves but gaming and the handling of wider social topics in general. I have quiet faith in them though. The reveal trailer was on point and they obviously really care about Silent Hill 2.

@thefourfoldroot1 It's a monster getting sorta sexually assaulted by another monster. It's not even that explicit at all, it's like a 3 second scene. I really don't understand what all the fuss is about. If that's upsetting to some people, maybe they should play other games.

@Amusei
Agreed if that’s the case, as long as it has trigger warnings of course, which I’m all for. It’s just the courteous thing to do.

@thefourfoldroot1 I just checked it and there's even a glimpse of it in the SH2 Remake trailer at around the 1:30 mark. It really barely shows anything.

I’m glad to hear they are sticking closely to the original. I played SH2 so much when it came out. Looking forward to this one.

My biggest fear with this remake isn't necessarily that they'll try to make big, substantial changes to the narrative or gameplay, but that the minor changes they do make will kind of miss the point of what SH2 was trying to accomplish.

For example, SH2's original voice acting isn't great by any means, but it all has this weird, slightly off-kilter and disaffected tilt to it that gives the experience a more dreamlike, Lynchian air that works hugely in its favor. James' dialogue and reactions don't make sense within the context of the individual scenes most of the time, but that happy accident (I assume it was a happy accident, at least) just adds to the fever-dream-like atmosphere.

Any attempt to make him (or any other character) more dynamic and emotive, I feel, is going to hurt more than it helps.

On that same note, I also really worry that Bloober may try to make James more sympathetic, which would just miss the point completely. James sucks, he's SUPPOSED to suck, and trying to make him in any way likable or relatable would destroy the core of the games narrative.

We'll just have to wait and see, I still don't trust them on this at all and especially possibly working on a new SH game after this cause they suck at the horror genre.

Sorry but i have my doubts. They say Konami picked them because of their experience in horror but Bloober games aren't scary. They usually sit more in weird/creepy territory. Hopefully they will prove me wrong

Past experience gives me little faith in Bloober, but this is the time to prove me wrong. I'll still wait for early reviews before buying it.

@thefourfoldroot1 You're being intentionally obtuse. Everyone knows that sexual assault has a very high possibility of entailing rape, and you blew right past it, and now you're splitting hairs and insensitively playing semantics, as if you were ignorant to the probability of what was actually being discussed. Don't play dumb and deflect blame on others when you could have used a little tact and inferred the unsaid with ease. And let's not pretend that a family member having cancer and dying, while awful and triggering in its own right, is not on the same level of experiencing violent sexual assault first hand from another human being. These are vastly different experiences with different long-last psychological effects, one that you watch happen to someone else and another that happens directly to you. Bad analogy.

@kcarnes9051
As I said, this is not the place for this conversation. If you feel so strongly then feel free to message me directly and I’m happy to chat.

@ChromaticDracula Agreed. I thought The Medium was a great game with an interesting story and unique game mechanic (although not quite as unique as say, Eternal Darkness), but yeah, the movement was very sluggish and annoying. Also, as someone who is neurodivergent, I don't see how they butchered the message of mental health? May just be me...

@IrishMcGamer @thefourfoldroot1 This is the place to discuss this because you brought it here and then played dumb and obtuse about what was being talked about.

You know what sexual assault can entail, and you ignored it so that you could stay consistent in your argument.

I'm not speaking for other survivors. I'm addressing the way in which the comments were made.

Please refer to Liam's objection, "You ignored the fact it's a rape scene just to say it's being removed to appease the modern generation."

There are ways in which to discuss and argue for the inclusion of sensitive topics without the offhand exclusion of their severity and resorting to what amounts to a surface-level objection to modern sensibilities.

Try and be a little more nuanced.

Its just a game geez. I'm just waiting on more silent hill games and the weird scratches on the walls to be easily read lol.
Yea Happy new year lol

@kcarnes9051
🙄 mate, I didn’t play dumb. Liam simply thought SA was the same as R, which was likely an honest mistake, and also thought such topics should not be allowed in games, which multiple people disagreed with. It really isn’t something to harp on about. Now please either get back on topic or stop tagging me in your comments.

@thefourfoldroot1 No, you continue playing dumb by divorcing yourself from the incorrect assumption you made that SA as written in the article did not entail R. That is your mistake. Not Liam's. Where did Liam say that R can't be in a game? His objection was the way in which you dismissed the topic offhand, not the topic itself.

The moment these companies start changing old beloved franchises to "make them appealing for "modern audiences" (?)" is the moment they start screwing it up for woke points and thus flopping and getting bad reviews by the "modern" costumers they're trying to appeal.
In 2022 we had thousands of examples of these woke flops, RE Netflix series, Willow, She Hulk, The Witcher Blood Origin, Strange World, Lightyear, Ms Marvel, The Little Mermaid remake 1 million dislikes in YT, etc.......

So I really hope they stay true to the original masterpiece and don't turn this remake into another forgettable one ruined by wokeness, we had millions of those in recent years.

@kcarnes9051
What topic did I dismiss? Censorship of SA/R? I was the one who said quite clearly it shouldn’t be done. That’s a terrible thing for society to sweep under the carpet. Trigger warnings sure, but you can’t ban everything that might upset anyone. I stick by that. Now, I have looked through the first page of your comment history and it is lots of you arguing incessantly with people. I’m not going to be part of that. So I’m simply not replying to you anymore.

@thefourfoldroot1 Please allow this to compute. Liam in his comment to you was not objecting to R or SA in games nor was he advocating for censorship of those topics in his comment to you or in the article. He was objecting to the style in which you wrote the topic that amounted to brushing off the severity of it in an insensitive manner from his perspective. Period. That's it. That's all.

Furthermore, the article quite clearly says, "When questioned whether the cutscene had been altered or not, Jasińska essentially returned a no comment." But he's not making a value judgement on the right or wrongness of this non-admission. There is a discussion to have here around censorship, for sure. There's also a discussion to be had around casual violence toward women in media that was very prevalent during the era in which the original game was made. It's a more complex discussion than you're making it seem when essentially saying, "Censorship bad!"

Omg this community sometimes 🙈

Eats popcorn

@RBMango That scene in the trailer is the first instance of this, the real “Oh yeah, that is what he is doing to it” is when you fight him in the stairwell. Could be that one they are talking about as the first one could be seen as more ambiguous than the second one is.

My only fear when it comes to this game is that this is an uncomfortable scene in an uncomfortable game. Changing stuff like that I feel kinda defeats the purpose as there is a whole lot of “yikes” in this game, so much so that I feel people who don’t know may not be ready for it. I am surprised we were back in 2001, honestly.

Back in the day Conker was the only console game I ever saw with a big content disclaimer on it. Might be wise to have that here if things do really remain totally unchanged.

I enjoyed the Medium. This will be fantastic, calling it right now. You got this, Bloober Team!

I know Bloober is a pretty spotty when it comes to weaving sensitive subject matter in their horror titles but actively rooting for them to ***** up the remake is plain old cynical to me.

@Ear_wiG if the game is the same with just a lick of new paint and maybe slightly updated mechanics, we will be fine 👌🤞

Well they’ve failed out the traps because James is in the mirror already like “who the f*** is that guy”.

I can't wait. Silent Hill 2 was my second PS2 game. I love it.

You guys really trying to crack the code of a multi-pronged social issue in the PushSquare comment section, huh? That's bold. Hold on, let me grab a beer before you continue, I want to watch. This is why we come here folks.

Happy New Year.

@thefourfoldroot1 @LiamCroft I guess A clockwork orange needs to be re-edited to appease to current sensibilities if we go by Liam's logic. Bravo, proper moral grandstanding... end of (so condescending)

Art should be allowed to tell or depict without the naive idea that it is in anyway condoning an action.

I fully understand the studio staying quiet on the issue because it just causes unnecessary controversy.

Do they have a history of wokeness in their games?
I'm asking because I haven't yet played Bloober Team's games, but in case the answer is no, I don't think people need to be concerned about that.

@LiamCroft eh. everyone is a karen nowadays. i hope they didnt remove it cuz of snowflakes. yes its rape and most normal ppl know rape is bad but leave it in the game. if you cant tell fiction from real life maybe these ppl shouldnt be playing video games. just a thought. like parents not letting there teens watch harry potter cuz its satan and witches yet its fake lol ik ppl like that

The game is in excellent hands. I'm very excited for this remake and am pretty sure the team will not disappoint us.