A big reason why the early Silent Hill games often felt so unsettling and disorienting was because there was very little in the way of real-time feedback to figure out exactly where the player was in the world. However, it turns out that the developers behind the beloved 2001 horror classic Silent Hill 2 actually did stick in a surprisingly robust mini-map tool along with a “Save Anywhere” feature, but the criteria required to unlock said features was so obscure that they weren’t discovered until now.
According to Twitter user punk7890, pressing a very specific series of button inputs while playing Silent Hill 2 activates a mini-map that appears in the top right corner of the screen. The mini-map can also be cycled between four different display types based on player preference, proving that it wasn’t just a last-minute throwaway feature. A second series of button inputs can also unlock the ability to save your game at any time, not just at designated save points.
Of course, as punk7890 also notes, the mini-map and “Save Anywhere” features can’t be enabled in a fresh new Silent Hill 2 save file even if the button sequences are inputted correctly. First, a player has to reach the “Dog Ending,” a hidden non-canon joke ending that can be reached by fulfilling some very specific criteria during a standard Silent Hill 2 playthrough. Once the Dog Ending has been reached, the player can start up a new game and access the hidden features (assuming they correctly enter the proper button inputs of course).
Also, it seems that the hidden features can only be access in the original PlayStation 2 version of Silent Hill 2. If you’re playing the more recent Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 re-release, you’ll have to make do without a mini-map or the ability to save anywhere you like.
If you’re the sort who enjoys games that have the potential to unnerve or frighten you, you might also want to read about Fallout 76’s Mega Sloth monster or the new Wolfhunter DLC for The Elder Scrolls Online.