Summary
Silent Hillis making its comeback fairly late, and yet late is better than never for a franchise that’s as beloved as Konami’s survival-horror series. Not everySilent Hillinstallment has been widely successful or agreeable, but the ones that players do enjoy are commonly pedestaled as some of the most influential works in the survival-horror genre to this day, particularlySilent Hill 2. Indeed,Silent Hill 2will now be receiving its own remake treatmentfollowing the success of other classic games’ remakes, though that is thankfully not the only gameSilent Hillcan rely on.
Silent Hill 2’s remake was announced alongside the reveals ofSilent Hill: Townfall,Silent Hill: Ascension, andSilent Hill f. It wouldn’t make sense for Konami to have exclusively announced a ton of remakes or remasters as a way to inorganically pepper the franchise with ‘new’ content, but it’s fantastic regardless that Konami is deciding to chiefly take risks with the franchise when it would’ve been expected for it to cash out on simpler choices. This way, while the quality of newSilent Hillgames is uncertain, these games at least determine that the franchise won’t become stale anytime soon.
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Townfall, Ascension, f, and Others Create Originality for Silent Hill
Silent Hillhas been outside survival-horror community conversations for so long that remakes aren’t actually an egregious proposition, especially since it’s arguable thatSilent Hillgames would have the most to gain from remakes.Silent Hill 2has an incredible and emotional narrative, for example, and current-gen performance technology will be able to better represent that. Likewise, while the narrative itself doesn’t need to be touched up in a remake, combat surely could due to how stagnant it was in the original with tank controls that made it soSilent Hill 2’s James Sunderlandwould have to either trade blows with enemies or run to a corner of the room and shoot as the enemy approached.
Still,Silent Hillcrafting brand-new experiences with likely no tangible connection topreviousSilent Hillgamesis a massive boon for the franchise.Resident Evilhas somehow managed to continue its continuity, for example, but it’s hanging on by a thread of legacy characters it can’t seem to escape from.Silent Hillnow has an opportunity to lean into its nature as an anthology and offer wholly diverse stories beneath the franchise’s world as an umbrella, which the town of Silent Hill already functionally behaves as.
Ascensionis going to be the oddest installment of the new titles since it’s being billed as an interactive experience and might not be a game in the traditional sense. ButTownfallandfbeing developed—even with as little information about them as there is—are terrific demonstrations of the franchise heading in a creatively open direction.
Silent Hill 2’s Remake Won’t Make or Break the Franchise Now
BecauseSilent Hill 2’s remake isn’t the onlySilent Hillgame in development, not as much actually rests on its shoulders for it being highly successful. It’d obviously help if fans’ nostalgia for the sequel led them to buy the game, but it would be great if Konami and associated developers wanted to make new games their priority.
If the remake does well then it would make sense for Konami to continueremakingSilent Hillgames in the same vein asResident Evil’s new remake continuity, for instance, though Konami would also need to followResident Evil’s pattern of developing new modern games in order to strike a satisfying balance. That’s hopefully where at leastTownfallandfcome in, and whether these games begin their own narratives or branch out again into unrelated anthology games it will be wonderful to seeSilent Hilltrying its hand at being more diverse with its content.
If this course of action is to be successful, fans will need to give as much attention toTownfallandfas they will to theSilent Hill 2remake to show Konami that their interests aren’t solely on remakes. Otherwise, fewer new games might be developed while more remakes are considered instead, and that would set a potentially underwhelming precedent for theSilent Hillfranchise’s future.
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