In the Silent Hill 2 remake, I yelped aloud when Pyramid Head said hello on the roof. I opened a door, and there he suddenly was!

At first, I wondered if the remake team had changed that particular encounter specifically so it could still startle people who'd played the original game. Thinking about it, though, they might have decided to change the encounter because of the remake's camera system.

In the original Silent Hill 2, you hear the door to the rooftop open just out of shot. For a moment, all you know is that something is on the roof with you; you can't see what's coming, but you know that something is there. It's absolutely terrifying!

However, that's something you can only do with a fixed or semi-fixed camera angle. In the remake, the player has full control of the camera at all times. If you heard the door to the rooftop open, you'd be able to swing the camera over to the door and see what's coming through it, which immediately strips away that 'oh, God, I know something's here with me but I can't see what it is' terror.

It'd still be pretty scary, because the thing in question is Pyramid Head! But it wouldn't capture the feeling of the original. Having Pyramid Head jumpscare the player out of nowhere is a way to keep the encounter surprising without that surprise being undermined by the camera.

I hadn't really contemplated it before the rooftop encounter, but going from the restricted camera of the original to the free camera of the remake is a pretty huge change in a horror game. What you can and can't see makes such a big difference to the atmosphere in horror, and it's a lot harder to limit what the player can see if they have full control of the camera.

I'd be interested to know all the ways the remake team tried to address this issue. It might be the reason some of the remake's monsters, mannequins in particular, will run away from the player when spotted and hide in a different room. You've seen the monster, you know it's here, but it's removed itself from your sight; all you know is that it's somewhere nearby, waiting to attack. It's a way to create that sense of 'there's something here, but I can't see it' even when the player can quickly scan their immediate surroundings.

Of course, the radio is also good for creating that sense in both the original and the remake. I spend so much of my time in Silent Hill going 'oh, God, I know there's something nearby; where is it? where is it??'

Oh, whoops, looks like Pyramid Head just threw you off the rooftop. I suppose our conversation is over.