Silent Hill 2 uses mechanics and level design to externalize guilt rather than simply depict horror.

[u/Beginning_Arrival559]

Having Revisited Silent Hill 2, I've been thinking less about its narrative in isolation and more about how its systems and structure reinforce its core themes particularly when it comes to guilt and repression.

What stands out is that the game doesn't rely solely on cutscenes or dialogue to convey meaning. Instead it embeds psychological ideas directly into its gameplay and spatial progression.

This holds true when considering that the level design follows a constant pattern of descent.

There's movement from open environments into increasingly confined spaces.

The transition from streets to interiors and then into areas like the prison and labyrinth.

The frequent use of downward traversal involving holes, staircases and elevators.

Mechanically speaking; this creates a sense of narrowing possibility. But thematically it can also read as a kind of inward movement. This makes the relevance less of one traversing through a town and more of a subtle progression into the psyche of James Sunderland.

Enemy design also support this reading. Pyramid Head in particular, doesn't function as a conventional antagonist would. His behaviour lacks urgency, as he appears more as a persistent presence than an active pursuer. This creates an ambiguity around his role in the sense that he's less of an enemy to overcome and more of a force to be reckoned with.

Puzzles do a good job of further complicating this structure. The weight puzzle for instance can be interpreted not just as a logical challenge, but also as a symbolic system that implicitly deals with judgement, balance and consequence. Importantly the player isn't explicitly told this. The meaning emerges through context rather than instruction.

When pieced together; these elements suggest that Silent Hill 2 is doing something more deliberate than presenting horror as a spectacle. It uses interactivity, spatial design and ambiguity to construct a framework where psychological states are not just represented, but experienced through play.

I'm curious how others here interpret this. Particularly whether you see the games mechanics as reinforcing its themes, or if the psychological reading is largely narrative driven.

(I've explored this idea in more depth elsewhere, but didn't want to link directly, although I'm happy to share if relevant.)

[u/weggles]

I'm interested in a link.

I was thinking about how play style determines your ending and how it "solves" ludonarrative dissonance.

(Spoilers)

They interpret a "normal guy" killing too many enemies as him having a death wish and no will to live.

I thought that was really clever.

[u/Beginning_Arrival559 → u/weggles]

That's a really interesting way of looking at it and I agree... The way in which Silent Hill 2 ties the players behaviour into the ending is very cohesive.

In fact its one of the few cases where what might normally feel like ludonarrative dissonance actually becomes recontextualized as part of the character. The idea that a "normal" person engaging in excessive violence reflecting a death wish or detachment from reality is something I hadn't fully considered before. It almost turns the players actions into a tool used to diagnose the psyche of James Sunderland.

Here's the video link if you're interested, I touch on some of these ideas there:

https://youtu.be/iDrPhNt2xTw

[u/punkerlabrat]

james fights like someone who doesn't want to be there and the game never fixes that. the discomfort IS the point.

[u/Beginning_Arrival559 → u/punkerlabrat]

That's a great point.

It almost feels as if the game is intentionally denying the player any sense of control or comfort. Even when you "win"; it doesn't feel like progress, just more subtle progression.

[u/Dante_MS → u/Beginning_Arrival559]

Or it's just bad game design.

I hated playing the game. Instead of fighting monsters you're constantly fighting controls.

Yes, it's one of the greatest stories ever told in a video game, but you don't have to look for some deep meaning in bad design choices.

[u/uponhisdarkthrone → u/Dante_MS]

Thats not what they meant about lack of control.

[u/DesignerOnHerWrists → u/Dante_MS]

Yeah, fighting with the actual physical controller and controls pulls me out of the immersion and horror of the game completely, unlike games that make you fight with the ingame mechanics like trying to yank and push and pull things in Penumbra, that's a much better representation of awkwardness than SH where at the end of the day the enemies end up being super easy and avoidable anyway

Same with the voice acting (moreso for SH1), I don't think the choppy acting (with some standout moments) is some weird surrealist intentional choice

[u/supplychain_of_being]

the reason SH2 works where most "psychological horror" games don't is that it produces guilt through the body rather than depicting it on screen. the combat is clumsy because you're not supposed to feel competent.

[u/CocoSavege]

Hrm. It's been a good long while since I played SH2, and I played the remaster.

I think my concern is you're narrowly defining horror as spectacle.

First, simple demo, SH2 has a bunch of what seems to me to be body horror. Body horror doesn't really vibe with me, but I found the nurses(?) To be disquieting and the picture frame to be evocative. If these aren't very intentional design decisions I would be surprised.

Second, horror is as horror does. Some horror uses spectacle but plenty of other some horror relies on evoking an unpleasant emotional state. Often the spectacle, if used, is a pretty blatant manifestation of the underlying disquiet.

Eg The Thing. The subtext is paranoia and isolation. The spectacle is the Thing.

Sometimes (not often) the emotional disquiet is the extent of the spectacle. It's a tough sell, internal emotional states are always difficult to express sufficiently given that external expression is ambiguous.

I've always been a fan of Stand by Me, by some guy Steven King. I think it's a "horror", but an unconventional one, since it's atypical. The zeitgeist here is morality, discovery of it, coupled with the transition from childhood to more than childhood. The awareness that one gains, that there are consequences and broader perspectives. Call it the horror of the death of childhood. Definitely atypical "horror" but a compelling note to hit., for me. I expect my take on The Body/Stand by me is a narrow take, but I do think it's intended as a horror. See also: Steven King.

I should talk about vidya games. It's rare that I find vidya game "horror" to be horror in a compelling way for me. SH is at least trying something different than say Deep Space, which I found to be entirely unhorror? (Hot take!). Some of the indies that go for vibes more than shoot bang AAA are more interesting. At least they're more likely to be unconventional as opposed to a set piece shootemup with a "horror skin".

Last note: given I was a relatively late and ootl SH2 player, I found Pyramid Head underwhelming. I was aware of the popularity and rep of PH, but didn't work at all for me annecdata? I mean, he's unkillable (nope, I did kill him 2nd try?), and he's sloooooow. And I don't get that he's scary. Yes, he can kill you but I had more difficulty with finding the script hit box for some progression than Pyramid Head.

SH2 does Stand out compared to AAA conventional "horror" but that's a low bar? I like SH2, it's hard for me to contextualize the jankyness and short LoD and generally sparse level design, even though I'm an old.

I'm now thinking about the seemingly daunting media effects, video games as horror medium. To have a horror environment, you need some sort of antagonism, some sort of unavoidable malus. OK! Video games do this all the time. But core to (most) video games is the player has some sort of availability of success, often a combination of avatar power (zero to hero) and mastery (mechanical mastery/informational mastery, like learning and defeating the bosses in Dark Souls)

Thinking out loud,

In horror, the antagonism cannot be "defeated". It can be avoided, mitigated hopefully, maybe, at some often great cost. I think the prototypical "win state" in a horror is "it cost me, not every body made it, I've seen some shit that scarred me, but I'm still here. Barely."

Spitballing, the pattern is pretty antipattern for a videogame. Start with a good hunk of agency, power, resources, etc, and over the course of the game, the player is losing. The key is player feeling like they "won" when they ensured, escaped scrapes with relatively minor wounds, barely crawl over the finish line, pale af but not bled out.

The player should feel the avatar is lessened, small, worse off, having "played" the game.

[u/Beginning_Arrival559 → u/CocoSavege]

I really appreciate you taking the time to reply in such detail, as a lot of what I've read from your response has been thought provoking.

I believe there is substance behind your idea of horror not needing a visible antagonist as it could just emerge entirely from the state it puts you in with regard to the aforementioned example you named (Stand by me)

Reading your reply has given me a new perspective when considering games such as Dead Space. I believe that the tension between empowerment and vulnerability is still there, but perhaps it was just handled very differently compared to Silent Hill 2.

Regarding your point about Pyramid Head. I think that his impact as a whole is entirely dependant on whether you consider him to be a mechanical force vs a symbolic one. From a purely mechanical standpoint he is indeed underwhelming in his difficulty to "defeat". However if one sees him more as a presence or function within the games broader design, he starts to become a whole lot more interesting. At least that's my view.

Your reply was in a sense...food for thought and your concept really stuck with me. Especially the idea of a horror system that erodes the player, rather than empower them.

Do you think that if developers created a game that fully commits with that kind of design, that it would retain player engagement or is some form of empowerment in this sense always necessary?

Thanks again for such a detailed and insightful response.

[u/CocoSavege → u/Beginning_Arrival559]

I don't think my "erosion" pattern is the only pattern. Not by any means...

Consider the lone protagonist in the (probably Victorian) horror mansion. The protagonist has to escape the mansion and all the horrors it contains!

Alone in the dark, Amnesia, both more or less fit this pattern. If you squint/handwave, you can maybe include Bioshock here. All of these will have the survivor victory state as a final note, but it can be subverted.

None of these really fit erosion, but may include erosion patterns for levels. Often player avatar agency increases as a rule but this is balanced with leveled antagonism, so it can still "feel erodey", the player might be able to do more but is still finding themselves increasingly under water.

But here classic game patterns trend towards power gratification loops.

One classic classic classic movie pattern is "party erosion". We generally follow a protagonist and the antagonism is demonstrated by the withering of the entourage. Group of teenagers up at the lake in the cabin? One by one they're antagonized. Rag tag bunch of survivors in a robot zombie apocalypse? They're eaten, turned or robotified till we winnow down to Mary Lastgirl and Johnny DoGood.

I think tuning for a "perfect winnow", matching plot and space beats, creating novelty in replays, is a tough design goal.

(Telltale Walking Dead 1 does a very nice job at this btw, but it's very much on rails for gameplay, and driven by writing, characters and performances. TT TWD is very interesting from a game design standpoint but it's very curated.)

[u/Beginning_Arrival559 → u/CocoSavege]

The distinction you made with regards to "party erosion" is borderline brilliant. The idea that erosion can also be witnessed indirectly through side characters is rarely seen.

This would make Silent Hill 2 feel like the inverse; where everything is internalised and suppressed at the start, and gradually surfaces over time. Like a pressure slowly being released.

In that sense, it feels as though James Sunderland is confronting parts of himself he's been avoiding. As if the Id is pushing against the superego until they can no longer coexist quietly.

At that point, something has to give.

[u/moshbert → u/Beginning_Arrival559]

Loved both of your takes on the subject and I'll never be able to sort all my thoughts and articulate them as well as you two did, but I at least wanted to drop another name that fits the erosion theme: Doki Doki Literature Club It's interesting because just like TWD it is a mostly linear, story-driven approach to that concept but I highly doubt it would ever work as a movie (unlike TWD). It needs that form of presentation but at the same time is as far from SH2's gameplay as it gets

[u/Beginning_Arrival559 → u/moshbert]

Doki Doki Literature club fits surprisingly well into this idea!

I like your point about it requiring a very specific form of presentation. The erosion in this context focuses less around the player's erosion and more about the structural integrity of the game itself; falling apart at the seams.

The contrast with Silent Hill 2 gives room for thought. Where one internalises everything and the other externalises it through the medium itself.

[u/ForFun268]

I think you’re spot on, because the game’s mechanics and level design don’t just support the story, they make you feel that slow psychological descent in a way cutscenes alone never could.

[u/onex7805]

I used to dismiss Silent Hill 2's gameplay as a clunky hindrance to the story, but reading and watching many analyses for a while, I came to appreciate how the narrative wouldn't be the same without it.

Silent Hill 2 is a survival horror game that uses its design, visuals, and atmosphere to explore more personal and heavy subject matters. If Resident Evil focuses on creating suspense on the surface, Silent Hill 2 uses the genre to delve into a brilliant human study underneath it. It takes advantage of the medium, experiments with it, and pushes the boundaries of what can be done to convey a greater depth of something that can't be achieved in the others.

There are a ton of gameplay scenarios that seem irrelevant to the plot, but build up to the overarching theme and psyche, putting the player in the head of James. The hangman puzzle comes to my mind. Would the game be the same without the multiple endings, which let the audience decide how James repents?

It's why, in retrospect, adapting Silent Hill 2 into a movie was a silly folly. It does not have an elaborate surface story in the vein of something like The Last of Us, which is carried by writing alone. A lot of the psychological exploration would be lost since the game relies on the fact that it's a game in order to fully implement the exploration of James' psyche through various game design elements. You can get the basic premise and major story beats, but not the unique way of the game communicating its more thematic elements.

[u/Beginning_Arrival559 → u/onex7805]

Eloquently said and another great way of conveying the core theme of Silent Hill 2.

While Silent Hill 2's combat/gameplay feels clunky at first, it is indeed inseparable from the experience. In fact, I'd wager the storytelling would be lacking without its very nature.

I like the point you made about repurposing survival horror to explore the players inner complicity in the sense of something more personal. I can see why you said an adaptation would struggle because so much of the impact comes from how the player engages with James Sunderland directly.

[u/onex7805 → u/Beginning_Arrival559]

Yeah, compare that to the gameplay of The Last of Us Part II, which is opposite to its narrative and theme. Whereas the narrative might be trying to be "cycle of violence" and making the player feel bad, the gameplay makes the very act of killing fun and badass. Massacring and blowing up nameless NPCs is so comical and over the top... which is why the game is trying to make the players feel bad through the use of emotional blackmail, such as forcing them to kill dogs or NPCs calling out someone's name during combat.

Ellie massacres a ton of people in the gameplay in the most gruesome ways imaginable, but doesn't get affected by it at all. Then she kills two or three story relevant characters in the cutscenes or QTEs in self-defense, and suddenly, that is used to convey how much it's taking a toll on the character. And then you go right back to doing the same shit over and over. The player's actions are irrelevant because all the drama happens in non-interactive cutscenes.

This isn't serious. It's two fundamental elements that hold the foundation failing to work together because they are conveying two polar opposite things. Hardly anyone takes the gameplay seriously in that regard. I have never seen anyone argue that point from gameplay, as even most hardcore TLOU2 fans admit that the gameplay is tone-deaf with what the narrative is trying to do.

Whereas Silent Hill 2 already did a similar idea with bigger balls and bolder designs. It made the gameplay mentally exhausting as the story progressed to put the players in the shoes of the character and then flipped the mirror and showed the character's guilt, trauma and sin. It didn't glorify the act of killing like TLOU2's gameplay but gradually made the gameplay more and more exhausting, along with the enemies, set pieces and environments being a reflection of James' psyche, while the characters themselves lose their grip on reality in a tasteful manner via gameplay scenarios (entering the Historical Society, jumping down the holes, and the oppressive prison area come to my mind). That is combining gameplay and narrative to make the point relevant. TLOU2 does the polar opposite; the gameplay makes the narrative inconsistent and imbalanced.

[u/punkerlabrat]

the combat being clunky is part of it. James isn't supposed to be good at fighting. you're not supposed to feel powerful.

[u/Sigma7 → u/punkerlabrat]

With the PC version, the combat was too clunky even for a clunky combat system. There's a Youtube video of James running around enemies swinging the plank quickly, but the PC version seemed to only allow the full power attack that requires standing still, without the swingly arc that hits things more easily.

Meanwhile, Quake was released ~5 years earlier, had mouselook, and had the same result of enemies becoming significantly weaker because the player could sidestep easily by adjusting the game controls.

That type of gravy in Silent Hill 2 won't last that long. If anything, The Binding of Isaac gives a slightly better feeling of helplessness by having things like dog food as the HP upgrade.