‘Silent Still 2’ Makes You Sit With its Jarring Terrors

Silent Still 2 captures the frightening feeling of sleep paralysis during a nightmare, leaving you stuck watching as scary things close in.

You play as some sort of hobbyist ghost hunter, exploring an abandoned school for kicks as you look for proof of the paranormal. After meandering through the ruined halls and plunking yourself down to hassle the spirits of the dead for a bit, you find that something answers you back. After a bit of a scary jog back out of the school, you head home for a little rest. Thing is, whatever ghost you were annoying has decided to follow you home. And it loves nothing more than to come after you when you can’t move.

Being stuck in place while waiting for something to creep up on you drives the dread through the ceiling as you play through this game. There are many periods where you can’t move your body and can only peek around your environment. Using sounds and minor changes to the environment, the games continues to ramp up your discomfort and fear, always seeming like it’s about to finally leap out and kill you. The game keeps pushing its jump scares and playing with their timing, though, leaving you at that terrified edge waiting for your death to finally arrive. It hints at something just standing there, ready to pounce. It shows a silhouette of something that makes you too scared to look away as you keep expecting to die. It draws these moments out as you sit there, unable to move.

Silent Still 2 excels at this slow build into its scares, always playing with the timing of when the shock arrives. Sometimes it feels interminable and you almost beg for the thing to just kill you. Sometimes it just jumps you over and over when you’re not prepared. No matter what, the game does an excellent job at taking you by frightening surprise each time.

Silent Still 2 is available now on itch.io and Steam.

About The Author

Joel Couture

Joel has been covering indie games for various sites including IndieGames.com, Siliconera, Gamasutra, Warp Door, CG Magazine, and more over the past seven years, and has written book-length studies on Undertale and P.T.. Joel is constantly on the lookout for digital experiences that push the boundaries of what games can be, and seeks to delve into the creative process, meanings, and emotion labor that goes into the work of artists worldwide.