The Silent Hill 2 Remake weapons and guns are spread evenly around the game, with even the first basic pistol locked off until several hours bashing enemies with a wooden plank. Not only that, but the Silent Hill 2 Remake doesn't have a huge amount of guns and weapons for players to find - only six in total, including the non-optional board and metal pipe that players find along the way. But if you want to find a handgun, shotgun, hunting rifle and even a chainsaw, we'll lay out where to get all the best Silent Hill 2 Remake weapons below. Lock and load, James!
Where to find all weapons in Silent Hill 2 Remake
There are six main weapons you can find in the Silent Hill 2 Remake, two of which are mandatory, with SH2 automatically pressing them into James' hand in cutscenes. Below we've listed all of them and their locations:
- Wooden Board - (Mandatory pickup)
- Metal Pipe - (Mandatory pickup, replaces the Wooden Board)
- Handgun - Wood Side Apartments 2F, Room 217
- Shotgun - Brookhaven Hospital 2F, Women's Locker Room
- Rifle - Toluca Prison 1F, Armory
- Chainsaw - Silent Hill Ranch on NG+
All of the non-optional weapons can be missed if you don't pick them up before moving to the next area, and tend to become harder to obtain as you move down the list. The handgun is highly telegraphed and placed along the way, the shotgun is a little more subtle, and the rifle - the best weapon in Silent Hill 2 - is quite literally locked off behind an implied side quest, forcing you to find a key to extract it from the armory gun cabinet. Below we'll cover each of the weapons in more detail, and how you can ensure you get them along the way.
How to get the handgun in Silent Hill 2 Remake
The first weapon you can find, the handgun pistol, is found in the Wood Side Apartments and needs to be obtained before you move onto Blue Creek by completing the Silent Hill 2 Remake coin cabinet. Specifically, the pistol is in a red shopping cart in Room 217.
To get it, you need to get the 2F Hallway Key from the Eastern corridor of 1F, on the South side of the metal bars that split the corridor in half (there'll be a cutscene when you first approach these bars from the North where you see a character move them away)
After you have the key, you'll be able to unlock the upstairs hallway from the stairwell, and check room 217 for the pistol. This is a weapon you'll find a lot of ammo for across the game, so feel free to use it liberally (within reason).
How to get the Shotgun in Silent Hill 2 Remake
The shotgun in Silent Hill 2 is found later on in Brookhaven Hospital 2F, in the Women's Locker Room. Like the Pistol, this is technically optional, but very much laid before you in the critical path, so not much of a deviation. We have a more detailed guide on how to get the Silent Hill 2 Remake shotgun here, but while an empty gun case teases its existence the moment you enter the hospital, you won't get it for a little while. Instead, progress through the main path until you find the Director's Office hand puzzle in Silent Hill 2 Remake on 2F.
From there, follow the corridor West to the women's locker room. In that room you'll find the Silent Hill 2 Remake Bent Needle stuck into the back of a teddy bear's head - that's an unrelated macabre puzzle you'll need to do - but to the right of that, in one of the lockers, is the Shotgun itself.
A more deadly close-range weapon than the pistol, there's also less ammo for the shotgun as a rule - you'll definitely want to be a little more conservative with how it's used.
How to get the rifle in Silent Hill 2 Remake
Arguably the best weapon in the game, the Silent Hill 2 Remake rifle is in the Toluca Prison Armory 1F, in a locked cabinet you'll need to find the key for, and unlike the other two weapons, it's much easier to miss your chance to get this one.
The armory is just ahead of you the moment you reach the prison, but the rifle key is in the 1F Serpent Section of the Prison, in the unnamed room south of the Witness Checkpoint. You'll have to open the Headless Serpent Door to reach this section by solving the Silent Hill 2 Remake Prison weights and scales puzzle, but that's something you have to do anyway, so it shouldn't be too far off your path. Once you have the key, head back to the armory and claim the hunting rifle.
The rifle is a long-range precision weapon, slow to fire and difficult to use at close range, but massively damaging - it can kill one of the undead nurses in a single shot to the head. However, ammo for this is even more scarce than it is for the shotgun, so you'll really need to save it for special occasions, such as boss fights or moments of extreme peril where nothing else will do.
How to get the Chainsaw in Silent Hill 2 Remake
The chainsaw in Silent Hill 2 can only be obtained in New Game Plus after having completed the main story at least once. When you restart the game, right at the beginning, when you walk down past the sign for Silent Hill Ranch after meeting Angela in the Graveyard, you'll hear it whirring. It's resting on a pile of logs for you to take, and use on any hapless body-bag monsters that get in your way.
The chainsaw is easily the most powerful melee weapon, doing far more damage to enemies than either the board or the pipe will, and will kill basic enemies in a single hit. Expect subsequent playthroughs to be easier if you do pick it up.
Is the Great Knife in Silent Hill 2 Remake?
Pyramid Head's sword, the "Great Knife", was in the original game as an unlockable weapon - but unfortunately, the Great Knife is not in Silent Hill 2 Remake, at least as anybody's been able to work out so far. There is a moment in the game where James drags the knife behind him, but it's only for about thirty seconds to solve a mandatory puzzle, and it's abandoned not long afterwards - you can't take it with you, and considering how slow it makes him move, you probably wouldn't want to.
Likewise, the Hyper Spray, another powerful unlockable weapon from the original game, does not appear to be in the 2024 Remake. Admittedly, it may be hidden somewhere that nobody has yet found, and we'll update this page accordingly if either the Spray or Knife are located by the Silent Hill 2 community - but right now it's looking as though neither weapon is in the game.
Want to hear our thoughts on Bloober Team's recreation of one of gaming's most iconic horror games? Our Silent Hill 2 Remake review is waiting here…
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