10 Silent Hill 2 Remake tips and tricks to master the basics

Our Silent Hill 2 Remake tips and tricks have all the advice you'll need to make a stand for survival in the perilous town and keep James Sunderland alive. The Remake of SH2 is a modern beast, taking much of the trends of current design to create something spiritually loyal to the original while still having its own particular nuances. With that in mind, we've scouted ahead in Silent Hill 2 to collate the most essential tips and tricks a player could need when undead nurses and scuttling mannequins come at you.

1. Killing enemies won't do anything but make the area safer

Killing enemies in Silent Hill 2 never gets you any reward beyond making the area safer. You'll likely have to kill all the foes you come across when you're in confined areas for your own safety, but when you're exploring the town it's far easier 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. If you are going to take everything on, make sure you have all the Silent Hill 2 Remake weapons to make things easier. There's even a chainsaw on NG+!

2. Your radio is not a guaranteed warning 

The Silent Hill 2 radio you find at the beginning generates static whenever enemies are nearby - but not every single time. Some enemies specifically hide under objects or behind corners in an ambush mode, and your radio won't alert you them.

This means you can't take the noise as a guaranteed warning, especially later 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 learn the obvious hiding spots that enemies might be using to spring on you.

3. Attack enemies from behind if you can

Stealth is possible in Silent Hill and while it's not easy, it can be devastating. The general rules to pulling it off are:

1. Hold back and watch from a distance to anticipate an enemies route.
2. When their back is to you, turn your torch off and walk - don't run - towards them.
3. As you get directly behind them, hit them with your melee attack to knock them down.
4. 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. Look out for low attacks and make sure things stay dead

Silent Hill 2 loves having enemies below your sightline. That can come in a variety of different forms - 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 an enemy you thought was dead. 

Generally, 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 it might leap back up and attack you again a short while later when you're not expecting it. 

5. A single pistol shot to the head is a great opener for the fight

Later on you'll start getting more powerful firearms like the Silent Hill 2 Remake shotgun, but you start with a pistol and 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. Get ready to dodge after attacking

James' standard melee combo is a three-strike sequence, and it generally stuns most enemies while it's happening (with the exception of bosses). However, the moment it's over is the most likely time for for something to attack back, and exactly the time you need to back up or dive to the side by using the dodge button. 

7. Look for the map the moment you enter a new area

Navigating Silent Hill 2 Remake's fog-drenched streets, Apartment blocks, hospitals and so on can be 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. If you want some help, we've actually got all the Silent Hill 2 Remake maps and their locations here.

8. Most major locations focus on a single puzzle, and it'll take time

Once you enter a new area you'll likely come across some puzzle or device early on, like the 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.

For that reason, don't ignore one puzzle you find just because you haven't solved a previous one yet - more often than not they're all interlinked, and solving one will help you with another.

9. Examine objects as well as notes for puzzle hints

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 objects and puzzle pieces - examining a key item in your inventory can provide you with fresh information about how or where 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 and items in your inventory to see if there's any extra information there.

10. The ending can be affected by a lot of things you do over the whole game

Silent Hill 2 has multiple possible endings - and more that unlock in NG+ - but while some games make actions that influence the endings obvious, Silent Hill plays a 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, examining certain items in your inventory, 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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