They made James hot in Silent Hill 2 remake and it’s a big red flag 

Silent Hill 2 remake remerged at last week’s PlayStation State of Play. We got a new look at protagonist James Sunderland, who has seemingly been beautified – which has us worried.

There’s been some trepidation brewing around Konami’s Silent Hill 2 remake for a while. The publisher’s recent efforts to revive the series haven’t exactly heralded a lot of confidence. Silent Hill: Ascension was released last year and was a complete disaster. The Short Message, which launched last week as a free experience, is better received but fumbles very sensitive subjects. 

We still have Silent Hill: Townfall, Silent Hill F, and the aforementioned Silent Hill 2 remake on the way. However, things have started to feel a little off. This sentiment bubbled up around the announcement of the remake when it was revealed that developer Bloober Team was handling the beloved horror classic. 

At the time, I didn’t mind too much. I think the ‘everyone hates Bloober Team’ narrative has been a little overstated. Games like Layers of Fear, Observer, and to a lesser extent, Blair Witch were at least generally thought of as ‘alright’ and had their fans. However, with the arrival of The Medium, sentiment turned. 

Generally, you want a developer with a top-tier track record taking on a classic like Silent Hill 2, rather than one with a couple of 75-ish games on Metacritic. That said, I remained hopeful as with material this good, perhaps it could come together. 

Last week, fans got a new look at Bloober Team’s Silent Hill 2 remake for the first time in over a year. The trailer was relatively short, and crucially, didn’t come with a release date attached to it. And I have to say, the red flags are starting to show.

However, it’s not necessarily in how the game looks like it could have used a little more budget – no, instead it stems from how attractive they’ve made protagonist James. 

In my restless dreams, I see hot James

James Sunderland is not a good guy. He’s also not an action hero, military vet, or have extensive combat training. We don’t really know extensive background about James’ life, but Silent Hill 2 doesn’t emphasize anything particularly special about James. He’s just a guy. 

He also happens to be deeply tormented, and for good reason. He’s one of the most untrustworthy protagonists in all of gaming and has committed what we will charitably call, troubling acts in his past. 

In the trailer, we get a good look at the model of James Sunderland and it’s clear something’s changed – in fact, this doesn’t feel like James at all. Gone is the broad, stocky worn-out everyman. Instead, he’s now a sharp-looking, tightly buttoned-up video game protagonist. They’ve taken the idea of James Sunderland and given him a glow-up. This is James if he was a model on the packaging for a knock-off costume at the party store named “troubled wife-guy”, all the way down to his hair looking like a wig.

Putting it frankly, it feels like a deliberate pull towards Leon S. Kennedy from Resident Evil. The same Leon that a certain corner of Tiktok gave the title of ‘babygirl’. I don’t know if we really want to encourage the ‘babygirlification’ of James Sunderland. 

This isn’t to say just because someone is more conventionally attractive they can’t do bad things. However, it’s the change from James’ appearance in the original Silent Hill 2 to Leon Kennedy-lite that has me worried about priorities. Is this a Silent Hill 2 remake, or a Resident Evil remake with Silent Hill 2 dressing?

You can’t just Resident Evil remake Silent Hill 2

James looks aren’t really the major issue here. Bloober and Konami can change the look of James all they like. It’s not key to the story, at least overtly. But it’s the latest issue in a line of concerns that point to something being off here. 

Another warning sign here is that this trailer was a “combat reveal” trailer. In it, you see James whacking and shooting all kinds of monstrosities. The messaging seems to say, ‘Remember the combat in Silent Hill 2 being annoying to use? Well, we’ve fixed that!’ 

I get it. You want to show that one of the worst things about the original is being revamped – but it feels like something is getting lost in translation. Silent Hill 2 shouldn’t be an action game. As stated, James is just a guy. He should be awkward with a gun. It should take him a couple seconds to take a shot. He should feel disjointed using a plank to bludgeon spooky monsters. 

Obviously, bad feeling mechanics being bad on purpose still feel bad. It’s a tricky balance to hit, but Silent Hill 2’s janky and abrasive combat should remain that. It’s not a flaw to stamp out. Of course, making improvements are warranted but that awkwardness has to stay intact to create a cohesive whole. 

I don’t look like a ghost, do I?

Now, this could all just be a trailer – some hastily edited combat sequences for a PlayStation State of Play. It’s a little hard to properly gauge the actual flow of combat. That said, this philosophy of a combat focus, with James’ redesign, plus previous concerns over the remake – there’s a lot of worrying smoke here. 

Silent Hill 2 is a bizarre video game that can be a chore to play. Yet, that’s key to its identity making it possibly the most effective horror game ever made. Sanding down those edges and just retelling the story while chasing the Resident Evil remakes is not going to feel like the classic.

Silent Hill 2 is ugly, awkward, janky, unpleasant, and bewildering. To polish those adjectives out of the DNA of what makes the game would be a massive mistake. A good example of this is the dialogue. The original has this otherworldly cadence that is anything but natural. You could blame this on the game coming out in 2001, or awkward translation and direction. But it’s a key feature of how Silent Hill 2 feels. That feeling is what makes the game work.

Of course, none of this is definitive. It could just be misplaced marketing and unfair sentiment. We won’t know until we play the game – but hot James Sunderland could be my canary in the coal mine. The sign something is wrong. Here’s hoping this is a complete overreaction to a routine character redesign and Bloober knocks it out of the park. I’d love nothing more than to have an excellent retelling of one of the best games ever made.