Bloober Team wants you to know it never said Silent Hill 2 is done, no matter what Google Translate says
Update: A Polish-speaking reader reached out on Twitter to add a bit of context to the original Bankier.pl interview. Gehirknipsulat (opens in new tab) clarified that “the word ‘technically’ in Polish doesn’t have this particular meaning as it does in English, It only means “on a technical/mechanical level, relating to technology”. So, while Google wasn’t completely off-base when it translated the phrase “technicznie gotowy” to “technically ready,” that translation adds a shade of meaning in English—that the game is ‘pretty much done’—that’s absent in Polish.
They also noted that Babieno follows up that statement by saying “It doesn’t mean the game is finished, but we’re close”.
Original story: Bloober Team has poked its head up to let us all know that no, actually, the Silent Hill 2 remake isn’t on the verge of release mere months after its official announcement back in October (opens in new tab). In a post to Twitter, the studio behind the upcoming SH2 remake said that some of its recent comments had been “taken out of context” and subject to “inaccurate translations,” and that it did not, in fact, say Silent Hill 2 was “ready for release”.
The statement follows an interview with studio president Piotr Babieno in Bankier.pl (opens in new tab) last week. In that interview, Babieno seemed to say (via Google Translate) that the Silent Hill 2 remake was “technically ready,” and appeared to suggest that the studio reckoned it would sell around 10 million copies of it, a staggering amount.
It turns out machine translation may have led us astray on this one. While I’m fairly sure the translation of “technically ready” is accurate in a literal sense—I can (just about) speak Russian, and the Polish phrase “technicznie gotowy” is very similar to the Russian for ‘technically ready’—Bloober is emphatic that doesn’t mean the game is on the verge of release. It also says the notion that Babieno predicted 10 million copies sold is just straight-up wrong, a product of wonky translation.
The studio said that it felt the need to “take the floor” and comment publicly on the issue, even though—like most companies—it generally prefers not to “comment on rumours,” clarifying that it is “not true that we have announced that Silent Hill 2 is ready for release,” and that the 10 million figure referred to the “potential success of the types of games [Bloober] will be focusing on in future”.
So stand down, folks. Bloober Team says it’s “aware that players are waiting for more information about Silent Hill 2,” and that Konami will share it “as soon as such information becomes available”. Which isn’t today, I suppose.
I’m not sure how I feel about the Silent Hill 2 remake. I’d like to stay cautiously optimistic, but I’ve not been bowled over by any Bloober Team games I’ve played so far. Bloober promises to stick close to the original (opens in new tab), which might alleviate some fans’ concerns, but we’ll just have to wait and see with this one. I’ve never had a chance to play Silent Hill 2, so I hope the studio pulls it off.