Squint at the new Silent Hill 2 remake trailer and tell me it's not just the Resident Evil 2 remake

Action isn't the first thing I think of when it comes to Silent Hill 2, but that's what Konami decided to show in a new trailer during Sony's State of Play stream today.

If you squint, the whole thing looks like the Resident Evil 2 remake with the brightness turned down. Even in 4K, I couldn't tell if I was looking at James Sunderland or Leon S Kennedy. Both men hold a gun the same way, but only one of them knows how to perform a drop kick.

The trailer doesn't have a lot more than that. Bloober Team's remake seems to be following in the footsteps of Capcom's successful Resident Evil remakes, which, to be clear, isn't necessarily a bad thing. I just don't think a montage of a guy awkwardly shooting in pitch black rooms is the best way to convince anyone that you're making a faithful remake of a beloved survival horror game. In fact, maybe this is a hint at the opposite.

Silent Hill 2, as the end of the trailer reiterates, still doesn't have a release date. Bloober Team has been quiet about it since its 2022 announcement, and just recently pointed a finger at Konami for why there have been so few updates.

There's a lot more Silent Hill 2 than what you see in the trailer, however, so it's way too early to tell where it'll land for diehard fans. But as these things usually go, reactions will probably be pretty split. At least Bloober Team knows survival horror well: Our reviewer thoroughly enjoyed its Layers of Fear remakes last year.

Silent Hill fans desperate for anything new to play and also own a PlayStation 5 can play Silent Hill: The Short Message for free right now. Konami and Hexadrive cooked up a first-person horror experience similar to P.T. set in Germany. The game stars a young woman named Anita as she goes through the horrors of online abuse, according to producer Motoi Okamoto on the PlayStation Blog. Anita passes through hallways covered in insults in the trailer and is led straight into a monster by someone texting her on her phone. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like The Short Message will come to PC.

Associate Editor

Tyler has covered games, games culture, and hardware for over a decade before joining PC Gamer as Associate Editor. He's done in-depth reporting on communities and games as well as criticism for sites like Polygon, Wired, and Waypoint. He's interested in the weird and the fascinating when it comes to games, spending time probing for stories and talking to the people involved. Tyler loves sinking into games like Final Fantasy 14, Overwatch, and Dark Souls to see what makes them tick and pluck out the parts worth talking about. His goal is to talk about games the way they are: broken, beautiful, and bizarre.