Late in Silent Hill 2 Remake, James makes his way into one of the strangest and most intense locations in the game: Toluca Prison. The dark and frightening location in the original game includes the gallows, one of the game’s most iconic puzzles, where players are tasked with identifying which of six criminals is innocent based on the descriptions of the crimes.
The gallows puzzle, or what might call the hangman or noose puzzle, makes a return in the remake, but in a different form. Here, you need to piece together the stories of each crime to find the innocent person. The puzzle is mixed together with one pertaining to the scales of justice, which you can only solve by scouring the prison to find weights you can place on the scales.
Finding the weights, placing them correctly, and figuring out the stories of the accused is a daunting task that spans the entirety of the prison level, but we’ve got all the information you need to help you solve every aspect of it. Of course, if you’d rather figure things out on your own, this guide contains puzzle spoilers for Silent Hill 2 Remake, but if you’re having trouble, read on for more.
You’ll find the weights and hangman’s noose puzzles in the prison yard on the first floor. Ignore the gallows for now and concentrate on the scales, which you can use to open four different doors on the first floor of the prison. You’ll need more weights to access them, though.
First, head to the chapel at the opening of the first block of cells and next to the Armory where you start in the prison. On the altar there, grab the Heaviest Weight.
Return to the scales and place the Heaviest Weight on the right side and the small weight on the left side to open the Headless Serpent door.
Make your way through the Death Row section and overload the generator to access the room with the electric chair, where you’ll find the Medium Weight, stained red with blood.
Back at the scales, put the Heaviest Weight and the small weight on the left and leave the Medium Weight on the right side to open the Hornless Ox door. Head there to get up to the second floor of the cell blocks and explore until you can make your way into the Showers.
At the back of the Shower room is a hole in the wall that James will have to stick his hand in, but your reward will be the green gunk-covered Heavy Weight. Beware that you’re in for a fight: Getting the weight will trigger an alarm that will cause all the previously dormant monsters in this room to attack you. It’s possible to just run for it, though.
You can now use the scales to open the Boar door. Place the smallest weight on the left plate and all three of the others on the right.
Through the Boar door, you’re headed for the Warden’s Office. On the desk in the middle of the room is a typewriter that demonstrates how badly the warden was losing his mind. To solve this puzzle, type in the word SICK–that’ll open the drawer in the desk and give you the Light Weight.
The last door you can open at the scales is the Wingless Dove door. Place all the weights except the red one on the left side of the scales; leave the red weight on the right side.
The Wingless Dove door takes you into the prison’s basement. Explore until you find some cells filled with spikes. Once you’re able to get into one, the Lightest Weight will be waiting for you on the ground at the back.
For the final solution to the scales, you need to balance them so the needle is pointing at the sword icon in the center. The trouble is, the scales are slightly out of balance, meaning that the default setting with both sides empty tips slightly to the right. To get the correct balance, place the Heaviest Weight, the red weight, and the Lightest Weight on the right side, and the green weight, the Medium Weight, and the small weight that was at the scales when you first arrived on the left side. That will put the needle right in the middle, making the statue of Justice move to present you with the Executioner’s Lever.
Hangman’s Noose Poems at The Gallows
Now you can head to the gallows. Go up the stairs and use the lever, and you’ll now be able to read six stories written by the criminals assigned to each of the six nooses. The trick here is to match the top half of each criminal’s poetic account with the corresponding bottom half.
Poem I mentions a fire that killed both sisters and children; match it with the plate that reads, “Though the young ones’ deaths I mourn, their tormentors are no more. On young souls the nuns did prey. Took their innocence away.”
An embezzler is the subject of Poem II, who talks about stealing from the wealthy and having their “reasons.” The match also mentions reasons, reading: “What are those reasons, you might ask. The truth allow me to unmask. I see, I crave, I need, I take. ‘Tis all the sense it needs to make.”
In Poem III, the perpetrator is a kidnapper, and the father of the victim. The plate that goes with it reads, “My only daughter, joy of days, they wanted to take you away. Hush, little baby, and be still, if I can’t have you, no one will.”
The criminal of Poem IV talks about cutting a rusty chain and sneaking into a building at night: a burglar. Match it with “I departed with great haste, leaving not a single trace. Ever faithful to my creed, all is right which feeds my greed.”
Poem V is about a person who murdered their mother, but the second half explains the motive: “You broke my legs, I couldn’t walk. You pulled my teeth, I couldn’t talk. You fed me pills to slow my mind. I took your life ‘fore you took mine.”
Poem VI describes waiting to ambush and murder someone, and the matching poem suggests a motive. The match reads, “In truth, I did not hesitate, as my blade sealed the poor man’s fate. He knew the rules, they are quite clear, go against me, your end is near.”
With all the poems completed, you now have to make a judgment about which of the condemned criminals was actually innocent. The answer, of course, is the person who murdered their mother to stop her abuse, Poem V. Turn around and pull on the noose marked V to complete the puzzle and move on to the next, even trippier portion of Silent Hill 2.
There are many more puzzles and confusing sections in the Silent Hill 2 remake. For more help with Bloober Team’s remake, use ourSilent Hill 2 Remake guides hub.
