One of the most prominent Silent Hill 2 PC modding projects is due to receive a huge new content update on February 24, featuring long-awaited improvements such as full-fledged mouse support, 60 FPS gameplay, and more. A highlight of the franchise in many ways, SH2 has long been propped up by modders on PC, and though an official Konami remake is now in the works, unofficial projects are still the way to go at this time.
More broadly, Silent Hill is a franchise that had been effectively hibernating for a good long while. Though the developer and publisher, Konami, did announce an impressively comprehensive plan to bring it back in the coming months and years, this is a relatively fresh development. In the years past, it was up to the community to keep old SH favorites alive, and that's precisely what the Enhanced Edition team had been doing.
The dev team working on Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition for PC has announced that fans of the game can expect a big new update to launch on February 24. One of the greatest PS2 horror games of all time will then offer full mouse control support, a proper 60 FPS render mode, and substantially improved translation pack support. The developers have also confirmed that gamepad users should find it easier to play the game on a variety of modern controllers, thus updating it far beyond anything Konami has officially provided on PC so far.
Naturally, the Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition project runs on the same old game engine as the original did, making certain features extremely difficult to pull off. For example, the developers have explained via Twitter that the team is going to stick with the 60 FPS cap instead of unlocking the framerate, as doing so breaks various key components, such as the protagonist's ability to move. Konami's official remake, on the other hand, is one of the games slated to run on Unreal Engine 5 and presumably won't rely on outdated code in any way.
Still, the Enhanced Edition project is a remarkable feat in its own right, and since the Silent Hill 2 remake will play it safe without making unnecessary changes to the narrative, there's an argument to be made about the mod being an equally valid choice for some gamers.
The fact that the classic horror title is still as popular as it's ever been was underlined when the Silent Hill 2 Limited Edition vinyl sold out in under two minutes after the offer went live. With that in mind, some gamers are definitely going to want to give the Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition project a shot while waiting for the official remake to drop.
Silent Hill 2 is available on PC, PS2, and Xbox platforms. Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition is available exclusively on PC.