

Silent Hill 2 does not use a heads-up display to check James' health, location, and items, the player must enter the pause-game menu to review his status. The default control for Silent Hill 2 has James moving in the direction that he is facing when the player tilts the analog stick upwards. The game features a third-person view, with various camera angles. The objective of Silent Hill 2 is to guide player character, James Sunderland, through the monster-filled town of Silent Hill as he searches for his deceased wife. The game was followed by Silent Hill 3 in 2003.

It is often considered to be one of the greatest horror games ever made and among the greatest video games of all time, as well as a key example of video games as an art form. However, it received criticism for its controls despite their improvement over the previous game's. During release, it was widely praised for its story, use of metaphors, symbolism, psychological horror and taboo topics, soundtrack, atmosphere, graphics, monster designs, and sound design. Within the month of its release in North America, Japan, and Europe, over one million copies were sold, with the greatest number of sales in North America. In contrast with the previous title, whose narrative concerned cult activity, Silent Hill 2 focuses directly on the psychology of its characters. Its narrative was inspired by the Russian novel Crime and Punishment (1866) by Fyodor Dostoevsky, and some of the influences on the game's artistic style include the work of film directors David Cronenberg, David Fincher, David Lynch, and Alfred Hitchcock cultural references to history, films and literature can be found in the game. Work on Silent Hill 2 began in June 1999, soon after Silent Hill had been completed. A remastered high-definition version was released for the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 in 2012 as part of the Silent Hill HD Collection. In 2002, it was ported to Microsoft Windows. It was published in September 2001, and an extended version containing an extra bonus scenario, Born from a Wish, and other additions was published for Xbox in December of the same year.

The second installment in the Silent Hill series, Silent Hill 2 centers on James Sunderland, a widower who journeys to the town of Silent Hill after receiving a letter from his dead wife informing him that she is waiting there for him. Silent Hill 2 is a 2001 survival horror video game published by Konami for the PlayStation 2 and developed by Team Silent, part of Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo.
