Note: This article contains spoilers for the story of Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 2 Remake. Read on at your own risk.

Silent Hill 2 players have been speculating about what's really going on in the game since its release in 2001. Even on its most surface level, it's impossible to say definitively what's happening to protagonist James Sunderland. Is he trapped in a hallucinatory nightmare of grief and guilt? Has he wandered into some kind of supernatural space situated around a small American town, created by cultists and elder gods? Or is he dead and in Hell, paying for his sins?

With Silent Hill 2 Remake, developer Bloober Team seems to provide more details and clues related to those questions. In doing so, the developer has expanded the story of Silent Hill 2. The remake, it seems, isn't just a revision of the story--it's an expansion of the original, existing separately from the original Silent Hill 2. In the same way that Final Fantasy VII Remake revisits the same story while adding to it to make something new, Silent Hill 2 Remake is a secret sequel of Silent Hill 2.