We Need To Let Go Of Silent Hill 2

I got a letter. 

The name on the envelope said ‘Silent Hill.’ My favorite game’s name. It’s ridiculous, couldn’t possibly be true. That’s what I keep telling myself. A dead franchise can’t write a letter…

In September 2001, Silent Hill 2 released for the Playstation 2 and in doing so, gaming history was made. Frequently held up as the definitive installment of a strong series, Silent Hill 2 was a rumination on grief, trauma, and guilt that set the benchmark for horror for years to come, inspiring countless imitations. We relentlessly mourn a franchise that, at this point, has not had a release in ten years; more, if you want to consider the last Team Silent release. And therein lies the problem. 

James is trapped in that digital purgatory, endlessly wandering the streets of Silent Hill 2, and we too are lost within them. Unable to move forward and accept the reality- that the Silent Hill we once knew is dead. 

It feels like on an almost yearly basis – if not more than that – another rumor spawns declaring that a new Silent Hill game is in the works. And every year, like clockwork, fans of the series get excited, unable to accept the fact that Silent Hill is dead in the water. 

Silent Hill 2 was a game that focused upon James’ inability to move forward with his life; he goes to that Silent Heaven because of a hazy memory of a holiday, and a photograph taken during better times. Chasing this specter, James goes to Silent Hill to look for his wife, who, he informs us is dead – and yet here he is, chasing her because of a letter, supposedly written by her. Perhaps that is why we are so attached to Silent Hill – for many of us, we played it as fledgling gamers and it was a formative experience, a litany of firsts. First horror, first morally grey storyline, first Silent Hill. 

We have that nostalgic attachment to not only it as a game, but as a memory and experience. It is almost ironic that we as fans are unable to move forward when James’ whole reason for visiting Silent Hill was his inability to let go. 

Silent Hill HD Collection exists as the Maria to Silent Hill 2‘s Mary – a reminder of what we have lost, and are unable to let go of. We are beholden to the memory of a game we played for the first time twenty years ago, unable to let new horror games into our lives. We look for every horror title to be the next Silent Hill, rather than standing on its own and saying its own thing.

We wanted to set things straight. We have no relations with Konami. Silent Hill is owned by Konami. We do not have any relations with Hideo Kojima. It was never our intention to tease the name as Silent Hill. We sincerely apologize for this.

— BLUE BOX Game Studios (@BBGameStudios) June 15, 2021

Most recently, Abandoned, a game which was assumed, based on circumstantial clues and gamer frenzy, to be a new Silent Hill, was the subject of some controversy when it was announced; patently not a Silent Hill title, the studio confirmed. This didn’t stop rabid fans of Silent Hill – a cult if you will – from not only sending death threats to the developers, Blue Box Games Studio, but insisting that it was in fact a new installment in the franchise. Fans, unable to let go of Silent Hill, became toxic, and whilst this is not exclusive to Silent Hill, it is emblematic of the unfortunate desperation of many.

A message from us. Human beings. pic.twitter.com/q2V5j4f4ZB

— BLUE BOX Game Studios (@BBGameStudios) October 17, 2021

This collective cultural obsession with Silent Hill extends to indie developers. It feels as though all-too-often indie games release with that catchphrase – ‘inspired by Silent Hill‘-. They work within the framework of Silent Hill and all it did and said, and thus we end up with a thousand different otherworlds, a thousand different unreliable narrators, a thousand different murdered spouses. Games such as Allison Road and Claire owe their entire structure to PT and Silent Hill featuring repeating hallways, and female protagonists traipsing through hallucinogenic hospitals. Whilst some games such as Lone Survivor pull this off better than others the overwhelming sense of deja vu when playing these games is uncanny. And yet, like Maria to Mary, it is the idealised version of a memory, distilled through the lens of what we want Silent Hill to be: something that still exists, that we can still visit as it was to us twenty years ago. 

We can’t move on so we instead reimagine and repurpose. In doing so, we work within an established formula which is, at this point, twenty years old. On the one hand, it’s understandable that a game that was formative for many would be used as a launchpad for a thousand imitators. On the other, the grief and nostalgia which holds James back holds the fans back, beholden to the same cyclical feelings and inertia that hold him hostage to his memories.

Silent Hill 2 said everything it needed to in its compact run-time. It was a painfully human experience which made the horror all the more substantial. Silent Hill 2 touched upon issues of chronic illness and guilt with a nuance rarely afforded the subject that prompted empathy, discussion, and debate. Of course, this is why it has endured; the themes it presents are timeless and part of their appeal is that there is no clear-cut answer for the quandaries presented. That greyness, that fog, extends from the streets to the narrative to the players’ own feelings.

Konami relies upon this obsession with Silent Hill, its legacy and the nostalgia of fans and in doing so, fundamentally misunderstands the appeal of Silent Hill. The spectres of Silent Hill exist in many forms, not least PT and are palpable in almost every modern horror release. The grotesque image of a giant foetal creature crawling at us from the dark in Resident Evil 8, a clear homage to the sink-baby of PT and yet almost entirely at odds with the schlocky tone of the rest of the game. Not only this, but the hunger for more has led to numerous Silent Hill DLCs for games such as Dead By Daylight and Deadly Deception where bereft of identity, Silent Hill exists as a shadow of itself. 

In these, Silent Hill is not the game we knew and loved but a final nail in the coffin, robbed of any individuality so that Konami can remind us both that it exists, and that they intend to do nothing with it. Pyramid Head looms over Silent Hill, no longer emblematic of sexually repressed guilt but a mascot to wheel out in Silent Hill: Revelations and Dead By Daylight DLCs. 

As James sees the Lakeview Hotel first as it existed in his memory, then as the burned-out husk it is we too, must stop looking to the past and accept that Silent Hill exists now only as a memory of a game we once played. We are beholden to the legacy of a game, the memories and feelings it elicited in us and which we seek to emulate. We need to, all of us, take those first few steps out of Silent Hill and into a new life. We need to kill Mary one last time, and let go.