Silent Hill 2 Remake: Otherworld Sections, Ranked

Key Takeaways

• The Otherworld serves as a personalized nightmare, reflecting characters’ psyche, trauma, and secrets.
• Silent Hill 2 Remake excels in delivering dread-inducing Otherworld areas vital for storytelling.
• Visual overhauls, thematic changes, and linear progression enhance the remake’s Otherworld sections.

The Otherworld is one of the two realms of Silent Hill that exist in a sort of ‘unreality,’ the other being the Fog World. These worlds exist in layers, not unlike a cake, with the standard reality we all share being the solid foundation. The Fog World serves as the mid-section, where layers start to bleed into one another. Certain elements of standard reality still seem to be in place, but so do creatures that shouldn’t exist and begin to reflect the psyche of the characters the player inhibits or meets. Finally, the Otherworld is the highly personalized topping. Though instead of a pleasant message to the recipient, their deepest trauma and darkest secrets are laid bare before them.

As such, the moments where the player is transported to the Otherworld are important for relaying elements of the story and character and simultaneously, delivering what should be some of the most dread-inducing areas in the game. The Silent Hill 2 remake does an excellent job, overall, in representing this unique and all-important aspect of the 25-year-old franchise. It has set the bar high for the future Silent Hill games and possible further remakes to come.

5 Brookhaven Hospital Otherworld

The Cyclical Path Of Sickness

While by no means bad, Brookhaven Hospital feels the least memorable of all the Otherworld transformations and transmutations of locations that the player must venture through. This is partly because the player has already been in the Fog World version of this location for roughly three hours by this point, but also because the circular routes which return the player to the central puzzle are a bit samey. While the central puzzle itself and the mini puzzles surrounding it are cool and unsettling, players must slog through a fair amount of combat to reach them.

Another small but notable criticism is that the elevator quiz is lackluster in delivery and reward. It seems strange that for all the remixing on display in the game, the reward for besting the quiz is a lesser version of the reward in the original. As one final complaint, there is no “Basements basement.” As that is one of the best memos and intimidating places to descend to in any game ever, it’s sad to see it go.

4 Blue Creek Apartments Otherworld

A Brave First Step Into The Unknown

Stepping over into the Blue Creek apartment and experiencing the remade Otherworld for the first time is an outstanding moment in the remake. It carries the overbearing dread and darkness that it should, adding a fresh coat of terror to the aesthetic and audio, keeping the player in a state of uneasiness. One of the quietest and most effective scares also takes place here. Every time the player returns to the clock puzzle room, they may notice something beyond the nearby grating getting closer and closer.

There is one main issue with this Otherworld, and although the problem is introduced here, it persists through the remade Otherworld sections overall. The rusted metal and flesh aesthetic that permeates these sections is more reminiscent of the Otherworld of Silent Hill 1 and 3, directly connected to Alessa Gillespie. It is a step away from the more damp, dreary, mold-ridden appearance of James Sunderland’s Otherworld presented in the original. Perhaps this is a movement to create a connection between the Otherworld across all Silent Hill games and more of a connected universe. If this turns out to be the case, it is a poor move. The uniqueness of these sections in relation to the protagonists is one of the Silent Hill games’ most defining traits.

3 South Vale Otherworld

A Town Under Deconstruction

This Otherworld section has experienced the greatest visual overhaul in comparison to the original. The moment of leaving Brookhaven Hospital and seeing this transformation is quite spectacular. Buildings are completely tarped over, and huge chunks of road have fallen into the abyss with frail rusted remains jutting out over the darkness below. Moments like “The door that wakes in darkness,” and the first sightings of the Mandarin enemy are also recreated, with extra emphasis to make them all the more daunting.

This section is quite different from a gameplay perspective, because it plays out more like a level, with a very linear path of progression. While the original game does likewise funnel the player towards a particular few streets during this section, within the remake the strict path ahead is a more guided affair. This isn’t necessarily a bad change, though. It suits the extreme degradation that South Vale has undergone, and fits the thematic idea that SIlent Hill itself has agency in the journey of James Sunderland.

2 Lakeview Hotel Otherworld

A Final Emotional Return

There is a mid-level transformation which represents how the Otherworld version of Lakeview Hotel was done in the original. This is much appreciated, as the actual Otherworld section in the remake is a very short concluding section of the game which differs from previous Otherworld sections. It is used solely to deliver the narrative climax. Lakeview Hotel is such an important area, and it has been brilliantly recreated in the remake.

By allowing the area time to breathe and extending the descent to the Otherworld with a mid-section transformation, it makes that final venture all the more poignant. This creates a very effective last walk through the now-desolate “special place”. There, with acceptance, the monsters James has had to contend with have lost their power. They are viewed in their last more like sad memories than the trauma they once were.

1 Labyrinth

A Treacherous Maze Hiding The Deepest Secrets

The player enters the Labyrinth after a long series of descents, and all reasonable logic of space and time has gone out the window. As such, it is a brilliantly designed mind warp of an area. It includes everything present in the original game’s Labyrinth, but with clever twists put upon them. Of all the redesigned Otherworld puzzles, the rotating room has to be one of the best. It makes sense as the focal point of the area and is exceptional looking, a daunting mass it is hard to tear the camera away from.

The area that nails its own introduction, mid-section, and ending, keeping it interesting and varied throughout. More than any other Otherworld section, the Labyrinth comes closest to achieving something beyond normal comprehension in its design and exploration. The only negative is the bizarre inclusion of combat rooms for a brief but off-putting section. Overall, it is an appreciated expansion of a brief section from the original, with enough changes that it doesn’t outstay its welcome.