Silent Hill, as a franchise, is a classic example of survival horror done well (for the most part). Most recently, Silent Hill 2 – a game that many fans would rank as the best of the bunch – got a well-received modern remake that brings the game up to today’s graphical standards.

The remake has a few design changes, most notably the over-the-shoulder third-person camera view. This is a distinct contrast from the original’s more dynamic ‘fixed’ camera approach, but it’s certainly more familiar for a modern audience. While there is a mod in the works to bring it back to the classic perspective, we’re here to talk about something that takes it in another direction.

Silent Hill 2 remake can actually be played in VR

This modification comes courtesy of praydog, a well-known contributor to virtual reality mods on PC. They have released some SH2-specific VR optimizations for UEVR, a tool that helps transform any Unreal Engine game into a VR experience. The SH2R-UEVR improvements are available to download on GitHub and even bring motion controls to the game.

The features of the tool are listed as follows:

First-person

• Smooth movement
• The camera is corrected to fix interactions and audio direction

Motion controls

• Ranged weapon aiming
  • Two handing of rifle and shotgun
  • Properly projected crosshair in 3D space
• Melee swings
  • Fully immersive and accurate to weapon’s size, even with custom models
  • Contextual hit reactions
    • Hitting enemies in the legs has a chance to incapacitate enemies for a short time, causing them to kneel in pain
    • Physics impulses are accurately applied in the hit areas, causing limbs to move upon hits
• Items
  • Items are attached to the right hand when inspecting or receiving them (like ammo or syringes)
  • The map is attached to both hands to simulate holding a map in real life

Other features

• Roomscale movement
• Automatic disabling of VR features in cutscenes and full body events (though still fully 6DOF and stereoscopic)

The installation process is fairly simple; praydog notes you need to use the latest ‘Nightly’ version of UEVR and recommends deleting any previous UEVR profile you may have used for Silent Hill 2. Then, download the latest release zip for SH2R-UEVR and import the config into UEVR.

Launched on October 8th, Silent Hill 2 is available on PC but doesn’t officially support VR. The game also doesn’t run too well on devices like the Steam Deck, but it at least has native frame gen to help out those with less capable hardware. We don’t expect the game to get any kind of official VR support considering it was never intended to be played in first person, but for anyone with a VR headset compatible with UEVR, it’s worth trying out if you have the nerve to do so.

According to the UEVR website, the following headsets reportedly work with the tool, and the team wants to “support as many headsets as possible” moving forward.

• Oculus Rift CV1
• Oculus Rift S
• Oculus Quest 2 (Meta Quest 2)
• Meta Quest Pro
• Valve Index
• HTC Vive
• HTC Vive Pro
• Bigscreen Beyond
• Various Pimax headsets like the 8KX and Crystal
• Various WMR headsets like the HP Reverb G2

About the Author

Charlie Noon

Charlie is the Affiliate manager for PC Guide. He has a vast understanding of most PC hardware and consumer essentials, using his knowledge to provide the best products and the biggest deals.