A player has uncovered the secret message hidden within the Silent Hill 2 remake’s photo puzzle, prompting its creative director to reveal that Bloober Team thought it was too hard.
This article contains spoilers for the Silent Hill 2 remake.
Hidden throughout the game are 26 Polaroid-like photos, which have a number on one side and a photo with a message on the other side.
Players have been confused by the photos and have been trying to figure out how they fit into the lore.
Reddit user DaleRobinson finally managed to figure out the meaning behind the photos, sharing their findings on the Silent Hill Reddit page.
Each photo shows a number of objects – a building with six open windows, a door with three reflected edges, a church entrance with seven birds flying across it, and so on.
The player realised that by taking each number and counting that many letters in the message on each photo, they could eventually spell a message.
For example, the photo marked number 23 shows a floor with eight bloody footprints on it, and the message “Old man’s always prepared”. The eighth letter in that message is A.
By putting all the letters in numerical order, the player came up with the hidden message: “YOU’VE BEEN HERE FOR TWO DECADES.”
The message appears to be a reference to the fact the game is a remake, but players are already starting to theorise that the remake is part of a time loop, in which James keeps revisiting Silent Hill over and over (which would also explain why the character design originally looked older before Bloober Team changed it due to fan backlash).
Following the discovery, the game’s creative director and lead designer Mateusz Lenart took to X to reveal that Bloober Team thought the puzzle was too difficult.
“I knew it wouldn’t stay hidden for long,” Lenart said. “There was a theory in our company that the puzzle might be too hard. I really wanted to make it subtle when I was painting those photos, I think the timing couldn’t be better for you to solve it. Congratulations!”