Summary
- Mods like the HD Collection and Freecam improve visuals and offer new perspectives for Silent Hill 2 Remake.
- Cosmetic mods like playing as Leon from RE4 and Classic Health Indicator add fun crossovers and old-school elements.
- Cutscene Improvements and Optimizer mods give players control over graphics and frame rate adjustments for a personalized experience.
After years of development, often inducing more concern than hype about its arrival, the Silent Hill 2 Remake is finally here, and it turned out well. It managed to maintain the original’s mix of psychological horror and outright terror while modernizing the gameplay and updating the visuals. Still, there’s room for improvement.
6 Beginner Tips For Silent Hill 2 Remake
Here's what new players will need to know before entering the misty town of Silent Hill as James Sunderland in Silent Hill 2 Remake.
The visuals are meant to be grim, but perhaps they could be a little clearer, or the cutscenes could have a higher frame rate, or there could just be less fog. Luckily, people have already been tweaking the game one way or the other. As a result, they’ve made some interesting mods for the PC version that could make it more to a player’s liking.
1 Play As 2001 James Sunderland
Replace The New James With The Real James
SH2R’s James Sunderland will visibly get more tired and dirty as the game goes on. It’s a nice graphical touch that illustrates the toll the horrors of Silent Hill can wreak on a person. Or it’s mere graphical window dressing. What if people wanted the original James Sunderland from the old Silent Hill 2?
Thanks to NorskPL, fans can do just that by using his mod to replace the new model. It comes with its own facial animations too, though since it (and as of this writing, every other mod on this list) is new, there is a chance of encountering a bug or two. But if all goes well, there could be more mods to make this all-new game look more old-school.
2 Play As RE4 Remake Leon
Someone Took A Wrong Turn
Horror media is full of people taking unfortunate turns in grimy, creepy towns. Resident Evil 4 and its remake saw Leon Kennedy have a more explosive but equally harrowing turn when he came across a zombie-infested village in Spain. But what if he took a wrong turn along the way, and ended up in an entirely different but equally cursed town? SpiritHun sends James Sunderland off somewhere else and brings Leon from the RE4 Remake into Silent Hill.
It's a cosmetic mod, so Leon won't be suplexing Pyramid Head, or pulping monsters Mercenaries Mode-style throughout the town. Nonetheless, it's a neat way for players to cross the series over, and see Leon deal with SH2R's monsters. Then, someone could mod the new James Sunderland into RE4 Remake and leave him surrounded by Ganados. To this date, that hasn't happened yet, but players could dress Leon up in James' threads in the meantime.
3 Silent Hill 2 HD Collection
Turn The Remake Into The Remaster
Konami updated both the Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill series back in the early 2010s. One of them became a hit, and the other was the Silent Hill HD Collection. Dodgy coding, lacking textures, and new but worse voice acting made playing either Silent Hill 2 or 3 on the set miserable. The lack of fog also exposed details that were meant to be covered up.
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So, what if SH2R also lacked that fog, turning the titular town of nightmares into another wet burg in Maine? FrancisLouis managed that with his Silent Hill 2 HD Collection mod, and it has some benefits. No fog means a slightly better frame rate. But is it worth taking away SH2R’s atmosphere? Probably not, but it’s good for a laugh, and to bring back bittersweet memories of the original game's last big release.
4 Simple Freecam
Take The Camera Anywhere Around The Town
That fogless mod could come in handy if players want to explore the game at their leisure. See how the town and its surroundings were reconstructed. However, there’s only so much that players can do within the game’s boundaries. This is where KeinZantezuken’s Simple Freecam comes in and does what it says in the title.
It lets players break the boundaries of the camera and warp all around the place. They can see what lurks in the woods, how the developers load enemies in and out of the game, and see if there are any easter eggs or other things left behind in one spot or another. Its controls take some getting used to, but it’s a good tool for people who want to roam through Silent Hill.
5 Clean Flashlight
No Need For Grimy Torches Here
Silent Hill often hands its protagonists a flashlight so they can explore its dark depths, often missing gruesome discoveries until they swing the miniscule light their way. SH2R’s acts like an accurate flashlight too, with a grimy lens and a visible hotspot. Still, some players might prefer it if James got a better light and cleaned the lens off a bit.
Enter Caites’ Clean Flashlight mod. It removes the dirt and the hotspot to provide a pure, bright light. It’ll help lighten up dark rooms more clearly without completely illuminating the place. That way, players can still fear whatever’s lurking in the shadows. They can just find them more easily once they spin James’ light in their direction.
6 Cutscene Improvements
Replacing The Cinematic Approach With A Video Game-Based One
With a decent rig and setup, SH2R will run at a steady 60FPS. Except in cutscenes where, to be more cinematic, it’ll run at 30FPS and have black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. It’s an artistic choice, though if players want to make a different choice, they can use RoseTheFlower’s Cutscene Improvements mod.
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It’ll remove the black bars from any cutscene set at anything but 16:9 and unlock the frame rate to run at the same pace as the game. It’ll also sort out any ghosting or flickering effects some screens can suffer when running at low frame rates. Even when some character animations are set at 30FPS, it’ll keep the game stable and flicker-free.
7 Classic Health Indicator
No School like the Old School
When the player takes damage in SH2R, they get the glowing red frame of doom that every game in the past decade and a half has used to represent low health. It’s a handy way to let the player know something’s up without needing to fill the screen with a HUD. But that’s not the way the older games used to let players know they can’t take too many hits.
They used a cross as a health indicator, which would glow redder if the player took too many hits. Some people thought it would already be a toggleable option in the game. However, aside from everyone being used to the red frame, the Red Cross organization is surprisingly litigious about anything resembling their logo, leading to games past and present avoiding red cross icons (see Earthbound). So, whether it’s due to the law or convenience, players will have to use this mod to make SH2R feel more like SH2.
8 Silent Optimizer And Enhanced Silent Visuals
Letting The Player Tweak The Graphics To Their Heart's Content
FrancisLouis’ fog-removing mod can raise the frame rate a touch, but they also made a mod that does that without turning the game into a tribute to a bad remaster. Their Silent Optimizer lets the player adjust the lighting and shading, alongside asset streaming, to their liking. As a result, it could give the player 5-10 extra FPS, depending on their PC.
It’s also compatible with their other mod, Enhanced Silent Visuals, which will tweak the graphics further. It’ll reduce bloom and lens flare in favor of anisotropic filtering. Then, if the player has a beefy setup, they can use the Epic preset to increase the draw distance, shadow resolution, and other details. With both mods combined, players can make SH2R look however they like.
9 Ultra Plus Fixes And Visual Improvements
Get Everything Looking Right With One Download
If those two mods together sound a little fiddly, players could pick up SammiLucia’s simpler, straightforward visual mod. The Ultra Plus Fixes and Visual Improvements mod is an all-in-one deal that’ll fix stuttering, particle effects, and reflections. It’ll even reduce the sheen on James’ hair, so he’ll at least look like he took a shower before reaching the town.
The mod does this by taking some settings from the Cinematic and Epic presets, and disabling some plugins and effects in favor of others. That way, the game will look stronger visually without sacrificing performance. It’s simple to install too. Players just need to drag the contents into the game’s folder or use a mod manager, and they will be on their way.
Silent Hill 2
- Released
- October 8, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Bloober Team
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, PC
