Original Silent Hill 2 artist Masahiro Ito didn't want to remake the survival horror masterpiece, but decided to cooperate to "make sure the core was preserved"

Silent Hill 2 Remake screenshot showing Pyramid Head standing in a door way with rain falling onto his head.
(Image credit: Konami)

Silent Hill 2 Remake is just months from release, but original art designer Masahiro Ito says he almost rejected the chance to work on it entirely.

"Back in late 2019 or 2020, he says that [Konami series producer] Motoi Okamoto reached out to him via Twitter, as it was called back then, and asked whether he would be willing to cooperate in a Silent Hill 2 Remake," Ito-san's translator said at the Tokyo Silent Hill 2 Remake preview event on August 8. "At the time, he had felt that there was no need to do such a thing. So his original plan was to reject the idea."

However, he soon had a change of heart. "Even if he were to reject the idea, he said he felt that there was always the chance that Konami would be open to creating a remake even without his support. 

"Rather than let the project go without him, he felt it was best for him to cooperate and to do his best to make sure that the core of what made Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 2, was preserved in the best way possible. There was the initial idea of preserving the core but giving it a new coat of paint," he says of his reasons to work on the project despite not feeling a remake was all too necessary.

Ito-san then addressed the different content, stylistic, and design changes that had been tabled for the remake and how it differs from what the game turned out to be. "The original idea that Konami and Bloober Team had in mind may have been a little different from what we ended up with right now. But [Masahiro Ito] believes that by cooperating [in the remake], he was able to inject the core principle of what Silent Hill 2 is and preserve it in a way that is brushed up and polished, so that players of the current generation will be able to appreciate what was crucial to Silent Hill 2."

Silent Hill 2 Remake launches on October 8 on PC and PS5.


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Jasmine Gould-Wilson
Staff Writer, 12DOVE

Jasmine is a staff writer at 12DOVE. Raised in Hong Kong and having graduated with an English Literature degree from Queen Mary, University of London in 2017, her passion for entertainment writing has taken her from reviewing underground concerts to blogging about the intersection between horror movies and browser games. Having made the career jump from TV broadcast operations to video games journalism during the pandemic, she cut her teeth as a freelance writer with TheGamer, Gamezo, and Tech Radar Gaming before accepting a full-time role here at GamesRadar. Whether Jasmine is researching the latest in gaming litigation for a news piece, writing how-to guides for The Sims 4, or extolling the necessity of a Resident Evil: CODE Veronica remake, you'll probably find her listening to metalcore at the same time.