Why the Christmas break is the perfect time to play 2024’s best horror game

Everyone has their own Christmas traditions. The classic is stuffing your face with festive treats and then spending the remainder of the Christmas period in food-induced catatonia.

Cramming your entire extended family into one room is another (I’m hesitant to say popular) pick, but once night sets in and relatives have escaped their obligations for another year, precious free time becomes the greatest gift of all.

Late-night gaming sessions are my tradition, but they come with a gruesome twist. Beginning with Ubisoft’s redefining of the Assassin’s Creed formula with the franchise’s late noughties second installment, every Christmas, without fail, I’d reserve that year’s iteration for marathon sessions over the Holidays.

Lifelong passions are rare, of course, and as the series showed no signs of delivering a reinvention it sorely needed, I turned to horror after 2014’s disappointing Unity and never looked back.

The pairing is perfect. Gore and scares to offset the endless whimsy of Christmas? Check. Long nights to set the mood? Check. Ample supplies of snacks and drinks (alcoholic or otherwise) to supplement long sessions? Triple check.

For the last decade, I’ve headhunted a horror game perfect for Halloween each year and tucked it away in a short-lived time capsule to let it age like a vintage mulled wine.

This year, I’ve hand-picked Bloober Team and Konami’s acclaimed Silent Hill 2 remake to scare me senseless into the early hours of Boxing Day and beyond, hopefully continuing a streak of premium horror experiences started in 2023 with Remedy’s Alan Wake 2.

I never played the original Silent Hill 2. Hell, I’ve never played a Silent Hill game. Like any long-running horror IP worth its weight in viscera, though, Silent Hill 2’s reputation precedes it.

The original is considered by many to be one of the best examples of the genre; a dark, deliberate psychological horror set in the titular town that hides a nightmare behind its unremarkable façade.

I know all about Pyramid Head, Bubble Head Nurses, and Abstract Daddy. I know James Sunderland is the unwitting vehicle for me to experience the hell they wish to inflict and I’m going to relish every second as a palate cleanser.

Cliff Richard, Christmas TV, and cracker jokes are the real horror over Christmas. Silent Hill 2 is my vacation and I’m ready to visit.