If you played Bloober Team’s Silent Hill 2, a remake of the 2001 classic, its many changes would become obvious sooner or later. The over-the-shoulder perspective and revamped visuals are the most obvious (naturally). But there are also new buildings to explore, different enemy placements, new melee combat mechanics, new enemy attacks, and more. It feels like a brand-new game while retaining the essence of what made the original so terrifying and tense.
However, there’s another new element, one garnering attention for how it plays into a long-running theory. As you explore the iconic town, delving deeper into madness as protagonist James Sunderland desperately searches for his wife, you encounter Easter eggs and references to the original game known as Glimpses of the Past. The key here is how they actually deviate from events in the original.
For example, in South Vale (East), you’ll find a tunnel boarded up with a chain link fence beyond. It seems innocuous enough, but in the 2001 release, James would maneuver through and encounter a monster that has to be slain. Within the same area is a fence with a significantly large blood pool. While it seems like someone was murdered and then dragged through it, the original game had a corpse there, along with the Apartment Gate Key.
Even in Toluca Prison, where the player must collect weights and balance them on the Scales to unlock other areas and eventually obtain the Executioner’s Lever, there’s a reference to a different solution. One where James combined a horseshoe, wax doll, and lighter to make a handle for a trap door, like in the original (which also necessitated finding some tablets). You can see the remnants of this rough solution – emphasis on “remnants.” Almost like someone already went through this same way using the same solution that James proposed years prior. So what’s going on?
Those who played the original Silent Hill 2 noticed an interesting detail over the year– there are an astonishing number of corpses resembling James Sunderland. There are reports that every corpse is James and not just the one sitting in front of the television during the iconic moment of truth. This led to a theory about him potentially being stuck in a time loop. However, if that were the case, he likely wouldn’t encounter corpses of himself or variants who tried and failed at many other points.
You could justify this as illusions manifested by Silent Hill. Without going into spoilers, many of its nightmarish aspects are manifested from the tortured psyche of James (and many of the other trapped survivors). It’s not unusual for it to torture him or anyone else in this way.
However, Silent Hill 2 remake plays with that theory and seemingly posits it differently – perhaps the game’s events are playing out from the perspective of an alternate timeline’s James. The corpses resembling him make a return and could thus be justified as different versions who entered the town and died in horrifying ways. It also explains how some areas have changed significantly – a variant of James is responsible for going through the trap door in Toluca Prison, which means the remake version has to find another way through.
In the original, Eddie is encountered in South Vale (West) eating pizza, with James chastising him over it. The remake version finds the same box with much of the pizza eaten but no Eddie. And though it’s paraphrasing, he once again wonders how someone could sit there and eat pizza when monsters are roaming through the town. Perhaps this James arrived a little late to happen upon Eddie in the act. The fact that he’s with Maria in the remake – who isn’t present in the original during the same event – further feeds into the theory of this being an alternate James Sunderland.
You can even discover an “old map”, which looks far more worn out and tattered than the others that James discovers. It showcases similar markings for different points of interest, much like what the current James does. The body nearby also seemingly resembles him, further adding to the theory that this is a variant.
So what is going on? Are there multiple versions of James from alternate timelines running around, each dying before they can run into the other? Perhaps the answer lies in the original.
Due to the nature of his crimes, and how he has no memories of them, Silent Hill 2’s events may simply be repeating due to the self-inflicted torment over his guilt. They’re playing on endlessly, like a time loop, but the bodies are piling up because some part of him wants to remember and take responsibility for his actions.
Based on creature designer Masahiro Ito confirming that all endings are canon – and remember that you have to do vastly different things to earn each one – it’s possible that even the one “good” ending isn’t real. Instead, it’s just another endpoint before James resets and must bear the torture all over again.
While it’s just a theory, Bloober Team has utilized this to make clever references to the original, this further feeds into the possibility of being stuck in a loop. This is simply another run for James – several things may have vastly changed over what we remember from the original, but it’s all brand new. And more than likely to be forgotten as his self-loathing and torment continue.
It’s all the more intriguing when you consider Silent Hill 4: The Room, which features Frank Sunderland, James’ father (though he doesn’t outright say it). The protagonist, Henry, talks about receiving a photo from Frank and mentions hearing about his son and daughter-in-law, who “disappeared in Silent Hill a few years back…”
James’ ultimate fate is still unknown, especially since he appears in various joke endings for other titles. Nevertheless, the amount of hints that he’s potentially still trapped and “experiencing” Silent Hill in his own way is hard to deny.
The fact that one of the new endings leans into James choosing ignorance over revelation leans even more into his inability to move on and instead choosing to forget. Of course, there’s another new ending leaning in a different direction – less acceptance and striving for redemption and more trying to fix his mistake, thus learning nothing from this entire exercise. Which is perfectly in character for him.
There are still loopholes, such as why things would change so drastically now for James if he’s gone through so many other loops. The only potential answer is that maybe he subconsciously wants those changes. Maybe he’s become aware that the restless dreams of the town aren’t just Mary’s, and somehow, some way, he wants to escape. Maybe enough years have passed of the same old torture, and his subconscious, which Silent Hill manifests, is searching for new ways to enable this.
Whatever the case may be, it’s yet another example of Silent Hill 2 remake’s brilliance and how it builds on the original while staying true to it, right down to the long-running theories. We may never get a definitive answer or fate for James, but as both the original and remake have proven, sometimes a sinner’s punishment must be more severe.
