The Silent Hill 2 Remake Photos Puzzle was finally solved and it shocked the entire community

It’s been almost a month since Silent Hill 2 Remake was released. The game, available on Windows PCs and PlayStation 5, has received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics and players alike and has also been praised for bringing the once-popular survival horror back to the mainstream.

For those who played the original Silent Hill 2 – which is still available on Windows PCs – you know just how many puzzles this beloved game has. Silent Hill 2 Remake doesn’t shy away from them but brings additional ones, such as the Photos Puzzle.

This one, already touted as very hard, required players to find a series of photos scattered throughout Silent Hill. Many of them can be found in remote areas, and they feature a number, a message, and, obviously, a photo of a certain situation related to this game series.

Well, after almost one month of thousands of hours spent deciphering the puzzle, it has been solved. This Reddit user, specifically, found all the Photos, read all the clues, and came up with the answer.

YOUVE BEEN HERE FOR TWO DECADES

As stated by the Reddit user, this is the message you’ll get if you solve this puzzle on your own. More specifically, you’ll get to that message if you count things within each photo, count that number across the message found on each of these photos, and get a letter from each.

For example, the first photo has six windows and the message “SO MANY PEOPLE HERE.” The letter would be the Y in “many” since it’s the sixth one.

You can check out the Reddit post for a deeper explanation of this fascinating puzzle.

The solution to the puzzle was then validated by Bloober Team’s Mateusz Lenart, the Creative Director and Lead Designer of Silent Hill 2 Remake. On X, he said he was afraid the Photos puzzle might be too hard to decipher.

🤭 I knew it wouldn’t stay hidden for long! (There was a theory in our company that the puzzle might be too hard 😜) I really wanted to make it subtle when I was painting those photos…
I think the timing couldn’t be better for you to solve it.
Congratulations!

So, what does the YOUVE BEEN HERE FOR TWO DECADES mean? Some agree it might play into a loop theory that says that James Sunderland, the game’s main character, has been trapped in Silent Hill for decades. Others agree the puzzle might refer to the players and the community, who have been waiting for the Silent Hill 2 Remake for 2 decades. Either way, it’s a fun Easter Egg.

Silent Hill 2 Remake has been critically and commercially successful, shocking many—both the Silent Hill community and the critics—especially after the franchise’s poor reception of the latest game of this franchise – The Short Message, released earlier this year.

It is said to be a contender for Game of the Year. It sold over 1 million copies in just three days, making it the most successful release of the beloved horror franchise.

Bloober Team, the studio responsible for the game, said they’re open to working on remakes of the other original Silent Hill games: Silent Hill, Silent Hill 3, and Silent Hill 4: The Room. Needless to say, after the success of Silent Hill 2, we’re excited.

Have you collected all the Photos yet?