What if the game had Playable Endings? - SPOILERS

We no longer have spoiler tags so ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK... but it is a 23yo game. C'mon now. We all know what happens.

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply
jdnation
Historical Society Historian
Posts: 4369
Joined: 04 Mar 2007

What if the game had Playable Endings? - SPOILERS

Post by jdnation »

Finally finished playing the game awhile ago. But I'll save my thoughts about the game itself for another long form post analysis.

But after finishing the game and watching the other endings on YouTube, I found myself wishing Bloober would've tried doing this...

Alongside New Endings, what if they also made all of the major endings real-time playable to an extent?

The only criticism of doing this I can think of is 1) we'd miss out on certain fixed imagery, such as the letter floating in the water, for example, though this can still be cinematically included later or near the start in other ways, and 2) perhaps that instead of listening to Mary's words, players might find themselves screwing around and ruining the mood. Though I think that this can be alleviated by having James slow walk (similar to when walking through Rosewater Park with Maria) and locking any other interactivity, like only moving forward and a little from side to side, but not completely turning around, so the character only faces forward in a locked fixed OTS camera direction, maybe even pulled back a little to feel like a more cinematic tracking camera and less 'gamey'.


LEAVE ENDING -

Taking inspiration from a mod that makes Silent Hill a sunnier place:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmfxZAGo3dM

Essentially this, but dialed back a bit, and still with the presence of some fog:
Image

It would've been nice if following the cutscene after talking to Mary, the player found themselves as James walking alongside Laura along the sunnier path through the woods as we hear Mary's words from the letter.

Some of the town might be possible, but I think it's best sticking to the woods.

Laura will always be running a little ahead of a little behind. In case the player stops, she'll hang around nearby looking at or playing with something.

Once Mary's reading ends, the player will have either reached the cemetery if they kept moving at a steady pace, or if they are still behind, the scene can simply jump cut to the cemetery scene and Laura and James leaving.



MARIA ENDING -

Similar to Leave, instead of Laura & James, it'd be Maria and James, and instead of being sunny it'd still be the same foggy world.

But with one major exception... we'd instead control and play as Maria, instead of James.

The scene would be start out with James finding Maria at Heaven's Night, and from there, to the player's surprise, we'd be in control Maria, and we'd just follow James as we walk through the same old foggy Silent Hill, but with no monsters, and also certain blocked roads will no longer be blocked for quicker route access back towards the overlook and James' parked car.

All along the way, James always walks ahead of Maria, so we are forced to catch up, and there is always some distance between them. Most of the route is silent with not much talking. The only time James speaks is if the player is lagging behind and so James calmly and a little coldly says, "Hurry up", or "let's go," or "you coming?" etc.

If the player is often taking too long or too far behind, James will stop and wait. Then when the player reaches closer enough to James, James will take Maria's hand, and then the game will play itself as Maria is dragged along, and this time we cannot take back control.

What this would ideally signify, is that Maria has now become someone/something that James completely controls.

As we near the top, we switch again to the same cutscene that plays out.



IN WATER ENDING -

James picks up Mary's body from the bed, and we cut to behind the door and control James carrying Mary's body down a long hallway, reminiscent of scenes from the original game's intro.

Image

The camera would likewise be fixed, but much closer to James, much like the intro from above the waist and off to the side, so that we can only make out the silhouette of James carrying Mary, but from behind and with enough space to see where we are going. The camera may sway a little and there'd be a hazy quality to the lighting and environment.

We walk down the long long hallway as Mary's voiceover reads out her letter. As we reach the end of the Hallyway, the camera has slowly been moving closer and closer to James' head until we are essentially ahead of James and moving in first person view when we find ourselves before a door.

The door opens automatically... and we discover we are emerging out from inside the Brahms underpass and we're find ourselves back at the start staring directly at the overlook and James' car.

As we move closer to James' car, we discover that he is already sitting inside it and we see him from outside. As soon as this is noticeable to the player, we immediately jump cut to the same cutscene that plays at the end of the game. Except this time, as the letter reading has already taken place, only the letter is scene briefly from several angles floating in the water as we transition more quickly to the credits.



REBIRTH ENDING -

It is unclear to me whether the body James has is the form taken from the final boss, or whether he went back to the car to get Mary's body.

But nonetheless, after defeating the final boss, a cutscene on a foggy indistinct dock location shows James putting Mary's body in a boat and moving away from the shore.

We then find ourselves once again controlling James rowing the boat through the foggy lake.

The player is guided by reddish hues beneath the water that point the way towards the island.

As we row, James mutters new dialogue, random lines from the Crimson Ceremony and Lost Memories books.

As we near the island, the same regular cutscene takes over.



STILLNESS ENDING -

After defeating the boss, a new additional cutscene plays out where instead of having James shooting Maria one more time to end it, he hesitates.

Then suddenly the ground collapses from under them. James emerges from the rubble and after reexamining the body sees indeed that she is dead from the fall.

After the cutscene ends, we control a wounded and weeping James walking away from the scene. Everything is hazy, blurry and indistinct, we can hardly actually figure out a direction, but so long as the player keeps moving, the levels transition from one area to another and time doesn't seem to make sense. We go from darkened corridors, to outdoors somewhere along the shoreline where it is raining, to some parts of town and eventually the woods, all while it is raining.

To convey the idea of what things look like, imagine everything looking as though it is a drunken/drugged vision.
Image
Image
Image

During this entire time James occasionally has new monologues where he keeps going over and over in his mind about what he could've done differently regarding his life with Mary.

Eventually we find ourselves back up at the overlook, and James' car is the only distinct thing we recognize. We stumble as James towards it, open the door and get in.

Cue the same cutscene that plays for this ending.



BLISS ENDING -

I thought the BLISS ENDING on it's own is good enough, brief as it was...

But... if I had to force the idea, once James turns on the TV and stares, we transition to the video-camera view of Mary in the room talking to James.

But we stop at the part after she mentions this place being sacred, and then we watch as she begins packing and telling James to help and stop recording, but James laughingly teases her by saying, "No."

At this point, the camera is akin to a first-person view and the player can actually move around as Mary keeps talking and packing, and even dragging James' suitcase to the door, as she carries her own and walks out. As we move towards the door, James's walk animation briefly has him pick up the suitcase and exit, closing the door behind him while still filming.

Similar to James and Maria walking together and having conversations through Rosewater, the town, the motel, Heaven's Night and the Hospital, we keep following behind Mary in first-person view recording with the camera through the hotel and the hotel grounds in the past during how it looked and felt during the better days of their honeymoon, and having short happier conversations between them. Mary even leaves the key at the reception before walking out.

Note: There is nobody around except them, but the area feels as if more people are around with other luggage, smoking cigarettes in ashtrays, and distant sounds of dishes being carried etc.

Mary wants to stare out at the lake one last time before they go, so after walking through the sunny garden whereupon reaching the lake, James puts the suitcase and camera down resting on one of the dock tables framing the two of them in it, and we have a cutscene with the two of them in it together staring out at the lake as the same similar scene of Mary asking James to promise her they'll come back there someday, but instead of in the bedroom, it's the dock.

Then trucking backwards away from them holding each other the camera switches off on it's own and we are backing away through the TV screen back into the empty hotel room.



JOKE ENDING -

As for the dog and UFO endings, how can one improve upon stupid perfection? I think they can just be left as is...
User avatar
leftshoe18
Subway Guard
Posts: 1658
Joined: 29 Jun 2008
Gender: Male
Location: In your fridge

Re: What if the game had Playable Endings? - SPOILERS

Post by leftshoe18 »

I'm not sure what this would add to the game other than a tedious section after the climax to stumble through.
jdnation
Historical Society Historian
Posts: 4369
Joined: 04 Mar 2007

Re: What if the game had Playable Endings? - SPOILERS

Post by jdnation »

leftshoe18 wrote: 01 Jan 2025 I'm not sure what this would add to the game other than a tedious section after the climax to stumble through.
I'd always felt that the endings in the classic SH games tend to be too brief following the final boss, without much time to allow the story to breathe a little before the credits roll. So not much 'reward' for players interested in the narrative aspect. Similarily, many modern games also tie in some additional wind-down gameplay as part of it.

An example would be The Last of Us, where following the final fight and boss, Joel and Ellie go through a short playable epilogue.

SH2 was better in this regard as some of it's common endings do feature a cutscene of James and Mary, then Mary's letter sandwiched in between, and the ending. So pacing wise as a wind-down and reflection, it was good, even if not playable.

However, what I've observed is that after you've heard Mary's letter once, or enough times, people tend to get bored of sitting through this part again, especially if the background is too static. Some might even feel it's boring the first time, but tolerate it as more a product of it's time.

This could be alleviated in two ways, one being to have the cutscene have a greater variety of significant things to look at, or simply less static imagery (Bloober actually did this for Leave and In Water), or have the player doing something, even if only navigating themselves forward, which alleviates listening to a lengthy voiceover. This was already done in the game prior to the final boss after defeating the 2 pyramid heads.

I think also that especially for the Remake, which is a longer, much heavier and atmospherically oppressive experience, and more action-oriented than the original to play through, that it could benefit from a gameplay cool-down rather than only a cutscene one.

Hence, I think that similarly to The Last of Us and many other narrative driven titles with some playable post-finale sections (ICO's beach, Persona's post boss wrap-ups, Nier Automata's credits, Metal Gear Solid's jeep escape, Resident Evil 4's jetski escape, Death Stranding's final delivery etc. immediately spring to mind), there ought to be a brief gameplay driven wind down sequence for the SH2 Remake that ties into it's primary endings, and ideally in a way that drives the player's resonance with the outcome.

Not that the game isn't fine as is, in my estimation, but I do think it's an idea worth exploring as a potential improvement to what is already there; not that my described scenarios above are necessarily the best or most interesting ways to do it.
User avatar
leftshoe18
Subway Guard
Posts: 1658
Joined: 29 Jun 2008
Gender: Male
Location: In your fridge

Re: What if the game had Playable Endings? - SPOILERS

Post by leftshoe18 »

That just sounds like giving the player busywork because you don't trust that their attention span will hold up through a few minute cutscene. I also don't understand how forcing a player to play through an on-rails walking section is any less "boring" than listening to a reading of the letter.
jdnation
Historical Society Historian
Posts: 4369
Joined: 04 Mar 2007

Re: What if the game had Playable Endings? - SPOILERS

Post by jdnation »

leftshoe18 wrote: 02 Jan 2025 That just sounds like giving the player busywork because you don't trust that their attention span will hold up through a few minute cutscene. I also don't understand how forcing a player to play through an on-rails walking section is any less "boring" than listening to a reading of the letter.
In a reductionist sense, yes, it is essentially a way to keep a greater majority of players interested.

But in an ideal sense, when narrative and gameplay can merge together cohesively, then that can create a much greater result.

For example - In both the original and the remake, once you defeat the final boss, the game requires the player as James to make the final kill/shot at a defeated Maria/Mary who can do nothing but lie there crying out. The remake literally guides the aiming reticule to her head if you try to aim elsewhere.

Would you reductively characterize that creative decision as "giving the player on-rails busywork"?

Would relegating that moment to only a cutscene be better necessarily? You could certainly do more with direction and close-ups, after all, the player has already overcome the more intense complex gameplay phases required on the boss...

But instead, there is a deliberate decision to have the gamer do the simplest mechanical thing in order to emphasize the narrative fact the the player/James is putting her out of her misery when she poses no danger, and is already dying and narratively implied would die if you just let her be; but you instead need to make that death happen sooner in order for James to move on with his life...

I do lean to the development philosophy that if something can be done narratively within the real-time engine and gameplay mechanics, then that is more ideal than a cutscene, as there are plenty of instances of resonance for players when it's done well, even if cutscenes do have their strengths.

So perhaps there were missed opportunities to do so with regards to the variety of endings.
User avatar
Jonipoon
Historical Society Historian
Posts: 1842
Joined: 06 Mar 2008
Location: Sweden
Contact:

Re: What if the game had Playable Endings? - SPOILERS

Post by Jonipoon »

I don't understand why a playable version of the Leave ending would feature a sunny Silent Hill, because it wasn't sunny in the first place. It has always been foggy, implying that James might still be "stuck" in Silent Hill.

Other than that, nice ideas.
I EAT GALAXIES FOR BREAKFAST.
jdnation
Historical Society Historian
Posts: 4369
Joined: 04 Mar 2007

Re: What if the game had Playable Endings? - SPOILERS

Post by jdnation »

In my mind, Leave is the "happiest" ending, giving James closure, forgiveness and leaving with Laura, so I thought it could use a lighter atmosphere; not full sunny, still foggy, just a tinge brighter, suggesting that the fog could be lifted soon.
User avatar
The Adversary
RESPECT
Posts: 20277
Joined: 19 Jul 2003
Location: Midwest Coast
Contact:

Re: What if the game had Playable Endings? - SPOILERS

Post by The Adversary »

jdnation wrote: 23 Jan 2025 In my mind, Leave is the "happiest" ending, giving James closure, forgiveness and leaving with Laura
Based solely on Henry's internal monologue, there is no "happy" ending for James: He "disappeared in Silent Hill a few years back. . ." so there's really no coming back for him.
This post is the property of its author and is not to be used elsewhere without explicit permission from the author.

. . . AND THAT'S THAT.

This is The Timeline.
This is My Shop.
This is the End.
User avatar
Chris Sunderland
Historical Society Historian
Posts: 5888
Joined: 24 Oct 2003
Gender: Male
Location: Room 311, making a noise complaint
Contact:

Re: What if the game had Playable Endings? - SPOILERS

Post by Chris Sunderland »

The Adversary wrote: 23 Jan 2025
jdnation wrote: 23 Jan 2025 In my mind, Leave is the "happiest" ending, giving James closure, forgiveness and leaving with Laura
Based solely on Henry's internal monologue, there is no "happy" ending for James: He "disappeared in Silent Hill a few years back. . ." so there's really no coming back for him.
I can't imagine that he could just go back to Ashfield or wherever with a random child and a missing wife and no one raising an eyebrow or three 😄.
...Your Saturday Savior...
User avatar
leftshoe18
Subway Guard
Posts: 1658
Joined: 29 Jun 2008
Gender: Male
Location: In your fridge

Re: What if the game had Playable Endings? - SPOILERS

Post by leftshoe18 »

Chris Sunderland wrote: 01 Feb 2025
The Adversary wrote: 23 Jan 2025
jdnation wrote: 23 Jan 2025 In my mind, Leave is the "happiest" ending, giving James closure, forgiveness and leaving with Laura
Based solely on Henry's internal monologue, there is no "happy" ending for James: He "disappeared in Silent Hill a few years back. . ." so there's really no coming back for him.
I can't imagine that he could just go back to Ashfield or wherever with a random child and a missing wife and no one raising an eyebrow or three 😄.
Agreed. Silent Hill 4 doesn't confirm James doesn't get out or doesn't get a happy ending. It just confirms that he disappeared from his old life.
User avatar
Jonipoon
Historical Society Historian
Posts: 1842
Joined: 06 Mar 2008
Location: Sweden
Contact:

Re: What if the game had Playable Endings? - SPOILERS

Post by Jonipoon »

^It doesn't confirm anything. Just because it doesn't confirm that James is still stuck in Silent Hill, you can't say that it automatically proves that he got out of Silent Hill and "disappeared from this old life". Both are just as likely, although I would argue that the latter is the least likely.

Because remember - Henry doesn't mention James only, he specifically mentions that both James and his wife disappeared in Silent Hill.
I EAT GALAXIES FOR BREAKFAST.
User avatar
leftshoe18
Subway Guard
Posts: 1658
Joined: 29 Jun 2008
Gender: Male
Location: In your fridge

Re: What if the game had Playable Endings? - SPOILERS

Post by leftshoe18 »

Jonipoon wrote: 02 Feb 2025 ^It doesn't confirm anything. Just because it doesn't confirm that James is still stuck in Silent Hill, you can't say that it automatically proves that he got out of Silent Hill and "disappeared from this old life". Both are just as likely, although I would argue that the latter is the least likely.

Because remember - Henry doesn't mention James only, he specifically mentions that both James and his wife disappeared in Silent Hill.
Sorry if I wasn't clear but among the ways he could have "disappeared from his old life" would include never leaving Silent Hill. I guess the better way to phrase it would be that he never went back to his old life.
User avatar
Chris Sunderland
Historical Society Historian
Posts: 5888
Joined: 24 Oct 2003
Gender: Male
Location: Room 311, making a noise complaint
Contact:

Re: What if the game had Playable Endings? - SPOILERS

Post by Chris Sunderland »

Jonipoon wrote: 02 Feb 2025 ^It doesn't confirm anything. Just because it doesn't confirm that James is still stuck in Silent Hill, you can't say that it automatically proves that he got out of Silent Hill and "disappeared from this old life". Both are just as likely, although I would argue that the latter is the least likely.

Because remember - Henry doesn't mention James only, he specifically mentions that both James and his wife disappeared in Silent Hill.
I mean it specifically confirms he doesn't return to his old life. Being stuck in Silent Hill or off raising Laura somewhere else is up to interpretation.
...Your Saturday Savior...
Post Reply