Silent Hill 2 Remake Dev Bloober Team Knew It Had to Evolve After Releasing The Medium

Bloober Team has admitted it knew it had to "evolve" after releasing The Medium, a decision which led to the development of bigger games such as the Silent Hill 2 remake and the upcoming Cronos: The New Dawn.

Cronos director and producer Jacek Zieba told IGN that The Medium, which arrived in 2021 as a psychological horror adventure game alongside a Metascore of 71 on Metacritic, became a turning point for the studio as it looked to make bigger and better games.

"I think after The Medium it was very clear to us that we needed to evolve," Zieba said. "It was like, 'let's end the chapter of the adventure games.' Layers of Fear, Observer, and The Medium, [games that were] strange, experimental, with fixed camera tools. 'Okay, let's finish with that.'

"We also want to evolve, so let's go into survival horror, let's create something of our own, something different than other games in the genre in terms of world, story, and also gameplay. Let's create another game of our dreams."

The Silent Hill 2 remake was somewhat of a coming out party for Bloober Team to show it could make a big budget survival horror adventure. It arrived October 8 to glowing critical reception and strong sales, and Bloober Team is open to making more Silent Hill games too, either remakes or something completely fresh.

But the "game of our dreams" mentioned by Zieba is Cronos, a sci-fi survival horror set in an unforgiving post-apocalyptic future in 1980s Poland. This will be the true test for Bloober Team as it looks to solidify itself as a developer capable of mainstream releases without having the framework of Silent Hill 2, one of the most beloved horror games of all time, to build upon.

In our 8/10 review of the Silent Hill 2 remake, IGN said: "Silent Hill 2 is a great way to visit – or revisit – one of the most dread-inducing destinations in the history of survival horror."

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.