As we all know, Silent Hill: Downpour is on its way and will be with us nearing the end of the year. We felt it a good time to reminisce about Silent Hill’s eerie past and what it has meant to the horror community, namely Silent Hill 2 and the impact it had; it pulled gamers into a world that was unknown with unspeakable horrors, dreary music and the intense feeling something was always lurking in the shadows. Rather than relying solely on traditional scare tactics to envelop gamers, it capitalized on our emotions with a great cast and an engaging story that unraveled with every event, slowly revealing the true horror within- forcing players to dwell on what they had just been a part of. The experience’s finale demanded players’ attention and left them to come to their own conclusion as to what everything meant when all was said and done -and that alone gave this game a depth that many have attempted, but has never been captured quite as well as in Silent Hill 2. If you have yet to experience this game, please stop reading now.
We experience Silent Hill 2 as James Sunderland, a lonely man who lost his wife, Mary, to an illness three years ago and who has suddenly found himself following a mysterious letter (written by the recently deceased) back to where they had spent time –their special place, Silent Hill. Right from the start things are creepy; James is holding a letter somehow just written by his dead wife. Consumed with sadness in losing her, he holds desperately onto a glimmer of hope that she might have in fact survived the illness and has not been able to contact him until now.
Progressing through the game you meet a few people who are all drawn to the town for different reasons, but all with their own parts to play and secrets to unfold. The thing with Silent Hill 2 and its cast is that they are all very relevant and all develop with the story, no one poses as filler, which many games are guilty of. James meets Maria, who looks astonishingly like his deceased wife, opposite only in terms of personality and sexual outgoingness. She accompanies him for a bit until she is killed by one of the most iconic horror characters, (introduced to the world by this game), Pyramid Head and although his existence is never really defined in the game, he makes himself known throughout your journey and you are ultimately left to decide his role in the story.
Other than Maria, James meets Laura, a curious young girl who spent time with Mary in the hospital and who is also looking for her, and then Eddie -a man who is very paranoid and always shows up when something bad has happened. Lastly there is Angela, a girl in her late teens who -from what we can tell- is very unstable and quite possibly suicidal. Her story is quite possibly the most emotional and almost overshadows the story the game is based around, (perhaps that is why they used her for the box art).
The involvement and encounters that James has with these characters, however chance or few they seem, help unravel the true story as to what brought him to Silent Hill once again. When the game rolls into its final chapter, many truths are revealed which begin to hint at what James’ story is all about. James consistently runs into Maria, even after her death(s), and it is never explained as to why she keeps reappearing -leaving players to once again decide what is happening. Eddie is paranoid that everyone is out to get him -not in a physically harmful way, but in making fun of him when clearly they are not and eventually we learn he has killed numerous people in what he thinks is defense and ultimately meets his demise at James’ hands after losing his mind.
Angela, who as stated before has a very heart-wrenching story, is learned to be the victim of sexual abuse. That being bad enough, we then learn that it was her father committing the acts of cruelty and that her mother, the one person she looked to, did nothing to stop it. As it unfolds what happened to her we also are led to believe she killed her father out of hatred and what he took from her: her life. Her closing sequence in the burning staircase is probably the saddest moment I have ever experienced in a game as it is full of depressing dialogue, sad music and the revelation of what it was she was looking for with the inevitable ascent up the burning stairs to her death.
James and Laura conclude the game’s main story and it is no less heartbreaking as we learn that Laura loved Mary and that James, through selfishness and his own inability to deal with his wife’s illness decided to end her life. As he learns of this he also learns that he pushed this memory from his head through an unbearable guilt and refusal to see the truth. Laura learns of this and runs off, never to be seen again. Although there are multiple endings to this game, the decidedly ‘official’ ending of this game involves James being consumed with guilt and ending his own life.
The ending is as dramatic as the rest of the game and it really plays with your mind as to what everything means; from the monsters you encounter to the people who help move the story along, everything has a meaning and is left to the player to uncover what everything represents –but not in game; players have spent the past decade debating what represents what and how everything ties into the story, proving that this game has had quite an impact on fans of the genre; Silent Hill 2 is a true icon in psychological horror and has continued to stay relevant in the horror community as we were given with a game filled with not just fear, but wonder and sadness – a very rare instance in the genre.
While the franchise’s games since the release of Silent Hill 2 have been fun, engaging and full of horror, none have quite matched the stamp the second installment left on horror gaming –not to me at least- and as Silent Hill moves into the future with ‘Downpour,’ the horror gaming community wishes it the best so we can hopefully revisit not only the town we have grown to fear, but also the psychological suspense and emotion we endured while playing the second game and to perhaps find another opportunity to theorize and ponder its events and story for the next ten years.
This is my first article and I would love to hear what your hopes are for the next SH installment, what you wish to see or experience – or what you would like them to stray from. Keep the speculations and interests coming!
YOUR COMMENTS ARE APPRECIATED!
