The Silent Hill 2 remake has been hiding a secret, and one that might be evidence towards a theory fans have held for years.
Spoilers ahead!
One of the most interesting things about Silent Hill 2 is the fact it has several endings that are all decided by the tiniest of decisions you make in your playthrough, but one thing fans have never really been able to say for certain is which one is the canon one. In fact, Pyramid Head’s creator himself Masahiro Ito has even previously said that every ending is canon, which helped fuel a theory fans have had for a long time: that Silent Hill 2 is actually a time loop, with protagonist James Sunderland constantly re-experiencing these same events as punishment for how he treated his wife, Mary. And now fans have discovered a secret message that some believe is providing evidence for this theory.
I SOLVED THE SH2 REMAKE PHOTOS SECRET
byu/DaleRobinson insilenthill
In the game, you can collect 26 newly added photographs across the game, all of which show different parts of the town, along with some strange messages. This stumped fans for a while, but yesterday, Reddit user DaleRobinson cracked the code – “If you count things within each photo (example, the open windows in photo 1 = 6),” the user explains, “then count that number across the writing on each one, you will get a letter.” DaleRobinson did just that, and found that the photos spelled out the message: You’ve Been Here For Two Decades.
Creative director and lead designer at Bloober Team took to Twitter to confirm that this is correct, writing on Twitter, “I knew it wouldn’t stay hidden for long! (There was a theory in our company that the puzzle might be too hard) I really wanted to make it subtle when I was painting those photos… I think the timing couldn’t be better for you to solve it. Congratulations!”
It should be noted that this doesn’t technically outright confirm the theory, after all it could be a tongue in cheek thing about the fact the game is about two decades old, but it does seem pretty clear that it is a reference to the theory at the very least. When a fan commented that the loop theory is canon, Lenart did respond “Is it?” so obviously it’s still meant to be up in the air, which will be good news to some as not everyone likes the theory (I’d include myself in that category, particularly because it puts a cynical note on the Leave ending). Whether it’s canon or not doesn’t really matter, but it is a fun little puzzle, and I’m sure many fans will just be happy to see it solved.