Fans think Silent Hill 2 Remake’s James has had a facelift

Bloober Team has seemingly amended the face of James Sunderland in its highly-anticipated Silent Hill 2 Remake.

The switch came to light via an updated icon on SteamDB, leading some fans to speculate that the studio revised James’ face in response to community feedback.

Whilst it’s not been confirmed by Bloober itself – or been replicated on any other of the game’s storefront assets or screenshots – James’ haggard, grief-soaked face has been smoothed out to make for a less tense, more youthful, look.

Silent Hill 2 Remake’s Steam page has been updated. Featuring a new look at James Sunderland with a different face that’s more akin to the original in the desktop icon
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That said, given we’ve seen several iterations of Sunderland since the game was first announced – even before it was announced, actually – it’s hard to say if this is definitive proof of a change of direction or just a pre-existing asset.

The facial model of the James we see in just the reveal teaser alone feels a tad inconsistent, with his face, hair, and hair colour changing several times throughout the course of the three-minute trailer.

In fact, the James face we see at 1m49s looks much more in keeping with the James we see in the icon above, so it’s hard to know if this asset signifies an artistic change or not.

Either way, though, going on comments on social media, most fans seem happy with the revised version. Here’s hoping we’ll see more of Silent Hill 2 Remake – and James’ face – at the next PlayStation State of Play event.

Silent Hill 2 – one of gaming’s worst-kept secrets before it was formally revealed back in October 2022 – has been rated in Korea. It was given a mature rating due to, as translated by Google, “excessive violence, excessive blood from hitting and being hit (and there is physical damage such as creatures being separated)”, and excessive depictions that some may find fearful and/or disgusting, including “creatures with strangely formed limbs” – a Silent Hill staple, of course.

We can only hope Silent Hill 2 doesn’t follow the same pattern as Silent Hill: The Short Message. That similarly first popped up on the Korean ratings board, although it took two years for that game to move from rating to release.