Like the 2001 original, the Silent Hill 2 remake is a dense game with lots to find within it if you’re willing to scour its foggy and dark corners. With a greater emphasis on combat and a few areas that feel larger and more involved, and with new puzzles that often require multiple steps to complete, though, it’s going to be a while before you can escape that town. If you’re wondering just how long it’ll take, that depends greatly on how completionist you intend to be and whether you want to leap into Silent Hill 2 Remake’s depths to find its many endings–eight in all–and other secrets.
Here’s everything you need to know about Silent Hill 2’s playtime and what you can expect to uncover if you’re willing to spend more time within the nightmare. Naturally, beware of some light story spoilers in this article.
How long to beat Silent Hill 2
Your playtime on Silent Hill 2 will vary greatly based on how much time you spend exploring the town, searching out-of-the-way places, and gathering extra materials. This is especially true at key points like the early game, when you’ll have access to a lot of the town and can check a number of spots that aren’t part of the essential path forward. Among the members of GameSpot’s team who played Silent Hill 2 Remake ahead of launch, we found the game to last between 17 and 19 hours on an initial playthrough, when we were pretty diligent about searching for secrets. If you’re less worried about searching for secrets and extra ammo, you can probably expect Silent Hill 2 Remake to last you 15-16 hours on your first run.
However, finishing Silent Hill 2 Remake the first time opens up a New Game Plus mode that allows you to find new stuff, like the chainsaw, and unlock additional endings. The puzzle locations don’t change, which can speed up your run, but if you’re checking for additional elements and trying to hit those new endings, expect a New Game Plus trip through Silent Hill 2 to take 10-12 hours. There is a Trophy/Achievement for completing the game in less than 10 hours, so that seems to be a reasonable benchmark.
As with the original release, some of the endings in Silent Hill 2 Remake only seem to judge you on your behavior, like whether you’re warm or cold to Maria, or whether you keep James in good health or let him languish near death. For the additional endings, however, you’ll need to find new items that can add a little time to your overall trip. Bloober Team also added two new endings that weren’t part of previous Silent Hill 2 releases. So altogether, completionists who hope to see everything it has to offer and all eight endings will take dozens of hours.
Silent Hill 2 Locations List
The remake of Silent Hill 2 will take you through all the same places, in the same order, and with the same story beats as the original game. However, many of those places are now larger and more involved than previously, extending the game’s length by quite a lot. Here’s the rundown of all the major places you’ll visit in Silent Hill 2.
- East South Vale
- Wood Side Apartments
- Blue Creek Apartments
- West South Vale
- Brookhaven Hospital
- Toluca Prison
- The Labyrinth
- Lakeside Hotel
Check out our Silent Hill 2 Remake guides hub for information on everything from how to solve some of the game’s more arduous puzzles, to unlocking each of its endings.
