As a SH fan myself, Silent Hill will always be best when the peak optimal way to play the game is to never engage in combat, except when a boss battle forces you to engage in combat.

In the original SH2, even the tutorial fight was optional. You could get the plank and then just leave without fighting. Technically speaking, even boss battles don't need to be fought. The bosses will defeat themselves after a certain amount of time. Thematically speaking, this is way better than turning every random person that wanders into Silent Hill into a super soldier mass killer by the end of each game.

It also keeps the tension high. Combat every 2 seconds becomes tiresome and does not allow tension to build in the player. Silent Hill could build tension without enemies even being spawned in, but a good day to ruin this is to litter the game with combat encounters.

Considering one of the common refrains about the most famous game in the series, Silent Hill 2, is that the combat being crap is an important part of making you feel like a regular guy way out of your depth, I'd say they have right to feel concerned. There's a serious incongruity between "horror game" and "detailed combat system".

Though the mention of durability and weapon degradation implies that maybe you won't be able to smack your way out of every encounter.

"Hopefully they pull a Bloober and prove me wrong."

Is this a Gen Z reference I'm too Millennial to understand? Is this what getting old feels like?

What a waste of time of an article. I love people reporting on the game having "souls-like combat" and the only actual concerning detail they bring up is degradable weapons.

I watched the footage, there's a dodge and a counter, which can make it a little bit souls-like, but that's about it.

Just because it has a dodge button doesn't mean it's soulslike. Didn't Silent Hill 2 Remake have very similar combat? What's the problem?