This fan remake of ‘Silent Hill’ with Unreal Engine 5 proves that graphic exhibitionism is not everything

The technical power of Unreal Engine 5 is beyond question – it was unveiled by Epic Games in May 2020 at a technical demo highlighting, of course, the overwhelming photorealism of the graphics that he was able to move with total fluidity. However, not everything is sparkling and colorful: Unreal Engine 5 is capable of bringing to life, too, the dull and gray city in the world, Silent Hill.

This has been demonstrated by Codeless Studio with a video generated without any kind of permission from Konami (come on, we are not facing a preview of a reboot or a new installment of the series) and that perfectly replicates the first bars of the legendary Playstation One game. In it we will accompany Harry Mason looking for his daughter Cheryl, lost in the fog of the spooky town.

The fog that does not let you see

The curious thing is that, as is well known, the fog of the first ‘Silent Hill’ had a clear function: to cover the technical limitations of the Sony console. But at the same time that it facilitated the task of giving us a city through which to move to the hardware, it gave a unique and disturbing personality to the city of the title: the fog is necessary for the requirements of the game, but at the same time, it gave an identity unique to the stage. Something similar to what happened with el ‘Spider-Man’ de Neversoft and his New York bathed in a fog that had to be justified by argument.

The Codeless Studio video replicates the opening bars of the game perfectly, including the devastating use of the soundtrack and the planes tilted to suggest unease and the feeling that Harry is being watched. The hyper-realism of the close-ups, the lighting effects in the alleyway and the naturalness of the animations make it clear to what extent the fog, which is respected here, does a lot for the suffocating atmosphere of ‘Silent Hill’. Thanks to Unreal Engine 5 we could eliminate it, but … who would want a bright and clear Silent Hill?