In the fall of 2001, the PlayStation 2 had what could be considered one of the single best launch day for games on September 24, 2001. It was on that day that two high watermarks of their specific genres, Silent Hill 2 and Ico, were released. In Silent Hill 2, you take on the role of James Sunderland, a widower who receives a letter from his dead wife and returns to the town of Silent Hill to face his inner demons. Ico casts players as the titular character, an abandoned boy who finds himself alone in a castle. On your journey, you come across a young girl named Yorda, the daughter of the Queen, whom you must protect as the two of you try to escape the dangerous castle. These two titles continue to stand the test of time, even two decades after they made their debut. They are a pair of games that have inspired, enchanted, and frightened. So what exactly is it about these two games that have allowed them to endure for so long?
Each game has an important place in their specific “franchise”, and their influence continues to be felt even outside their particular series. Silent Hill 2 is widely considered to be not only one of the greatest survival horror games ever created but also often finds its way onto lists citing the “best games ever made.” To look at its influence on the genre, one needs to first examine the original title in the series. Often looked at as Konami’s answer to Capcom’s mega-hit Resident Evil, Silent Hill would release in 1999. Rather than relying solely on monsters like Resident Evil, Silent Hill took a different approach by focusing on psychological horror. It was an approach that would continue to evolve as the series went on, and which arguably peaked in the sequel. Silent Hill 2 is a masterclass in psychological horror. Like Resident Evil, it’s a game with stilted vocal performances, but that actually ends up working in its favor due to the game's dream-like nature.
Ico, on the other hand, would be the game that kicked off the career of Fumito Ueda. It was the first in a series of games that featured similar themes, including beloved titles like Shadow of the Colossus and The Last Guardian. Ico is special in the way it handles abandonment and isolation. Devoid almost entirely of all dialogue, Ico essentially works like a silent film. There’s a clear sense of loneliness that’s present throughout the entire game. But there’s also a feeling of hope.
Both Silent Hill 2 and Ico tell their stories in very different ways, but each is effective in its own regard. The two’s soundtracks are also some of the finest to come out of the PS2 generation. Though they are of completely different genres, they both create a sense of dread and, oddly enough, peacefulness throughout. Composer Akira Yamaoka is about as tied to Silent Hill as any one individual can be, and his work on Silent Hill 2 made for one of the best video game soundtracks ever created. It’s largely tonally different than his soundtrack for Silent Hill, and it works with the different themes that the two explore. His work in the sequel is a much easier listen than the heavily industrial feel of the score in the original game. On the other end, you have Ico, composed by Michiru Oshima & Pentagon. Like many tracks in Silent Hill 2, Ico's soundtrack is almost suffocating at times, though it also presents a number of beautiful pieces. “Heal,” for example, is one of the best save themes in any game. It takes all the best aspects of the Resident Evil save room themes, as it acts as a moment of respite in an unrelenting, cruel world.
The parallels between the two games are actually more similar than one might think. Though Ico builds its gameplay around the idea of escorting Yorda around safely, Silent Hill 2 also utilizes this during a good portion of the game. In the same way that you’ll be trying to keep a close eye on Yorda as she often gets swarmed by shadow creatures, the same will happen in Silent Hill 2 as you play as James and navigate through the city with Maria.
It’s easy to understate the influence that these two games have had on the industry. Though it could be said that they don’t have the same level of influence as more iconic games like Resident Evil 4 or Super Mario 64, their impact on the industry is still noticeable years later. Ico in particular has gone on to shape games coming from thousands of miles away in other countries.
The Last of Us leads Bruce Straley and Niel Druckmann have openly talked about their fondness for Ico and its overall influence on their titles. In an interview with Game Informer, Straley talked about how Ico was the first game that helped inform him how game mechanics were built and shaped around the story. This, in turn, would be the model that he would use when designing games later in his career, including The Last of Us and the Uncharted series.
The team at Naughty Dog aren’t the only ones singing the praises of Ueda and those at Team Ico. One of the game’s fans is also Hidetaka Miyazaki of FROM Software. Miyazaki, the creator of Demon's Souls, and in turn the Souls series, is one of the biggest game industry figures of the last decade. Much in the way the game would inspire Straley and Druckmann, Miyazaki cites Ico as a game that showed him the different possibilities that video games as a medium had to offer.
On the other end, you have Silent Hill 2, which set a template for psychological survival horror games for the following two decades. It has one of the most complex main characters in any game. James is the perfect prototype for damaged, multifaceted protagonists. He’s a character that you as the player will slowly end up questioning throughout your journey, as you continue to unravel what his true intentions are in his trip to this foggy little town. Developers from studios like Frictional Games and Bloober Team have outright stated their influence of the franchise and its entries on a number of their games. In talking with DSOGaming, Thomas Grip, creative director of the atmospheric story-driven horror game SOMA, would praise the series and its “horrific scenarios."
Unlike Silent Hill 2, Ico is a game that isn’t always regarded as the best in its de-facto franchise. That honor is almost always given to Shadow of the Colossus, and it’s understandable when you consider just how important that game is as well. However, Ico is an important moment in the life of the PS2, not only because of design decisions but because of its importance in the career of Ueda. To this day, Silent Hill 2 is still the subject of countless essays and discussions about its deeper meaning and its place in the horror genre, and how it goes about exploring the various themes that both James and the other inhabitants in the town are forced to confront.
Silent Hill 2 continues to impress even to this day when it comes to a number of technical aspects, as Team Silent showcased the best that the system had to offer. Facial animations in particular were incredibly impressive, and it cannot be understated how impressive Takayoshi Sato's work is as the game’s CG and character artist. Ico’s character designs are wisp-like, and the game has an almost fuzzy feel to it. Both games do a great job of leveraging the PS2’s power in order to fulfill their specific visions. The signature fog from the first Silent Hill, which was utilized as a shortcut in order to get the most out of the PS1, makes its way back into the sequel, and to great effect. On the other end, when you're playing through Ico, it’s almost as if you’re playing through a dream.
Ico and Silent Hill 2 are two massively influential titles in the game industry, and to this day, they still remain as important landmarks of the Japanese game industry. They are titles that continue to inspire and captivate two decades after their release, both internationally and at home in Japan. It’s difficult to say if we’ll ever see another day like this in the game industry, where two massively influential titles of this caliber were released on the same day. But judging by the effect these titles had on the current generation of developers, there's definitely a chance.