Silent Hill: Every Playable Character Ranked Worst To Best

The first Silent Hill title became a classic and is still heralded as one of the greatest horror games ever made, but its sequel is considered by many to blow it out of the water.

One of the main attributes that inspire this preference is the complexity and brilliance of the leading man, James Sunderland.

Silent Hill 2 departed from the occult narrative of its original and opted instead to focus on a deep character study of grief, pain and trauma. It did so by taking James Sunderland and sending him to the town of Silent Hill after receiving a letter from his dead wife.

Everything within the game - including the monsters - acted as a manifestation of James' troubled past and the climax of his marriage. This made the game a profoundly personal experience, as the stakes all revolved around James fighting his inner demons.

All of this came together to make him an important and empathetic hero, as you essentially fought to save his sanity. The reveals of his various sins were sublime, and the balance between ambiguity and exposition was so strong that Sunderland felt like a stranger and a long-term friend in equal measure.