Jeremy Blaustein, translator and localizer of many beloved franchises such as Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, Castelvania, and Shadow Hearts, has expressed his vexation over the perceived injustice of not being properly credited in the recently announced Silent Hill 2 Remake. At the very least, he wants to be acknowledged for the voluminous amount of work he has given not just to the translation, but the identity of the game itself.In an email to Gamesradar, Blaustein elaborated over the specifics of working on Silent Hill 2 as a game intended mainly towards a western audience. Because of that initial intention, there was no Japanese voiceover work, and he had to arrange the auditions and handle the decision-making over casting. He even had a voice in directing the dramatic performances in the motion capture sessions because of the team's lack of English knowledge, putting even more question marks over Konami's total lack of recognition to his involvement in presenting SIlent Hill 2 in the way its fan base loves and remembers.
Even though Jeremy touches on the topic of financial compensation in his original tweet, he clarified that he is not actually seeking for anything of that sort. He just wants to get what he believes he rightfully deserves. Even if it was just a translation work, it's very tricky to convey Japanese sentence patterns and gimmicks in a way that would seem natural for native English speakers. For a high contextual language like Japanese, a literal translation almost never works, and localizers have to direct and write their own scripts to convey the ideas of the Japanese stories.
But in Silent Hill's case, even the script's accompanying voice work was in part handled by Blaustein, and if Konami wants Bloober Team to stay faithful to the product — like reporter Imran Khan has brought up before — then it may be in the company's best interest to contact him for consultation over how the remake should be presented to the modern English-speaking audiences.
Konami is releasing Silent Hill 2 Remake as a PlayStation 5 exclusive for a year, followed by a PC release shortly after. The company has not elaborated on many details regarding the plot or the gameplay, but it is collaborating with the original game artist, Masahiro Ito, and composer, Aikra Yamaoka, to preserve the authenticity of the experience.