How Silent Hill 2’s Remake Undercuts the Original’s Greatest Melee Weapon

Silent Hill 2’s remake tackles the concept of being faithful to the original game interestingly. Map layouts and dungeon designs may as well be from a new game entirely due to how starkly different they are, while story beats are largely the same and manage to follow the remake’s generously elastic pacing competently. Iconic moments that Bloober’s Silent Hill 2 changes are still reflected on lovingly via echo memories, and it would seem as if there’s nothing the remake could feasibly leave out with such an enormous playtime compared to that of the original.

However, despite two new endings and a whole lot of content to pursue for completionists who are excited to spend countless hours in what’s turned out to be an excellent return to form for the franchise, it is in the Silent Hill 2 remake’s melee weapon pool that players may find one of their biggest disappointments. Players may notice that James Sunderland doesn’t hang onto the wooden plank once he obtains a metal pipe, unlike the original, and anyone who adored the original’s bombastic yet gratifying Great Knife will surely be perturbed by the fact that it isn’t reprised as a melee weapon in the remake.

The Silent Hill 2 Remake’s Great Knife is But a Nostalgic Easter Egg

In the original Silent Hill 2, players may find Pyramid Head’s room and his signature Great Knife lying on a table within it. This is a weapon James can equip, though it is purposefully unwieldy and disastrously difficult to use well. James is unbearably dogged in his animations while wielding the Great Knife, but its awkwardness, heaviness, and creakiness can be forgiven if players are able to time painfully slow strikes on enemies as it has indomitable stopping power.

It’s easy to be interrupted in the middle of deliberately sluggish Great Knife attacks, though the risk is often worth the reward.

Regardless, it’s a tremendously fun melee weapon alternative and is perfect for anyone seeking a grueling challenge. Sadly, the remake evidently decided not to pull the trigger on supplying James with a Great Knife melee weapon of its own. Players do wield the Great Knife, but only for a brief sequence where James drags the enormous metal blade across the ground as he passes through a writhing mass of flailing, spectral appendages.

The Great Knife isn’t on the table in Pyramid Head’s room, either, and the remake presumably explains this away narratively by having Pyramid Head wielding the blade while pursuing players during that section of the labyrinth. So, right as players may have reconciled with the fact that no Great Knife is available in the remake, it’s a bit of a low blow to then see the Great Knife where the rotating cube used to be, interact with it and wrench it free from rubble, and begin dragging it around with little control over James’ movement only to realize that it can’t be swung and is not a legitimate weapon.

Silent Hill 2’s Remake Doesn’t Plead Its Case Well Against Having a Great Knife Weapon

Considering how much was added for the remake to be twice as long and rich in content, it’s surprising that only the chainsaw made a successful transition from the original as a lone extracurricular weapon, and it may be with a heavy heart that players comprehend that they cannot procure the Great Knife as a weapon this time around.

Knowing that Bloober went to the effort of producing animations for James lugging it about awkwardly may be enough to argue that it could’ve been a weapon itself by only going so far as to add an attack animation for it, no matter how dreadfully labored it may be. Silent Hill 2’s remake substitutes the wooden plank for the metal pipe rather than allowing players to equip either from the inventory menu, and thus it would’ve normally made sense if Bloober’s defense was that only one melee weapon is available.

Rather, that argument buckles when it’s learned that players are actually able to swap between the pipe and chainsaw, the latter of which is unlocked during a New Game Plus run. It’s possible to swap between melee weapons and yet it’s only possible to do so with these two specific weapons, potentially alluding to the idea that additional weapons such as the Great Knife may have been left on Bloober’s cutting room floor.