Silent Hill 2’s remake is authentic and compelling

Developer Bloober Team faces a challenging balancing act in bringing a cherished 2001 classic like Silent Hill 2 to a new generation. The good news is that the Silent Hill 2 Remake – released on PlayStation 5 and PC – does capture the essence, the atmosphere of Konami’s survival horror, all while making smart upgrades to its design. Despite rebuilding the game on Unreal Engine 5, you’ll still recognise its iconic, foggy view over Toluca Lake at the game’s start. The cutscenes are now acted out with new motion capture and voice overs and while in control, you’ll explore Silent Hill’s woodland trails and apartment blocks with an updated control scheme – complete with newly devised puzzles. Likewise, its soundtrack is re-arranged by legendary composer Akira Yamaoka, and even the world layout, the ordering of events, is remixed at points to keep fans, old and new alike, on their toes. Even through all these twists though, at its core, Bloober still successfully takes apart and puts back together the beating heart of what made the 2001 original work.

We’re focusing on PlayStation 5 today with PC coverage to follow but the fact of the matter is – and despite my praise for Bloober’s overall re-telling of Silent Hill 2’s story – the remake’s use of Unreal Engine 5 technology has pros and cons. So first of all, how much of a visual overhaul is the remake over the PlayStation 2 original? Side-by-side, how is Konami’s original blueprint for each area brought to life today via UE5 – where Lumen is at work for reflections and global illumination? Secondly, what’s the best way to play on PS5, between its two modes – a 30 frames per second quality mode and a 60fps performance mode? And finally, do each of these modes hit their frame-rate targets, or are there struggles in locking a stable reading either way?

The comparisons to the PlayStation 2 original often speaks for themselves. After all, we’re talking about a 23 year gap between the two games and the result is as transformative as you’d hope. To start, the pre-rendered CG cutscenes used on PS2 – often deployed for close-ups like the classic shot of James gazing in the mirror – are now replaced with in-engine renders. The remake recreates each moment in real-time via Unreal Engine 5, bolstered by more advanced skin shaders, lighting interaction with cloth, and – crucially – a greater nuance to facial animations too. The design of each character is adjusted to suit a 4K presentation on PS5. Buttons and more prominent zips are added to James’ olive green jacket, while later on, Maria shows off new accessories: a choker and tattoo. So yes, Bloober Team takes creative liberties here. Understandably, fans of the 2001 original may be attached to those original designs – and it might be hard to accept a change. Still, the remake’s changes are deliberate, and I’d suggest they are added in the spirit of what each character represents in the story.

Silent Hill 2 Remake – PS5 Tech Review – An Authentic UE5 Recreation… But What About Performance?

The Silent Hill 2 remake – Tom Morgan delivers Digital Foundry’s video review.Watch on YouTube
In-game, the remake’s upgrades are inevitably even more stark. Often, the events and dialogue of a cutscene are similar but the pacing is altered, presented at new camera angles and edited to a new timing. Looking back to PS2, the fact of the matter is that the in-engine PS2 models worked beautifully on the CRT displays of the day, running at an internal resolution of 512×448. However, the expectations of a remake, and especially one targeting modern 4K displays, is that model and asset quality need an equivalent step-up. It’s also clear that original developer, Team Silent, truly relied on those pre-rendered cinematics for any up-close facial expressions, while in-engine scenes – using simplified character models and basic lip flap movements – worked better for wider angle shots. The remake demands the best of both worlds: the 4K presentation means every cutscene gets full performance capture, at times inserting character close-ups where previously it couldn’t be achieved. Again, it might not be to everyone’s tastes, but it’s a technical advance that allows for a more detailed acting performance that just wasn’t possible in 2001.

The second half of the visual upgrade is in Silent Hill itself – the location. Bloober’s remake goes to great lengths to re-interpret the concept of each landmark using Unreal Engine 5. The result isn’t always a strictly precise 1:1 recreation, but through the downhill route to Toluca lake, and each shop across the town streets, it’s very recognisable. Every geometric detail is reworked from scratch. Between the derelict cars, the shop signs – every material reveals a huge vault in detail, backed by real-time indirect lighting via UE5’s Lumen GI. Certainly down the initial route, through Silent Hill’s woodlands, we keep the very tightly linear structure of the original. Visibility is pushed a little farther afield in the remake, beyond the thickets and billowing swirls of fog – but it’s a well worked way to recreate the game’s eerie introduction. And best of all, the transitions between each area – from the graveyard to the ranch, to the apartments, are all now seamless – avoiding the fade to black loading screens of the original.

Delving even deeper into Silent Hill’s world, Bloober has excelled in judging where and what to add to the experience, while keeping its pacing intact. New pockets of the town are opened out to the player and there’s a more enticing backdrop to the first boss battle with Pyramid head too – filled with destructible cages – where previously it took place in a barebones cellar. We even have new (and surprisingly well-designed) puzzles inserted. Much of this is only additive but Bloober also keeps what worked in its iconic, visual direction. The bloody scrawls across Nealy’s Bar are letter for letter a match, while the first, ominous glimpse of Pyramid Head through the barred apartment hallways is kept too.

Through all of this, one element that shines in the remake is the detail added above the player. Where before on PS2 we had a mixture of fixed static views, and a limited, horizontally-oriented 3D camera, the remake encourages us to look up and down to catch details. Bloober Team fills in the blanks, so to speak. We’re now able to see the sheer scale of landmarks like the church from a ground view, the traffic lights dangling in the wind, and even the daunting height of the town’s sheet-covered blockades. It’s great stuff.

Looking back at the PS2 version, there’s one aspect that’s lost in translation: the texture of the image itself. In some ways, the original’s rather coarse image quality dates itself to a specific time in games technology – to the launch window of PS2 in an era of CRTs – and it only adds to Silent Hill 2’s mystique. Much like the best works of horror, in films or otherwise, there’s a power to obscuring the image, to having an almost ‘found footage’ VHS look – where the sharp edges and heavy film grain form an integral part of its atmosphere. Today’s remake does away with that gritty, grimy aesthetic, in favour of a cleaner modern one. It’s expected, of course, and while there is a subtle degree of film grain in place – and chromatic aberration – it’s not quite the same. In fairness, Bloober adds an optional 90s filter option in the remake, which colour grades the game in a similar fashion to the original – but it’s really only a token gesture.

In terms of the technical basics, PS5 offers two options: a default quality mode that runs at 30 frames per second and a 60fps performance mode. Each one uses UE5’s Lumen technology – reflections and global illumination – allowing for an approximated ray-traced solution to reflections on water, and lighting its dark interiors. However, the quality presets for both lumen reflections and GI are lowered on the performance mode and there’s a resolution drop too.

The quality mode runs with dynamic scaling, between 2176×1224 to 2688×1512, while the performance mode drops that range to 1536×864 to 2048×1152. There’s a temporal upscale in place both sides (TSR, based on the PC version), resolving to a 4K image, but expectedly, it has a bigger uphill battle – with more reconstruction artefacts – with the 60fps mode. Frustratingly, there’s no ignoring the visual artefacts that go with this temporal upscale. Even on quality mode, running at a higher target 1512p, you’ll spot motion banding on grey backdrops. Notably there’s banding at the edges of the screen while looking skyward, or panning across fog – which is rather unfortunate given it’s everywhere.

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Comparing Silent Hill 2’s original PS2 presentation with Bloober’s PS5 remake.

Lumen GI and reflection quality also take a hit in the performance mode. For global illumination, the effect is best noticed around the red glow of save points – where performance mode appears to remove local lighting quality, or near field higher quality SDF representation. The impact is most clear indoors, where the quality mode’s Lumen GI brightens the back of bars via additional bounce lighting, reflecting the hue of nearby coloured objects. The quality mode also adds pockets of shade to shelves – though in most cases the improved GI makes for a subtle difference. As for Lumen reflections, this sees a more cutback. Both modes use lumen reflections with a screen space reflection method as a fallback, but again, the Lumen reflections for objects not within screen view drops a setting on performance mode. The result is, sadly, a flickering blob of pixels on puddles while running at 60fps, which is fixed on the quality mode.

Between the two modes, all settings stay the same otherwise, from shadow resolution, textures and beyond. It’s primarily the native resolution for each mode, then, and the lumen quality settings that divide them. Also, given cut-scenes run at 30fps in either mode, it’s really only gameplay that’s affected. You keep the thick volumetric fog effect either way, and level of detail across the town stays intact. Sadly, this parity between modes also extends to issues in controls and visual bugs that can’t be ignored.

There’s an aping of the Resident Evil 2 Remake-style over the shoulder view, for gun controls and melee. And while it generally works, Bloober runs into an issue with the camera logic. Too often, especially around the tight confines of the apartment block, the camera struggles to find space to keep the action in frame, making enemies hard to track. It’s my only real gripe with the game design. Otherwise, there are also occasional visual bugs that break immersion, and I’m surprised they weren’t picked up on during the QA process.

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How Silent Hill 2’s quality and performance modes compare from a visual perspective.

The two performance modes don’t quite hit the target either. PS5’s 30fps quality mode runs fully v-synced and while it does hit the mark most of the time, it’s also evident that there are plenty of one-frame blips, and even lurches into the high 20s during action. It’s rarely extreme but these blips are still a semi-regular distraction from what should be a fluid 30fps line. One proably cause is the dynamic nature of the resolution. Simply put, abruptly changing GPU load, by raising the camera to the sky – where the resolution increases – and then dropping the camera suddenly to eye level, causes a momentary lurch under 30fps. This happens almost every time.

The DRS only has a brief window to react, and often doesn’t change quickly enough, resulting in short but noticeable frame drops. With the higher Lumen GI and reflections settings, the quality mode is ultimately how I played most of the remake. I’d especially recommend it to those without a VRR display. But it’s still a shame that it’s not a 100 percent smooth way to enjoy the game at 30fps. It doesn’t matter where you look: the apartments, the open, free exploration of Silent Hill’s streets, or battles with Pyramid Head – there’s always a persistent trickle of dropped frames behind every turn and gunshot.

Switching to the performance mode, there’s an 1152p target at maximum and Lumen reflections take a visible hit in quality outdoors. It’s also apparent that 60fps is a stretch for PS5, even when the resolution bottoms out at 864p. The reality is, Silent Hill 2 Remake doesn’t put its best foot first with the woodland route to Toluca lake, the graveyard section, or the ranch in the opening hour. These foggy, foliage-packed areas tank PS5’s reading, taking it well into the mid-40s and even briefly dipping into the high 30s in one later courtyard pool area. It truly overextends the ideal range for a VRR display this way, and there’s not enough frame data to turn around a perceptually smooth result.

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A gallery of snapshots showing Silent Hill 2’s frame-rate in both quality and performance modes on PS5.

The upside is, after those initial areas, the town streets do run typically at the 60fps line on PS5, actually sustaining that readout for hours at a time in the South Vale region, with a similar trend of one frame blips and dips to the quality mode. Likewise, getting into the dark, linear apartment block puts 60fps into view most of the time – though as you ascend to the third floor, with more detailed, dilapidated rooms, the reading starts to plummet more frequently into the 50s.

I played through the game’s first six hours, and performance mode is truly a mixed bag. It makes sense that the 30fps quality mode is selected by default as the performance mode simply doesn’t deliver a locked 60fps and its compromises are readily apparent. Long stretches will hit the top mark, but there are too many lengthy bouts of 40-50fps play, where even VRR can’t guarantee consistent, smooth play. Perhaps this is one to revisit down the line with – dare I say it – the PS5 Pro, but for now it’s clear neither mode quite hands in a polished reading. Of the two, the 30fps mode is reluctantly my pick for the cleaner image, more temporally stable Lumen reflections and tighter lock on a lower frame-rate target – but it’s not exactly an ideal solution.

Silent Hill 2’s remake is still a strong effort overall. It’s simultaneously faithful to the spirit of Konami’s original, while also daring to avoid being too literal in its translation. The newly added puzzles, the ability to soak in the town’s details from any angle, and grander boss set-piece with Pyramid Head all add something tangible to the package. Even so, the remake has technical rough edges to address. PS5’s performance mode is a chief concern for me. Whether it’s via patch updates, or even by brute force of running on better, future console hardware (which shouldn’t be the answer), I’m itching to see a way to get a tighter 60fps lock. Equally, it’s a shame that current PS5 hardware struggles to keep the 30fps mode locked down, despite being its default mode with preferable Lumen quality settings. On balance, Bloober Team’s remake still makes a great many more right decisions than wrong ones. Against all expectations going in, it ranks as a success overall – with some room to improve post release.