Silent Hill 2

This page is for the remake of Silent Hill 2. For the original game, see Silent Hill 2: Director's Cut.

Silent Hill 2

Developers
	Bloober Team
Publishers
	Konami
Engines
	Unreal Engine 5
Release dates
Windows	October 8, 2024
Reception
Metacritic	85
OpenCritic	87
IGDB	86
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Microtransactions	None
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Third-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Survival horror, TPS
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	Contemporary, Horror, North America
Series	Silent Hill

Silent Hill
Silent Hill 2: Director's Cut	2002
Silent Hill 3	2003
Silent Hill 4: The Room	2004
Silent Hill: Homecoming	2008
Silent Hill: The Arcade (unofficial port)	2014
PT for PC (unofficial remake)	2018
Silent Hill 2	2024
Silent Hill f	2025
Silent Hill: Townfall	TBA
Silent Hill	TBA

Silent Hill 2 is a singleplayer survival horror game developed by Bloober Team and published by Konami. It is a remake of the original pre-Director's Cut version of the 2001 video game Silent Hill 2 and is part of an initiative to revive the series by outsourcing various Silent Hill titles to collaborative developers.

The game was first announced on October 2022 during Konami's Silent Hill Transmission presentation. It was released on October 8, 2024 with a 2 days early access for players who preordered the Digital Deluxe Edition.

The game suffers from traversal stutter, animation stutter, flickery grass with hardware lumen, particles (e.g. leaves) with motion trails, and the 30 FPS cutscenes are poorly framepaced.

General information

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
GamersGate		Digital Deluxe Edition also available.
		Digital Deluxe Edition also available.
Green Man Gaming		Digital Deluxe Edition also available.
Humble Store		Digital Deluxe Edition also available.
Steam		Digital Deluxe Edition also available.

All versions require Steam DRM.

Version differences

The Digital Deluxe Edition includes the game, the Pyramid Head Pizza Box mask for James, the digital soundtrack, and the digital artbook.

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Delete or rename video files
Go to <path-to-game>\SHProto\Content\Movies. Delete or rename LoadingScreen.bk2.

Monetization

Type	Notes
One-time game purchase	The game requires an upfront purchase to access.

Microtransactions

Type	Notes
No microtransactions	The game does not contain microtransactions.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	%LOCALAPPDATA%\SilentHill2\Saved\Config\Windows\
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/2124490/pfx/

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	%LOCALAPPDATA%\SilentHill2\Saved\SaveGames\<user-id>\*.sav
Steam Play (Linux)	<SteamLibrary-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/2124490/pfx/

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
Steam Cloud

Video

Display & Graphics settings

Advanced graphics settings

HDR settings

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen		Supports 21:9 and 32:9. A Panini Projection option with Off, Medium, and High settings is available. Cutscenes are pillarboxed at 16:9. See Cutscenes improvements to remove the pillarbox from cutscenes.
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)		Default is 80° with Panini Projection set to Off. See Field of view (FOV).
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		Scales with Textures Quality setting.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		FXAA, TAA (labelled as TXAA in-game).
High-fidelity upscaling		TSR, DLSS 3.5, FSR 1, FSR 3, XeSS 1.3 DLSS causes some ghosting, see DLSS ghosting for a fix. See High-fidelity upscaling to force FSR 3 Frame Generation.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		On/Off toggle.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		30 FPS, 60 FPS, and Unlimited. Cutscenes and cloth physics are capped at 30 FPS. See Cutscenes improvements to unlock the frame rate in cutscenes.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		HDR experience can be improved using: RenoDX Max, Mid, and Min luminance sliders. Brightness, UI Brightness, and UI Contrast sliders.
Ray tracing (RT)		On/Off toggle. Off = Software Lumen, On = Hardware Lumen.
Color blind mode		Settings for Deuteranope, Protanope, and Tritanope available with a Colorblind Mode Severity slider that goes from 0.00 to 1.00. A High Contrast Mode is also available with the option to choose the color for James, Allies, Enemies, Environmental Interactables & Save Points, and Environment.

The game engine may allow for manual configuration of the game via its variables. See the Unreal Engine 5 page for more details.

Field of view (FOV)

Use SH2FOV tool
Notes Affects cutscenes, item views, and zooming in.

Custom FOV

Make a backup of SHProto-Win64-Shipping.exe found in <path-to-game>\SHProto\Binaries\Win64, if needed. Open SHProto-Win64-Shipping.exe with a hex editor such as HxD. Replace five instances of 35 FA 0E 3C with one of the following: 35 FA 0E 3C (default) 35 FA 28 3C 35 FA 32 3C 35 FA 40 3C Notes Refer to this hex table to convert an appropriate number to a hex value. Cutscenes, item views, and zooming in unaffected. Only works with 21:9 aspect ratio.

High-fidelity upscaling

Enable FSR 3 Frame Generation currently not exposed in the game settings
Go to the configuration file(s) location. Open Engine.ini with a text editor. Add [SystemSettings] to the bottom of the file, if that section doesn't already exist. Inside that section, add r.FidelityFX.FI.Enabled=1. Save the file. Run the game and set Supersampling to FSR 3.0 in the graphics settings.

Chromatic aberration

Disable chromatic aberration
Go to the configuration file(s) location. Open Engine.ini with a text editor. Add [SystemSettings] to the bottom of the file, if that section doesn't already exist. Inside that section, add r.SceneColorFringeQuality=0. Save the file.

Vignette

Disable Vignette
Go to the configuration file(s) location. Open Engine.ini with a text editor. Add [SystemSettings] to the bottom of the file, if that section doesn't already exist. Inside that section, add r.Tonemapper.Quality=1. Save the file.

VRS (Variable Rate Shading)

Disable VRS (Variable Rate Shading)
Go to the configuration file(s) location. Open Engine.ini with a text editor. Add [SystemSettings] to the bottom of the file, if that section doesn't already exist. Inside that section, add r.Vrs.Enable=0. Save the file.

Nvidia RR (Ray reconstruction)

Enable Nvidia RR (Ray reconstruction)

Download the latest Ray Reconstruction DLL from here. Copy nvngx_dlssd.dll to <path-to-game>\SHProto\Plugins\DLSS\Binaries\ThirdParty\Win64. Go to the configuration file(s) location. Open Engine.ini with a text editor. Add [SystemSettings] to the bottom of the file, if that section doesn't already exist. Inside that section, add: r.NGX.DLSS.denoisermode=1 r.Lumen.Reflections.BilateralFilter=0 r.Lumen.Reflections.ScreenSpaceReconstruction=0 r.lumen.Reflections.Temporal=0 r.Shadow.Denoiser=0 Save the file.

Improved shadow resolution

Improved shadow resolution
Go to the configuration file(s) location. Open Scalability.ini with a text editor. Add [ShadowQuality@3] to the bottom of the file, if that section doesn't already exist. Inside that section, add r.Shadow.MaxResolution=4096. Save the file. Notes Default value is 2048.

Improved Lumen reflections

Improved Lumen reflections
Go to the configuration file(s) location. Open Engine.ini with a text editor. Add [SystemSettings] to the bottom of the file, if that section doesn't already exist. Inside that section, add: r.Lumen.TranslucencyReflections.FrontLayer.Allow=1 r.Lumen.TranslucencyReflections.FrontLayer.Enable=1 Save the file.

Cutscenes improvements

A mod that removes black bars from cutscenes on anything other than 16:9 and fully unlocks the frame rate from 30.

Install RoseTheFlower's mod
Download the RoseTheFlower's mod. Copy the contents to <path-to-game>\SHProto\Binaries\Win64. For Linux, add WINEDLLOVERRIDES="dsound=n,b" to the game's launch options.

Input

Controls settings

Remapping settings

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration		Forced mouse acceleration, can't be disabled.
Mouse sensitivity		Vertical and horizontal look and aim sensitivity can be individually adjusted via the Aim Sensitivity Y, Aim Sensitivity X, Look Sensitivity Y, and Look Sensitivity X settings.
Mouse input in menus
Keyboard and mouse prompts
Mouse Y-axis inversion		Via the Aim Invert Y and Look Invert Y settings. X-axis can also be inverted through the Aim Mirror X and Look Mirror X settings.
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity		Vertical and horizontal look and aim sensitivity can be individually adjusted via the Aim Sensitivity Y, Aim Sensitivity X, Look Sensitivity Y, and Look Sensitivity X settings.
Controller Y-axis inversion		Via the Aim Invert Y and Look Invert Y settings. X-axis can also be inverted through the Aim Mirror X and Look Mirror X settings.

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers
Xbox button prompts		Labelled as Type A in the settings.
Impulse Trigger vibration

PlayStation controllers		DualShock 4, DualSense, DualSense Edge
PlayStation button prompts		Labelled as Type B in the settings.
Motion sensors support
Light bar support		Color changes based on James' health.
Adaptive trigger support
DualSense haptic feedback support
Connection modes	Wired, Wireless (Bluetooth)

Generic/other controllers		Via Steam Input.
Button prompts		Labelled as Type C in the settings.

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Input prompt override		Xbox (Type A), PlayStation (Type B), and Nintendo (Type C) button prompts can be manually selected regardless of the controller being used.
Haptic feedback
HD haptic feedback		DualSense
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M		Rapidly changes button prompts.

• 

  Default controller layout

• 

  Default keyboard & mouse layout

Audio

Audio settings

Language & Texts settings

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Sliders for Master, Music, Ambient, Effects, Voice-Over, and UI.
Surround sound		Dolby Atmos
Subtitles
Closed captions		Called Non Verbal Captions Visibility.
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Arabic				Fan translation by Eternal Dream, download.
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Polish
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Latin American Spanish
Ukrainian

Issues unresolved

Traversal stuttering

The game suffers from traversal stuttering.

Animation stutter

Caused by a broken DeltaTime being a frame behind.

Use fixed TIC and 30 FPS cap
Run the game with -UseFixedTimeStep command line argument. Cap the frame rate at 30 FPS externally. Notes The game will slow down or speed up at non-30 FPS.

Issues fixed

DLSS ghosting

Most of the ghosting on small particles (e.g. leaves), reflections and characters movement can be fixed.

Fix DLSS ghosting
Download the latest version of DLSS from here. Copy nvngx_dlss.dll to <path-to-game>\SHProto\Plugins\DLSS\Binaries\ThirdParty\Win64\ and overwrite when prompted. Download DLSSTweaks. Copy the contents to <path-to-game>. Run DLSSTweaksConfig.exe. Under DLSSPresets, force Preset E on the DLSS modes you use. Click Save. Notes Alternatively, force Preset F.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	12

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Audio	OGG Vorbis, Wwise, XAudio2, iZotope

• 

  Accessibility settings - Gameplay

• 

  Accessibility settings - Graphics

• 

  Accessibility settings - Audio

• 

  Accessibility settings - Controls

• 

  Accessibility settings - Texts

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum		Recommended
Operating system (OS)	10
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core i7-6700K AMD Ryzen 5 3600		Intel Core i7-8700K AMD Ryzen 5 3600X
System memory (RAM)	16 GB
Storage drive (HDD/SSD)	50 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Ti AMD Radeon RX 5700 DirectX 12 compatible		Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT

A 64-bit operating system is required.

Minimum system requirements are for 1080p 30 FPS on Low/Medium graphics settings; recommended system requirements are for 1080p 60 FPS on Medium graphics settings or 1080p 30 FPS on High graphics settings.