The remake of Silent Hill 2 has attracted such antipathy that we believe it will be difficult for Konami to overturn the collective perception, considering that there is controversy about everything.
The remake of Silent Hill 2 is receiving attacks from those who only see censorship when a portion of female skin is covered (in all other cases they calmly pretend nothing happened). This time the question is so absurd that it is difficult to even explain without laughing. Let’s try to summarize it: from Silent Hill 3 onwards the neckline of the bubble head nurses , introduced in Silent Hill 2, was widened for reasons that have never been explained (it’s not like press releases are made for similar issues).
Probably someone inside Konami had sensed that many players were sensitive to the more sensual side of the creatures and reacted accordingly. At the time it wasn’t uncommon for this to happen: Lara Croft herself, the protagonist of the Tomb Raider series, was sexualized under the pressure of the mass excitement she had caused, with the original author being ousted from the series because he didn’t want her strip.
The author who censors himself
To make the remake of Silent Hill 2, Bloober Team contacted the master Masahiro Ito , the original author of the nurses, to commission him to revise them. Who better than him? In the new version, one of the aspects that Ito did not touch is his neckline, which remained identical to that of his original character design. The most notable addition was the thigh-high stockings, which Ito said work best to highlight the “sexual” nature of the nurses.
In short, an author has revisited one of his works and modernized it a little, without distorting it. A person with a minimum of sense would stop here, but controversy immediately broke out online, with accusations of censorship against Bloober team. The reason? Many have taken the nurses’ necklines from Silent Hill 3 onwards as a yardstick . Ito himself had to intervene to explain the situation , but many were adamant and continued to shout at the censors. So not even the author’s words were of any use, complete with mockery of those who spoke of “authorial choice”.
Silent Hill 2 – Gameplay trailer
It must be said that the game itself has been the object of profound antipathy from the moment of the announcement, among those who contested the development team, those who drew conclusions from the first trailer and did not budge an inch with the subsequent ones, those who characterized every change compared to the original as a negative, without even having enjoyed it (difficult, given that it comes out in October), those who didn’t like how some characters were redone. In short, an aura of negativity has developed around the remake of Silent Hill 2, that is, a strong prejudice, which could be fatal to it. In fact, one might think that it would be better not to play similar games again, if one then has to get entangled in such situations. This isn’t saying that the game is good, just that you should wait until you’ve played it before trashing it like this.