A mod for the PC port of Silent Hill 2 recently got a big update that adds new features, improves graphics, and most importantly makes the fog look just as dense and spooky as in the original PlayStation 2 version of the game.
The mod Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition first came out in 2018 and was a concerted effort among modders to deliver the HD version of the game publisher Konami never did. Since then, the group has continued updating the mod with new improvements, and the latest one, which went live over the weekend, revised a number of the game’s texture files, including for its infamous fog.
“The project now uses a higher-resolution fog texture,” the modders said in a YouTube video showing off the changes. “Before, the fog texture used was 256x256 pixels. This has been increased to 512x512, which now also matches the PlayStation 2 version, and effectively completes fog parity between both platforms.”
Previously, the PC version’s fog was wispier, like steam being blown in from offstage. Getting the distinct sense someone just spent the afternoon cooking 25 pounds of pasta is not quite the stuff nightmares are made of. The fog’s now denser and more detailed, like Silent Hill 2 fans deserve, because the horrors of rural America are nothing without the inability to see 10 feet in front of you.
As GameSpot reported in a recent feature about modders’ ongoing progress with Silent Hill 2: Enhanced Edition, the original PC version of Silent Hill was a rush job. Released the year after the console versions, the studio in charge of the port, Creature Labs, was only given five months to complete it. Because it targeted lower-end PCs, it also made a number of graphical and audio compromises.
The Enhanced Edition’s stewards have spent the last few years trying to correct them, though some like the fog have taken longer to address. One of the project’s modders “only recently uncovered the memory address that controls Silent Hill 2's iconic fog, which allowed him to adjust its movement speed to a more natural flow reminiscent of the PS2 version,” writes GameSpot.
Konami, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to be in a rush to do the same. “We currently have no plans to remake or remaster [any of the Silent Hills],” the publisher wrote on Twitter last month.