In my restless dreams, I see that town.

Mary’s opening words reverberate through my mind as I break through the suffocating fog into the town of Silent Hill. The town is washed out, like a dream within a dream, and the silence is deafening as I walk through the derelict streets, its abandoned stores towering on either side like sentries.

My mission is to reunite James with his recently departed wife who claims that she is waiting for us “in our special place” but leaves no other clue. Our jacket pocket becomes the home of her final letter and a photograph that becomes a constant memento as we descend into the hell that awaits us.

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you” said Nietzsche in 1886 and nothing could sum up James’ journey through the nightmare town of Silent Hill more than that.

In a town that shapes itself to your deepest regrets and ruinous fears, James’ Silent Hill is thick with fog that creeps down your neck whilst making way for monstrous feminine figures that claw and scream and cower as you slaughter them in “self-defence”.

We discover that each monster is an allegory for James’ psyche: the suffering that his wife went through, the guilt that he felt over his actions, his urges and deepest desires and fears laid bare. We are faced with them all, followed by them all as we run through the corridors of hospitals and the cells of prisons, through the untouched memories within the walls of a hotel and back out again.

Silent Hill 2 Remake/Credit: Bloober Team

Pyramid Head becomes our tormentor, our guide and our mirror. One cannot exist without the other as the humanoid monster observes our every move in a desperate attempt to just make us remember, make us atone. We ask if he is a true monster and if so, what does that make us?

Surely we are just a man searching for his wife but why does Laura draw us as the big, bad wolf? Did we become a monster as we slaughtered our way through Silent Hill or was it long before when our wife lay dying in a hospital bed? What did the abyss see when we gazed into it?

All of these questions and more became a nagging whisper in my head in the days following my completion of the Silent Hill 2 Remake.

They clung to me like the very fog in that restless town, buried beneath my skin until I researched more, discussed more. I must find out why. Why did James really kill Mary? Was it out of hatred, as he claims, or because she asked to be eased of her suffering? Did Eddie deserve to die? Was Maria a real person? Are we a monster?

How could I not love a game that asks all of these questions, which confronts your own morality, which holds a mirror up to your face and asks, are you really ok with all of this?

It asks that because at the heart of it, Silent Hill 2 is a damn tragedy and against my better judgement, I am drawn to the tragic and the macabre.

If you speak to me for more than five minutes, then you will soon realise that I am a strong advocate for women’s rights and just women in general. As a result, how they are portrayed in the media is something close to my heart and how they are treated in Silent Hill 2 is nothing short of heartbreaking.

This game, originally released in 2001, features women in all of their stereotypical symbols: the wife, the femme fatale, the child and the victim.

Mary, who exists only in photographs and words, and yet becomes the driving force of James’ journey through the nightmarish landscape.

Down to her name matching the mother of Christ, she retains a purity about her, becomes a beacon in the darkness, down to her pale, conservative clothes and almost idyllic photograph nestled in James’ jacket which gives her something of a halo when the flashlight is shone upon it.

Despite religion not playing as big of a part in Silent Hill 2 as it did in Silent Hill and Silent Hill 3, it still lurks in the undercurrent, both with Mary and her mirror-image, Maria.

Like Eve and Lilith, Maria was created for man and in this case, for James.

She is a manifestation of his desires, that despite being almost identical to Mary, is instead full of life, passion and views James as her protector.

Questions have surfaced over the years as to whether Maria was even real at all and to this day, we don’t have an exact answer. She remains an object of desire, much like the feminine monsters that haunt James’ every step, and exists purely through the male gaze.

Despite this, she is viewed as the femme fatale, with some players distrusting her flirtatious demeanour and believing she exists purely to lure James to stay forever within the confines of Silent Hill.

Next is Laura, the only child in Silent Hill, and as a result, does not see the horrors that lurk within. She is innocent, pure of heart and childish but beneath the surface exists the beginnings of grief and loss and even anger at James for abandoning her only friend.

However, even if players get the “good ending” which sees her leave the town with James in tow, her anger has not been satiated which could mean that she will eventually be called back to the town where time moves in a circle.

Silent Hill 2 Remake/Credit: Bloober Team

Then there’s Angela, a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of her father and brother and abandoned by her mother. She remains a constant figure throughout the events of Silent Hill 2 and serves as a reminder of the true horrors of the town.

She suffered endless abuse at the hands of man and is now haunted by their actions long after their deaths. Silent Hill offers her no respite with fire licking up the walls and her father, represented in gory, horrific detail, haunting her every move.

Her ending is not a happy one, much like all of the other women but the game does not paint this out to be a win. You do not “win” Silent Hill 2, regardless of which of its eight endings you achieve.

All of these reasons and more are why the 2024 Silent Hill 2 Remake has triumphed as my personal game of the year.

From its depravedness to its imagery, symbolism and metaphor, this horror game is the true meaning of the word and doesn’t rely on jumpscares or overly-gory art to convey its message.

In my restless dreams, I still see that town and that is why Silent Hill 2 has quietly burrowed its way into my heart like a hushed fog.

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