Our Silent Hill 2 Remake tips and tricks have every piece of advice we wish we'd known before we sent James moseying into town. With a mix of advice on puzzles, exploration, combat and general survival, Silent Hill 2 can be pretty ruthless for the unprepared, especially when a four-legged mannequin springs on you out of the shadows like a jumping spider, but our help can make it a lot easier to get used to what's lurking in the mist beyond. If you want the edge that could make the difference between life and death, here's our top 10 tips for the Silent Hill 2 Remake.
1. Killing enemies is only ever for its own sake
If you're a patron of Resident Evil or similar survival horror games, you should keep in mind that killing enemies in Silent Hill 2 never grants you any loot or reward, at least beyond making the area safer to traverse. You'll normally have to kill all the foes you come across when you're in confined areas like the Hospital section, if only for your own safety, but when you're exploring the town it's far more feasible to creep or sprint past them - and considering you only ever go into those fights with everything to lose and nothing to gain, you might as well do just that.
2. Your radio is not a guaranteed alert system
The radio you find at the beginning will generate harsh static sounds whenever enemies are nearby - but not every single time. Some enemies specifically enter a "Stealth/Ambush mode" where they hide under objects or behind corners, and your radio won't alert you to any enemies who are actively trying to hide.
This means you can't take it as a guarantee, especially later on when certain foes start getting more cunning and calculating, and the number of ambushes you'll experience starts going up. Check your corners as a general habit, and keep an eye out for obvious hiding spots that enemies might be using to spring on you.
3. Hitting enemies in the back will devastate them, if you can pull it off
Speaking of stealth, it's something James can do too - though it's not easy, The general rules to doing it well are:
- Hold back and watch the enemy from a distance to anticipate their route.
- When their back is to you, turn your torch off and walk - don't run - towards them.
- As you get directly behind them, hit them with your melee attack to knock them down.
- Kick them several times to finish them off.
The stealth is pretty finicky at the best of times, but even if you don't get the special stealth hit that does massive damage and knock them down, the above approach can reliably get you close enough to start a melee combo before they can react, a big advantage in the fight to follow.
4. Watch the ground, and make sure dead is dead
Silent Hill 2 just loves having enemies try and get you below your sightline, and that can come in a variety of different forms that you need to keep a constant eye out for. Sometimes it's a crawler pushing itself towards you, sometimes it's a beetle that needs to be stepped on, sometimes it's an enemy on the underside of a metal grill you're walking on, or sometimes it's a "dead enemy, no really".
The latter are something you need to learn to handle. When a monster goes down, you need to make sure that you hit it at least twice to confirm that it's dead and not likely to get back up any time soon. Otherwise you might walk away, only for something with several bullet holes in it to leap back up and tackle you to the ground.
5. A single pistol shot to the head is a great opener for the fight
Later on you'll start getting more deadly firearms like the Silent Hill 2 Remake shotgun, but the pistol you get early on is a serviceable weapon. If you find yourself running low on ammo, a good approach is to use a single shot to the head on enemies, as it tends to cause them to reel back and briefly stun them - your moment to sprint forward and press the advantage by battering them with a board or a pipe. The stealth kill outlined above is better, but this is a good second option for how you start an engagement with most enemies.
6. Monsters rarely interrupt your combos, so dodge quickly afterwards
James' standard melee combo is a three-strike combo, and it's one that generally stuns most enemies while it's happening (with the exception of bosses). That means that the moment it's over is the most likely time for whatever monstrosity you're beating on to retaliate - and exactly the time you need to back up or dive to the side (depending on the foe you're going up against).
7. The moment you enter a building or area, look for the map
While you start Silent Hill 2 roaming the fog-drenched streets, eventually you'll start moving into enclosed areas - labyrinths like the Apartment blocks, the Hospital, or at one point an actual labyrinth. Navigating them is incredibly tough without a frame of reference, so the moment you enter a new area, scour the first few rooms for a map - if there is one, it'll be close to the entrance, and you really can't afford to miss it. Check notice boards, tables, anything like that.
8. Most major locations are focused on a single puzzle - and it'll take time
Once you're in one of these major areas, you'll likely come across some puzzle, gadget or obvious object early on, like Silent Hill 2 Remake coin cabinet in Woodside Apartments, or the Silent Hill 2 Remake jukebox puzzle in Neely's Bar. These puzzles aren't something you'll solve quickly most of the time - they're effectively the central focus of the area, requiring specific information or items to use, and finding whatever you need will likely take you all over the area and solve all manner of sub-puzzles and challenges along the way.
The point is, don't ignore other puzzles you find just because you haven't solved the others yet. More often than not, they're actually interlinked, and solving one will help you resolve the other.
9. Notes aren't just world-building, they can be obscure puzzle hints too
Silent Hill 2 Remake is covered in various notes and documents to find, but while some are world building and some are obviously tied to puzzles, it's worth keeping in mind that some can be both, and it's not always immediately obvious when a document is telling you something that will be important later. This even applies to puzzle pieces - examining a key object in your inventory can provide you with fresh information about how it's used.
For example, notes detailing grizzly patient incidents at Brookhaven Hospital are actually linked to the Silent Hill 2 Remake Director's Office hand puzzle, even though at first glance they just appear to be setting the horror mood. If you find yourself stuck, go back through the documents in your inventory to see if the information there has been recontextualised for you, or if there's something you missed the first time around.
10. Your actions are influencing the endings far more than you might realise
Silent Hill 2 has multiple possible endings - and more that unlock in NG+ - but while some games would make the actions that influence the endings very obvious, Silent Hill is playing a very different game, with a behind-the-scenes equation that determines the finale. This equation is constantly changing based on a myriad of factors that players are still working out. These include how far away you walk from NPCs, how often they get hurt, how frequently you heal, whether you listen to certain sections of dialogue or whether you return to certain areas and locations without needing to, among many other things.
As a rule, think about what you want to see from James - does he really want to live? Does he care about Maria, the character he meets along the way? Does he fixate even more on Mary than the game claims? Taking - or not taking - actions in accordance with those ideas will let you keep some control over the ending of the game.
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