Silent Hill’s fog was famously impressed by a {hardware} limitation. The brief draw-distance of the unique PlayStation, mixed with a keenness for Stephen King’s The Mist, led to a city lined in clouds of fog that hid distant element. This handily masked the limitation, but additionally meant that you just heard monsters earlier than you noticed them—footsteps or wingbeats suggesting their presence earlier than they appeared. The designers leant into this, including a radio that buzzed with static when the reality-defying monsters have been shut, and cementing a formulation for efficient dread that carried over a number of sequels.
Now the Silent Hill 2 remake is out on PC, modders have begun their work. There are already greater than 50 mods on Nexus Mods, with extra being added on a regular basis. Amongst them are two that take away the fog: Sunny Hills and Silent Hill 2 HD Assortment, the latter a cheeky reference to the diminished fog results within the disappointing HD re-release from 2012. Whereas each are tongue-in-cheek—eradicating a defining function of the sequence for the sake of some humorous screenshots—it is fascinating to see what Bloober’s model of the city appears to be like like with out limits.
Nebula480 posted a gallery of fogless screens to the Silent Hill subreddit, and people streets retain lots of their mystique even when you may see for blocks. The rundown facades, the rain-slick bitumen, and the lifeless ends lined in surreal bedsheet frames—it is all nonetheless creepy as heck.
There’s additionally a Easy FreeCam mod to essentially perk up your pics. With that put in Alt+F1 allows a flycam, and different instructions helps you to disable the UI, pause time, teleport James to the digicam, and in any other case fill in for the absence of an official picture mode. Because of which, The Easter Egg Hunter discovered an out-of-bounds reference to a specific poor-quality asset from the HD Assortment. FreeCam has additionally allowed gamers to verify one thing that is a large spoiler for the sport, so if you have not completed both the unique or the remake cease studying now. Bye!
OK, now that they’ve gone, you most likely requested the identical query I did if you learn in regards to the FreeCam. Can you employ it to clip by way of James’s automobile and see Mary’s physique within the backseat? As Silent Hill artwork director and monster designer Masahiro Ito as soon as stated on the trend pit previously often known as Twitter, James introduced his lifeless spouse to Silent Hill with him, and never within the trunk as some followers assume. There is a purpose the digicam by no means offers you a transparent take a look at the again seat. And sure, as a number of gamers have confirmed, shift the perspective and you may see a floral blanket on the again seat overlaying one thing that is clearly meant to be a corpse. Good one, Bloober.
Different mods allow you to play as CJ from GTA: San Andreas, the unique James from 2001, or put on a Robbie the Rabbit hat. There’s additionally a first-person mod, although that is nonetheless a work-in-progress. Likely there is a race between Thomas the Tank Engine and nude mods as we communicate.
