James Sunderland’s wife has been dead for three years, yet somehow he receives a letter from her, urging him to come to Silent Hill. The game drops you into James’s shoes as he’s parked at a rest stop overlooking the titular fog-shrouded town where he and his wife once spent a special vacation in happier times. All roads leading in (and more significantly: out) have been closed. Something strange has happened and the only way in is a remote trail winding through the woods and an unkempt cemetery.

Once you’re there, walking among the post-apocalyptic streets and crumbling storefronts, you realize the town has been abandoned, but you’re not entirely alone. You’ll meet Angela, an abused teenager who’s prone to horrifying visions, and Eddie, an overweight man who’s on the verge of snapping after a lifetime of bullying and insults. Then there’s eight-year-old Laura, an absolute little shit who spends most of the game running from you or making your life a living hell.

During this initial phase of discovery, you will see something slither out from underneath a car and retreat into the unrelenting fog. These vaguely humanoid, semi-intelligent bags of flesh and bone can be counted among the least disturbing creatures in a world with enemy names such as Abstract Daddy and Flesh Lip. There’s a reason so many of these character designs are popular among cosplay artists, from the indestructible Pyramid Head to the herky-jerky nurses you first encounter in Brookhaven Hospital.

Nothing about the way the enemies engage you feels cheap. You’re armed with a radio, tuned to static, which generally crackles whenever enemies are looming nearby. Sometimes they can get the drop on you, but usually they don’t and it’s often your own fault if they do. Jump scares are used so infrequently that they’re actually quite effective when they are. Watching the way the “mannequins” belatedly scurry off to find an ambush site after you’ve already spotted them is such a nice touch.

Soon you will explore the ever-changing town’s interior locations, often finding yourself in satisfying game loops involving locked doors, abstract puzzles, and Metroid-like backtracking. Armed with a dynamic map which James helpfully adds notes to, you’ll rarely get lost (in the frustrated gamer sense) as you explore the richly developed world. I was compelled to finish this game last night no matter how late I had to stay up to do it. Though the developers could have probably shaved a couple hours off the time it takes to finish (some of the late game puzzles feel like fillers), I never lost interest as I do in most modern games.

That’s the secret of the game’s appeal: Silent Hill 2 is not a modern video game. The voice actors, puzzles, and graphics have all been updated, but at its heart its still a game that was originally designed to trick the Playstation 2’s relatively low system specs into simulating a partially open world. Today, curious modders on PC have proven you can reduce the game’s oppressive fog and modern systems render the previously unachievable draw distances just fine. Yet by choosing to remain within the perimeters of the old game’s limitations, the developers have crafted something very much in the spirit of the original.

Having just played the notably fun Dead Rising Deluxe Remake before this one, I wonder how much of the appeal of old games is simply nostalgia. Considering I forget a game almost as soon as I put it down (as is the case with the original Silent Hill 2, which I haven’t touched in twenty-three years), I would argue that almost none of it is nostalgia in my case. I don’t prefer to replay old games, but between corporate oversight and developer burnout, making a modern game fun often loses priority during the mad rush to hit ship dates; most publishers would probably rather have psychologically addictive games than fun ones anyway. Bloober Team has managed to craft a great game in spite of the pressures they must have faced from the higher-ups at Konami.

I have my problems with the very idea of remakes, especially if a publisher uses it as an excuse to delist their original games, but one as good as Silent Hill 2 will likely contribute a net positive to the medium. Now Konami has proof that there’s still a strong interest in the franchise, which could potentially lead to brand new horror IPs. Unfortunately, I’m sure it will only lead to more remakes and remasters, which are just as likely to be bad as they are good.

This is all to say Silent Hill 2 is kind of a miracle. It’s probably the first game of the year I would consider a 10/10 if it weren’t for the awful PC optimization. My system is no slouch and has never struggled to run a new game until now; the problem isn’t the system, it’s the game. I spent a day and a half fiddling with the graphical settings until I finally discovered the only way to achieve a consistent frame rate was by typing “-dx11” in the Steam launch options, at which point I rarely dipped below 80fps. This is inexcusable (and, as far as I know, unpatched) for a $70 game. Imagine how angry I’d be if I had shelled out an extra $10 to play it early?

Though I said I don’t remember much about the game the first time around, I do remember playing it. It released mere weeks after 9/11, which was the year I had graduated high school and got my first job that wasn’t in the family business. It was a stressful time for Americans as we were uncertain about the future and our place in the world—we all intuited nothing would ever be the same again. I find it a curious coincidence that the remake would release shortly after the most disruptive pandemic in nearly a century, the long-term effects of which will not be known for some time, but the collective fear is familiar. Here’s a game that’s terrifying, honest, and hopeful in the most common of its eight endings and it couldn’t have released at a more appropriate time if it tried.

I got what players generally agree is the “good” ending. And let me tell you: even that was depressing. But boy was it cathartic. That’s twice now that Silent Hill 2 has been an unwittingly timely cure for society’s maladies. Good sense prevents me from assigning “game of the year” to a remake, but it’s easily the remake of the year, perhaps the decade.