Videogame remakes are a tricky subject. While they bring classics to present-day hardware with modern design sensibilities, each one rolls the dice on the outcome. For every Resident Evil 2, there’s a GTA Trilogy, and up until release it’s nigh impossible to predict which we’ll get. The upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake from Bloober Team is one such game, and while you could wait for the ground-up remake to experience the innermost workings of James Sunderland’s mind, there is another option. If you own a copy of SH2 and want to play it with improvements in 2024, the now-complete Enhanced Edition is the way to go.
With Bloober’s Silent Hill 2 release date looming, an entirely new way to experience the classic horror game is on the way. It’s set to be longer than the original, with an entirely new camera perspective and combat approach underpinning the remake’s design philosophies. The jury’s still out on whether or not Bloober can do Silent Hill 2 justice, but if Capcom can manage it with RE2, it’s about time we started having some faith.
If you’d rather play the original, though, and already own it on your PC, the newly complete Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition is the way to go. Among its many improvements to the 2001 original, the Enhanced Edition’s main goal is to make the game compatible with modern hardware. You can play Silent Hill 2 in high-definition, with upscaled fonts, widescreen 60 fps, better soft shadows, and improved mouse and controller support. After over six years of hard work and ten major updates, the original Silent Hill 2 has been given the facelift it deserves.
Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition’s final update makes some smaller alterations by comparison, but they help complete the experience. Gaps in the environment have been filled, a select few 3D assets have been improved, flashlight and water reflections are revamped, and 60 fps FMVs have been introduced. It’s not as big as other patches, but it does mark the project’s end.
“This update was planned by our own volition to be our final update for two years now,” the Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition team writes. “After working on the project for nearly seven years, we are satisfied with everything we wanted to develop and ultimately achieved for the game.”
Meanwhile, the Bloober Team remake is right around the corner, so we went hands-on with the game in our Silent Hill 2 preview. My colleague Jamie played the opening hours and was impressed with how the team balanced the old with the new. “Its modernizations, like a smooth third-person camera and the expanded combat, don’t come at the expense of tension, storytelling, and puzzling.”
You can learn more about Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition right here, but do keep in mind that you need to own a legitimate copy of the original to play this overhaul.
Meanwhile, you should check out some of the biggest upcoming PC games, or we have plenty of great VR horror games to give you the spooks instead.
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or grab our PCGN deals tracker to net yourself some bargains.