SILENT HILL 2
Overwhelmingly Positive
Total: 31.8 ThousandPositive: 30.2 ThousandNegative: 1.57 Thousand
88.58 %
11.1 %
SILENT HILL 2 is a masterful remake of the iconic psychological horror game, blending action and adventure into a chilling narrative. Players step into the shoes of James Sunderland, who returns to the eerie town of Silent Hill after receiving a mysterious letter from his deceased wife. The game delivers a haunting atmosphere, enhanced by cutting-edge graphics, ray tracing, and immersive soundscapes. With an AI Community Rating of 89.24%, fans praise its gripping story, beautiful visuals, and classic horror gameplay. However, some players report performance issues like stuttering and crashes, particularly on PC. Despite these flaws, SILENT HILL 2 remains a must-play for horror enthusiasts, offering expanded environments, an over-the-shoulder camera, and evolved combat mechanics. Dive into this unforgettable journey of fear, mystery, and emotional depth.
Players praise the game's tight controls and responsive combat mechanics, highlighting how fluid movement enhances the overall experience. The level design receives consistent acclaim for its creativity and variety, with many noting how well-paced exploration keeps gameplay engaging. However, some criticize enemy AI for being predictable, reducing challenge in later stages. Difficulty scaling is a mixed topic—some players find it well-balanced, while others argue it becomes too easy after mastering core mechanics. Replayability is debated; some appreciate unlockable content and alternate paths, but others feel the game lacks meaningful incentives for multiple playthroughs. The tutorial is widely praised for its clarity, smoothly introducing mechanics without overwhelming newcomers. A few players mention occasional pacing issues, with certain sections feeling rushed or overly repetitive. Overall, the gameplay loop is described as satisfying, though opinions vary on long-term appeal.
The game has received mixed feedback regarding performance and technical issues, with players reporting both smooth experiences and frustrating problems. Some users highlight stable FPS and minimal bugs, praising the optimization even on mid-range hardware. However, others encounter frequent stuttering, frame drops, and long loading times, particularly in graphically intensive scenes. A recurring complaint involves crashes, especially during critical moments, with some players losing progress due to corrupted saves. Online connectivity issues, including disconnections and laggy matchmaking, have also been noted. While the game runs well for many, performance inconsistencies—such as poor optimization on certain GPUs or unexpected softlocks—remain a concern. Visual glitches, like texture pop-ins and physics anomalies, are present but often minor. Players recommend checking hardware compatibility before purchase, as performance varies significantly across systems.
The game's UI and accessibility are a point of significant community discussion. Players widely praise the intuitive inventory management and clean, customizable HUD that provides essential information without excessive screen clutter. The control scheme receives positive feedback for its responsiveness and well-thought-out keybinding, with full controller support noted as a highlight for a comfortable, flexible experience. However, a notable portion of the player base reports issues with text readability, citing small, hard-to-read fonts that are not scalable, which can strain the eyes during long sessions. Accessibility options are frequently cited as lacking; players are requesting more robust features, including comprehensive colorblind modes, larger subtitle text with background options, and more granular difficulty settings to cater to a wider audience. The absence of these features is a recurring critique. While the core user experience is smooth and the UI is generally well-designed, the game's accessibility shortcomings are a significant barrier for some, making it a title that excels in core functionality but falls short in inclusive design.
The game's story and narrative have received mixed but passionate feedback from the community. Many players praise its deep world-building, rich lore, and well-written dialogue, which immerses them in the game's universe. The characters are frequently highlighted as memorable, with complex motivations and development arcs that keep players invested. However, some criticize the pacing, noting that certain sections drag or feel uneven, disrupting the narrative flow. A few players also mention that certain plot twists feel forced or predictable, diminishing the impact of key moments. Despite these criticisms, the majority agree that the story's emotional depth and thematic weight make it a compelling experience. If you enjoy narrative-driven games with strong character development and intricate world-building, this title offers plenty to appreciate—though be prepared for occasional pacing issues.
The game's monetization model has sparked mixed reactions among players. Some praise its fair approach, with no pay-to-win mechanics or aggressive microtransactions, making it a solid value for the price. Others, however, criticize the inclusion of cosmetic loot boxes and limited-time paid content, arguing it detracts from the overall experience. Expansions and season passes receive moderate feedback—some players feel they add meaningful content, while others see them as overpriced. Community sentiment leans toward the game being worth its base cost, but optional purchases divide opinions. If you prefer a game with minimal monetization pressure, this might be a good fit, but those sensitive to loot boxes or paid DLC may want to reconsider.
The community's feedback for this game is a vibrant list of feature requests and suggestions aimed at elevating the experience. A significant number of players are calling for expanded multiplayer features, specifically the addition of co-op and PvP modes to complement the existing gameplay. There is a strong, consistent demand for more content across the board, with players requesting new maps, additional weapons, and a greater variety of enemies and bosses to increase long-term engagement and replayability. Quality-of-life improvements are another major focus. Players suggest UI and HUD tweaks for better clarity, a more extensive settings menu with additional sliders for fine-tuning performance, and improvements to the game's checkpoint and save system to reduce frustration. The desire for deeper customization is also prevalent, with requests for more character customization options and the ability to create and share custom maps. While the core game is well-received, the community is vocal about these potential additions, viewing them as essential for the game's evolution and longevity. These suggestions paint a clear picture of a dedicated player base invested in the game's future development.
Developer engagement and support play a crucial role in shaping player experiences, and community reviews highlight mixed sentiments on this front. Many players praise the developers for their responsiveness, citing frequent patches and active communication through forums and social media. Positive feedback often mentions how the team listens to player concerns, implements requested features, and maintains transparency about upcoming updates. However, some players express frustration over delayed fixes for critical bugs or a lack of clarity on long-term roadmaps, especially in early access titles. While the commitment to improving the game is evident, occasional lapses in communication or slow progress on major updates have left a portion of the community dissatisfied. For those valuing developer interaction, the game shows promise but may require patience as the team balances feedback with development priorities.
Was apprehensive about this from the trailers, but I was pleasantly shocked. It's so much better than I thought it would be. It's not perfect, but it's enough to make an OG SH fan like me very happy. Enemies look awesome (I'm looking at you, Abstract Daddy), and the atmosphere is great Harry Mason, when?? we need more remakes like this. Kudos, Bloober
As a big fan of the original games, this remake stays true to the original while introducing updated graphics and mechanics. Stunning visuals and top notch sound design. While the gameplay isn't anything mind-blowing, it feels refreshing enough to keep you going An absolute masterpiece that does justice to a horror classic.
First impressions are awesome. Run -dx11 in the launch options for an immense fps boost and graphic fixes. Went from 50-60fps 1440p DLSSQ to 60-75fps 1440p native EDIT for the ppl that have reached out to me: the blackscreen is normal when you swap to -dx11, it took a while on my system as well, no idea why, I'd assume shader-compilation takes longer in dx11? And my specs are: 7800X3D 3070 OC 32GB DDR5 5600Mhz M.2 SSD
OG SH2 is one of my favorite games of all time and I must say Bloober knocked it out of the park with this remake. OGSH2 was stressful because of the atmosphere of dread and the idea that something terrible could happen at any moment, but the actual gameplay was on the easy side. This remake not only recaptures everything great about the OG in terms of its art direction, sound design, voice acting etc., but it actually makes SH2 scary again for those of us who already know what's going to happen. The combat is really good and tense and it keeps you on your toes even on standard difficulty. Last night I got out of the hospital and managed to get to the wrench and honestly that journey really took something out of me. I was left feeling exhausted and slightly traumatized in the best possible way. Congrats to Bloober for having recaptured lightning in a bottle in a way that is at once respectful of the past while also reinvigorating. I am so looking forward to SH3 remake.
The atmosphere and sound design is the best I've ever seen. The game becomes so tense in some areas i feel i have to take break or my heart will stop! my personal GOTY 2024.
The Silent Hill 2 remake is fantastic, but its optimization is a disaster. All the hype about Unreal Engine 5 and Lumen is overshadowed by the game's poor performance. Even my NVIDIA RTX 3060 PC struggles to run the game smoothly, and it looks worse than Resident Evil 7 from 2017, which my GTX 1050 laptop ran without issues at 1080p 60 fps. Negative review until performance is fixed. Edit: For me, forcing dx11 seems to fix performance issues to a degree but still has dips time to time and overall performance is still underwhelming.
Fantastic game, however the stuttering needs to be fixed. Even on a higher end PC and lowest settings it's very noticeable. Edit: To add, the game also crashes a lot at launch with the following Unreal Engine error: Unhandled Exception: EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION reading address 0x0000000000000020
It's still poorly optimized after 5 months, my frames will frequently drop, even with mod fixes and I've had to look up some bug fixes. I'd wait until another sale after they fix some of their issues before buying. Other than those few gripes the game is very fun and reminiscent of the old silent hill that I grew up on.
Unfortunately, I can't recommend this remake in its current state because of the immersion-breaking stuttering and hitching during traversal, and the usual lack of optimization in most recent UE5 games. I'd suggest developers not rush the game's release and consider hiring a team of C++ experts to customize and optimize the Unreal Engine's source code, specifically the streaming and garbage collector components, to suit the needs of their project. Also, a comprehensive shader pre-compilation stage is a must-have. I will change the sense of my review once they resolve the ongoing traversal stuttering/hitching problem. [b]UPDATE (As of 12/03/24):[/b] Patch 1.06 didn't resolve the traversal stuttering/hitching issue. The game's asset streaming and garbage collector components are still flawed and unoptimized. Also, the added shader compilation stage on the game launch is minimal and incomplete.
The game is awesome - the glimmer of hope the entire Silent Hill community needed. Bloober Team has still some things to do better in the next installments (for example making the town a real open world instead of a guided passage again) but all in all I'm in love with this remake. What I'm not in love with is Konami's disgusting advertising-strategy to sell the Deluxe Edition with A "Digital Soundtrack" and not with THE "Digital Soundtrack". Instead of the complete 93-track soundtrack they previewed on youtube, you only get a 10-track-selection from that complete soundtrack. An absolute disgusting scam. When I get the missing 83 tracks, this will turn into a positive review; until then negative it is. UPDATE: I just received my response-mail from the Konami-support and they made clear that the Deluxe Edition only comes with a 10-track soundtrack and that this won't get extended on November 20th. This means two things: a) the negative review will stay b) YARR-HARR!
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