Polygon Catharsis: Silent Hill in 2022
There’s always been something cathartic about wandering the too-wide, empty streets of Silent Hill. The loneliness, the stilted voice acting, that pulsing, industrial soundtrack; every pixel of the town and its periphery fosters an aching nostalgia. But it feels different now, in our era of pandemics and ecological disaster. Harry, James, Heather — their stories of grief, guilt, and desperation have sharper edges when the world outside feels just as terrifying as the one onscreen.
Booting up one of the first three Silent Hill games on a Playstation or Playstation 2 is an arduous act in of itself. Konami, unlike its competitor in Capcom, didn’t remake and port their capstone survival horror franchise for every console thereafter. The first three Silent Hill games regularly fetch insane prices on eBay and elsewhere, largely due to their inaccessibility. In a way, this makes them feel more important than other equally beloved horror games of their time, as playing one in its original form truly does feel like a privilege. Still, even after that air of importance has sunk in, the silver lining is without much substance. These are true masterpieces of horror, transcending their medium even as video games gain more and more acceptance as a narrative form, and year after year they get harder and harder to play. So, yes — maybe I, like most Silent Hill diehards, am clinging too desperately to a ship bound for the ocean floor. After all, there are dozens of newer, more widely available titles that can satiate a survival horror fan’s appetite for suffering. But time after time, I still think of that town and nothing else seems to fill the gap that Silent Hill occupies. So why does Silent Hill feel more impactful now than ever before?
On a tactile level, there is an undeniable comfort to beloved things of the past. For me, a child of the console wars, there’s nothing more comforting in a video game than chunky graphics, crunchy sound effects, and awkward voice acting. Hallmarks of the late ’90s and early noughties, the imperfections of the games that came out then are what make them charming now. Silent Hill’s titular fog, for example — though at first simply a necessity due to poor draw distance on the Playstation, it soon became a beloved mechanic of the game’s world. In times of deep distress, we tend to fall back on what made us happy in “simpler” times. A hug from a loved one, a nice cup of tea, a game we remember from when we were children. There are more pleasant games, maybe, than clunky, gritty, survival horror slogs, but there are few that capture the essence of a bygone era quite like Silent Hill.
Then, of course, there is the meatier, psychological side to the argument for the enduring importance of Silent Hill. To start, I’m a regular person and chances are, you are too. Something often said to me by professors and writers is that the most compelling stories are those that place ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, and survival horror is perhaps the best example of this mechanic in fiction of all forms. Everyone has a breaking point, and in the town of Silent Hill, every trespasser’s personal trauma is manifested physically and psychologically. Yes, perhaps you’ll say that a frenzied viral outbreak ala Resident Evil sounds more like the here-and-now than a plodding torment, but what better circumstance to let the brain stew in its own absurd misery than a global pandemic? Over a year of on-and-off lockdowns, doom scrolling, and general mistrust in the safety of the world around us takes its toll, after all.
Now, if all of that sounds familiar, you’re not the only one; Harry Mason would probably like a word with you. Before entering Silent Hill, Harry was a regular guy. He had a daughter, a Jeep, an inability to run long distances without wheezing. But as soon as his front tires hit the edge of town, that all goes upside down and sideways. Cheryl is gone, the world is empty and choked by fog, and suddenly regular old Harry has to fight monsters with a handgun he barely knows how to use. Harry, of course, is a proxy. He has a fleshed out backstory and personal motivations, but he’s also enough of a blank slate that we can project ourselves onto him.
Harry’s not the only sympathetic character in the series, though, even if he is the most morally straightforward. On the darker side, James Sunderland is a man wracked with intense guilt for something he refuses to let himself remember. For those who have played Silent Hill 2, James’ story arc may seem a lot less like their own (or, at least I hope it does) than Harry’s did. But James’ fear of being alone, feelings of guilt, and struggles with morality are still universal, as SH2 simply wouldn’t be as scary as it is without the player relating to James’ journey in some way. And, like James and the other characters of SH2, many of us have pushed aside, electively ignored, and mutually sidelined the traumas of the past year and a half, in order to make it through another day of what often feels like unending pessimism.
Heather, on the other hand, represents a bit of a brighter side. She talks back, reacts with humorous incredulity to the horrors around her, and faces her demons with a little less gloom than her predecessors. She is equally as traumatized as Harry and James before her — perhaps even more so — but she doesn’t suffer the claustrophobic tunnel vision they did. Heather is constantly motivated by a desire to escape her nightmare, not by a need to delve further into it. What makes Silent Hill 3 scary is not the grim realizations of 2, or the sheer chaos of 1, but rather the pure, unpolished danger of the world at present, and Heather is youthful and determined in her unwillingness to break, even as the horror escalates to extreme levels.
Yeah, I know you’re thinking it too; wouldn’t it be nice to borrow some of that determination that Heather utilizes so bravely? Wouldn’t it be a relief to have the knowledge of a light at the end of the tunnel rather than the frustration of a carrot at the end of string? But Heather isn’t perfect, either. She makes stupid mistakes and often pushes away those who can help her as a result of her doggedness. James, conversely, speaks to every single other person in his version of Silent Hill with a strangely compelling compassion. His goal is to find his wife, but he doesn’t seem in too much of a hurry to do it, choosing instead, whether consciously or subconsciously, to explore other avenues of progression. Furthermore, Harry operates with a keen sense of selflessness, as his goal is to find his daughter, and bring her back to safety. He doesn’t care whether he himself is safe, as long as Cheryl is. Between these three tormented protagonists, we can start to build an image of an amalgamated response to trauma, and in this, we can compare our own journeys and their trajectories through similar events. What would I do if I was suddenly thrust into the nightmare of Silent Hill? Well, I’d probably do something like what I’m doing now, and like what Harry, James, and Heather do, in their own ways — grit my teeth, and just try to get through it without dying.
The loneliness of life during a global pandemic can’t be understated. Even with social and travel restrictions being lifted and vaccines becoming more available, there is no “return to normal”, because normal itself has irreversibly changed. Harry escapes Silent Hill, but he does so a drastically different man, with new motives and realities. James finds his wife, but he also finds the source of his guilt and repression. Heather gets her escape and finds her identity, but in the process she loses much of her innocence and optimism. And we are not the same people who went into that first lockdown in 2020; many of us are no longer here, and those that remain are changed, for better or for worse.
But there is catharsis in solidarity. There is community in shared trauma. And there will always be the town of Silent Hill, even as the original games get harder and harder to play. Living through the pain of the world right now can feel a lot like trying to navigate like the dizzying, foggy corners of Silent Hill, with only a map, a flashlight, and a broken radio. I think it’s important to embrace that feeling of horror, and know that it will end, because even if the world we emerge into is never the same, all that makes it good, warm, and comforting will still be there, waiting for us when we finally have the time to heal.
So you know where you’ll find me tomorrow. I’ll be wandering the streets of Silent Hill, searching for that comfort. And I hope you can find yours, too.
