Silent Hill 2's Enhanced Edition mod fixes old problems and adds new polish
In my restless dreams, I see that town...
While Silent Hill 2 is the best Silent Hill game, its PC release is far from the best version. Thankfully modders are fixing a lot of its issues with Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition, which fixes old issues while adding modern polish too. Splendid. Now if Konami could start actually selling Silent Hill 2 for PC again, that would be just grand.
Parts of the project have been around since 2017, and an update hit earlier this week with more nice newness:
PC ports of console games are now often the best versions, with better performance and fancy new features, but for long years we received bad ports. Such was the case with Silent Hill 2, released on PlayStation 2 in 2001 then PC in 2002. One of the Enhanced Edition mod's goals is to bring the PC version in line with the PS2 edition, blessing us with its better FMV cutscenes, sound, fog, lighting, and more. On top of those vintage basics, the mod brings a lot of modern newness.
On the technical side, Enhanced Edition supports widescreen resolutions (though you can do 4:3 if you want), adds new surround sound and positional audio, and fixes a few bits and pieces. Then you also have upscaled and remastered higher-resolution interfaces, textures, writing, and such. On the scale of HD texture packs (some of which change the look of a game far too much for my liking), yeah, seems alright.
Hit the Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition website for more info and downloads.
The only problem will be getting a copy of Silent Hill 2 for PC in the first place. For reasons unknown, it's not sold as a download. Looks like used physical copies sell for £50-100 on eBay? Ha ha nope. Silent Hill 4 came to GOG in October 2020, but only SH4. Come on now, Konami.
Our former Adam (RPS in peace) had some lovely Silent Hill 2 chat years back, still worth reading. And hey, at least you can listen to the soundtrack on Spotify these days.
The other survival horror overhaul mod I'm stoked for is the Resident Evil 4 HD Project, which is doing such an impressive job in revamping Capcom's 2005 game. Not only are the devs trying to match the tone and style, they've even tracked down many of the buildings and objects which Capcom photographed as the foundation for textures - then did the same themselves with new photos. After years of development, that's starting to look close to completion.