Silent Hill 2 Remake Includes a Bizarre Content Warning

The ESRB recently gave developer Bloober Team’s upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake an “M” Rating. That rating isn’t particularly surprising, nor are many of the specific pieces of in-game content the ESRB cited when explaining their rating. For instance, the governing body noted that Silent Hill 2 contains “realistic gunfire, cries of pain, and blood-splatter effects” as well as “enemies with body parts sewn together.” In other words, standard Silent Hill 2 stuff.

However, there is one part of the ESRB’s rating that certainly stands out. According to that organization, the Silent Hill 2 remake also features “characters pole-dancing in strip-club settings.”

What makes that warning so strange isn’t the idea that Silent Hill 2 features sexualized content. The base game had plenty of sexualized (often disturbingly sexualized) content, and the ESRB rating references some of that legacy material. No, what’s strange about that particular note is that it seems to be referencing a scene that wasn’t in the original Silent Hill 2 game. To be more specific, that content warning implies that the remake will feature more of a topic that was only really hinted at in the original game.

See, there is a strip club in Silent Hill 2 called Heaven’s Night. However, the club is empty when protagonist James Sunderland takes a brief detour through the area in the base game. The only hint we get of any activity in the club is the implication that Maria used to work there. That is later confirmed in the Silent Hill 2 bonus content, Born From a Wish, which begins with Maria waking up inside the Heaven’s Night club.

That’s what makes that content warning so strange and potentially interesting. It is possible (perhaps even likely), that the Silent Hill 2 remake will simply feature a scene involving Maria dancing at the club. Maybe James even imagines Maria dancing at the club, which would fit what we believe we understand about his psychological state.

The likelihood of Maria’s involvement opens up an even more intriguing possibility. Could the Silent Hill 2 remake actually incorporate (or repurpose) the original Born From a Wish bonus content? There has been no confirmation that the remake will include any of the Born From a Wish material, but it’s certainly easier to picture a bustling Heaven’s Night environment in that DLC scenario rather than in the main game.

If that is the case, then it’s going to be interesting to see how Bloober Team handles that part of the game. Fans have always had questions about the narrative implications of that bonus content, particularly in regards to what it implies about the nature of Maria’s existence in relation to James. If that scene implies the remake will feature Born From a Wish content and that the remake’s Born From a Wish content will seemingly feature a more “bustling” version of Heaven’s Night, then maybe Bloober Team is taking on the unenviable task of exploring answers to Silent Hill 2 questions that were possibly never meant to be answered.

While we can’t get too far ahead of ourselves, this content label is one of the earlier and most notable indications of some of the additions/changes that Bloober Team has planned for Silent Hill 2. We’ll see if they can do justice to one of the greatest horror games ever made when Silent Hill 2 remake is released for PlayStation 5 and PC sometime in 2024.