Silent Hill 2’s original translator wasn’t told about the remake
Bloober Team’s upcoming remake of Silent Hill 2 seems to be following the 2001 original’s plot, based on what little we’ve seen so far. Which is to say, a trailer (one that Bloober Team’s CFO Tomasz Gawlikowski says (opens in new tab) is “in-engine UE5” and “what the game is meant to look like”) that includes recreations of several scenes from the original game.
Jeremy Blaustein, who translated Silent Hill 2’s script into English as well as directing the motion capture and voiceover production, responded to the remake being announced on Twitter (opens in new tab). “Cool!” he wrote. “And they will, once again, use the SH2 English script that I wrote/translated (oh, directed too) completely by myself and I will get zero compensation for it and there will not be tens of thousands of people on Twitter outraged on my behalf.”
In a follow-up tweet (opens in new tab), Blaustein mentioned that he hadn’t been told about the remake being made, writing that it “would have been nice to drop a message.”
GamesRadar (opens in new tab) reached out to Blaustein for additional comment. “My duties on the original were as follows, irrespective of what my official crediting said,” he replied. “I translated every single word of the Silent Hill 2 game. There were no other translators. I directed the voice over work. All of it. I arranged the auditions, led them, and was one of about four to five people who made the decisions on which actors to go with. My voice in those matters was generally agreed to since none of the Japanese staff were capable of judging the actors due to their lack of English ability. I directed the dramatic performances in the motion capture sessions.
“I collaborated with the [Silent Hill] team and [scenario writer Hiroyuki Owaku] in particular on a near-daily basis during the translation,” Blaustein went on. “As you know, there was no Japanese VO because it was mostly aimed for a Western audience. That testifies to the importance of the script that I wrote.”
Blaustein told GamesRadar that he’s not seeking further financial compensation for his work, but said, “I do strongly feel that giving me appropriate credit for my role is the right thing to do.” The 2012 Silent Hill HD Collection, containing both Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3 (which he also translated), listed Blaustein only under “Konami Special Thanks” in its credits (opens in new tab).
One thing the Silent Hill 2 remake is changing is the combat, which Bloober Team has said it’s “rebuilding” along with “certain setpieces”. Additionally, the fixed-camera perspective is being traded for a third-person camera. Though no release date has been announced, the remake has a Steam page and some steep system requirements.
