Sam Barlow made some interesting comments about the upcoming Silent Hill 2 Remake, that is currently being produced by Bloober Team.
In an interview with PCGamesN, Barlow had this to say:
“Personally, I’m less excited about playing a remaster. It’s also like the biggest poison chalice in videogames, doing a remaster of Silent Hill 2. I mean, good luck to them because I don’t know how you can do that without upsetting people.”
Silent Hill 2, originally released in 2001, is considered by many to be one of the greatest video games of all time. Its impact certainly reverberates to this date, as its somehow successful execution of a disjointed, but emotionally fraught, narrative, opened people’s eyes to the potential of video games as a storytelling medium. The case can be made that Silent Hill 2 paved the way for cinematic gaming as a whole, something we feel in games like God of War, Hellblade, Cyberpunk 2077, and more.
Sam Barlow himself is most recently famous for designing Her Story, Telling Lies, and Immortality, narrative games that harken back to the FMV era, but considerably better executed. But, if you thought he was merely commenting as a fan, you would be mistaken.
Barlow was also at one point, the writer and designer of Silent Hill: Origins and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. In this capacity, Barlow was working for UK based studio Climax Action, later known as Climax Studios.
Silent Hill: Origins served as a prequel to the timeline, but Silent Hill: Shattered Memories took things a step further by rebooting the series. This game still revolves around Harry Mason as he looks for his missing daughter, but changes the town and much of the story beats.
Silent Hill: Origins was not critically received well, while Silent Hill: Shattered Memories did only a little better. Both games are not believed to have sold that well, and are overall remembered as unremarkable points in the history of the franchise.
So Sam was definitely speaking from experience when he expressed his opinion about remaking Silent Hill 2. If his Silent Hill: Shattered Memories had performed better, he very well could have made that game himself a decade ago or so.
Still, outside of Sam’s perspective, Silent Hill fans have a pent up desire for a proper remake or remaster of Silent Hill 2, ironically because of Konami. Konami’s botched Silent Hill HD Collection did not just receive poor reviews, or cut the legs off the franchise. It made fans desire a proper rerelease of the game, in some way that would do it justice.
Bloober Team is now facing that unenviable task, but at least Bloober do have something going for it. There’s a momentum right now for remakes of games like Resident Evil 4, Dead Space, and Metroid Prime. It may speak to the nostalgia of that era when these games were made, but as we have learned, newer studios can accomplish this task of meeting and exceeding fan expectations quite well.
Silent Hill 2 Remake is in development for Windows via Steam and PlayStation 5.
