Silence: The Whispered World 2 (usually marketed as just Silence) is a sequel to The Whispered World. Like The Whispered World before it, Silence is a traditional point-and-click adventure game designed by Marco Hullen and developed by Daedalic Entertainment, featuring beautiful hand-drawn 2D graphics.
War rages on. During an air raid in their hometown, 16-year-old Noah and his little sister Renie seek shelter in a bunker. There, not only are they protected from the deadly bombardment, but are also at the crossroads of a world between life and death: Silence. When Noah’s sister gets lost in Silence, he is forced to venture into this idyllic yet threatening world to find her.
Silence, however, bears its own scars of war and suffering. Dark creatures haunt towns and cities and ravage this once serene place between worlds. Only a small band of rebels stands against the looming menace. Now it is up to the siblings to save Silence and its fantastic inhabitants from impending doom and thus also save their own lives.
Join Noah and Renie on their exciting journey through Silence where an emotionally gripping story of contrasts between serenity and danger unfolds. Meet fascinating and likeable characters like Spot, the magical caterpillar who helps Noah and Renie on their way through Silence. And witness when the siblings discover that the only thing that can save them is their love for each other.
This game has the following tropes:
- Adults Are Useless: While Samuel and Janus are nice and willing to help Renie, they actually never manage to do something helpful, not even in situations of great danger. All the work remains to be done by Noah, Renie and Spot. Even Kyra, who is arrogant but seems to be the most capable of the rebels, causes nothing but problems by her actions.
- Alternate Self: When Noah realizes that he is not the king of Silence but Renie is the queen, he understands that he is not truly there. As this is Renie's Silence, created by her fantasy, he is just her imagination of Noah. Renie suggests he can be Sadwick instead, as he had been before. Noah accepts and quickly falls into Sadwick's attitude and mannerisms again - understandably so considering Sadwick was created to be his Silence persona in the first place.
- The terrible queen they want to cast from the throne to crown Renie as the rightful queen of Silence - turns out to be Renie herself, a dream version of her that lives caught in a mirror. Renie can destroy the mirror and the queen within it or repair the mirror and fuse with the queen.
- And You Were There: The children that Renie played with in the real world are guarding the gate in Chapter 3.
- Animal Companion: Spot, again. Also to a lesser degree: Horus.
- Anti-Frustration Features: The game offers a hint system and whenever the hotspot button is pressed, the game gives a clear objective (sometimes even adding the solution).
- Berserk Button: For Kyra, it's the destruction of Silence; for Noah/Sadwick it's Renie getting hurt and the False Queen gets angry when Renie still ignores that she and Noah are dying from the air attack in the real world.
- Big Bad: The False Queen.
- Big Brother Instinct: Noah shows this constantly, from the very first moment when he drags Renie to the bunker where they hide. He goes on to look for her in Silence when she gets lost at the beginning, defends her against anything that comes at her and would rather leave anybody else behind than Renie.
- Bittersweet Ending: Both endings count.
- Ending "Fix the mirror" has Renie believing Noah to be dead, so she fixes the mirror to repair Silence. All people of Silence get reverted back to what they were, including Sadwick. Renie stays in Silence as queen, hugging Sadwick. Meanwhile, Noah wakes up in the real world, about to be confronted with the death of his little sister.
- Ending "Shatter the mirror" has Renie deciding that a fake fantasy world isn't where she can stay. She destroys the mirror and thus returns to the real world. She wakes up and tries to shake Noah awake as well, only to find that the False Queen hadn't lied: he is dead. Renie cries and decides to tell the corpse of her older brother a story as it starts snowing.
- Cassandra Truth: No one believes Renie. In fact, most of the time, people don't even listen.
- Children Are Innocent: Renie easily ignores the Seeker mask's temptations to put it on when she first encounters some, using them as a bridge across a tar pit and to prop up a skull on occasion.
- CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: Chapter 2 has Noah give CPR to Kyra after pulling her out of a cocoon. That's when he goes for a more literal use of Magical Defibrillator by using the queen bee's tendrils.
- Crapsack World: Silence looks absolutely beautiful, but almost every sentient creature has been converted into Seekers by the Seekers and it's said that if the False Queen receives the missing shard of the Royal Mirror, it will get only worse.
- Cruelty Is the Only Option: You can't save Janus and Samuel, even though they never did anything wrong.
- Dying Dream: Whether it's this or All Just a Dream depends on the ending.
- Death of a Child: Two young children stuck in a bunker. One of them dies during an air raid. That's not even getting into all the danger they face in Silence, such as balancing over a lava pit, facing a Humanoid Abomination and having to sacrifice themselves for the other.
- Demoted to Extra: While still present, Sadwick is seen and played a lot less than Renie or Spot.
- Determinator: Sadwick may be a depressed, self-doubting clown, but he will get Renie and the shard to the throne room, no matter what.
- Disappeared Dad: Literally. The father that was part of the story in the previous game is nowhere to be found, with the children now living in an orphanage.
- Downer Beginning: The kids hide in an bunker while planes destroy the town with an air raid. The father from the previous game is apparently dead since both kids live in an orphanage. And then Noah wakes up, finding that his sister has disappeared...
- The Eeyore: Sadwick, again.
- Exact Words: Renie does this.Samuel: Renie, did you touch the mushrooms?!Renie: Not with my hands.
- Foreshadowing: A few.
- The choice in Shana's shack to either go with Spot or Noah.
- Seeing the dead children from the prologue at the port gate.
- Kyra repeating at every possible moment that she wants to bring peace to Silence.
- The voice of the False Queen in the masks and Seekers is identical to Remie's.
- Sadwick's story in the prologue.
- Gentle Giant: Samuel is this toward Renie, though he's actually one of the shortest characters.
- Getting Crap Past the Radar: Renie can lick on certain mushrooms in Silence that cause her sight to go fuzzy and added with some pretty colourful lights... remember, Renie is six, at best.
- God Save Us from the Queen!: The queen of Silence sends out terrible monsters who raid more and more of the country and are responsible for the disappearances of countless inhabitants of Silence. As it turns out, the monsters are the disappeared and changed inhabitants.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Sadwick. Depending on how one interprets the endings, then also either Noah or Renie.
- Hope Spot: Renie reaches the mirror with the shard, ready to return to the real world, only to find out that real Noah has died.
- Humanoid Abomination: The Seekers.
- I Can't Reach It: Renie is a six year old child and often has to depend on her older brother or Spot to reach objects.
- Jerkass: Kyra starts out as just a little arrogant. By the end of Chapter 2, she is threatening small Renie with her sword and in Chapter 3 almost dooms everyone by blocking the ship.
- Last Grasp at Life: The hand at the bunker door window before the bombs drop.
- Locked into Strangeness: When Kyra gets reanimated after being almost eaten by a massive queen bee, she gets a strand of white hair. Later, when Sadwick frees her from a freezing curse by giving her (substantially shortened) life candle, her hair turns fully white.
- MacGuffin: The shard of the Royal Mirror.
- Made of Iron: Spot. He can fall from immense heights, sit on lava, get chewed on by a dragon and the worst that a strong infection does is turn him green and cause him to sneeze.
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Noah is easily scared and intimidated while Renie is curious and brave. At one point she grabs a spear to stab a Seeker and sets it on fire while Noah always runs away and hides.
- Mood Whiplash: Chapter 3 is full of it. A fun little quest line to re-obtain the shard ends with everyone almost dying as Kyra blocks Sadwick and Renie from leaving in a boat as the Seekers are running in the door. A beautiful little flying scene gets disturbed by Sadwick sacrificing himself to the Seekers so Renie can get to the lighthouse. Even the puzzle to make signs out of the stars can get interrupted at any moment by Seekers climbing up and grabbing her.
- Mushroom Samba: The Rainbow Mushroom in the forest. Also the pollen of the flowers in front of Shana's door.
- Never My Fault: Renie does the comical version by setting a tar pit and poison gas on fire, only to say that she didn't mean to. Kyra is a dramatic version, putting the group into danger multiple times, simply because she wants everything to go her way, only to then put the blame on Sadwick and/or Renie.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Kyra. Even though she knows that only the rightful ruler can see themselves in the shard (which Renie does), the oracle Shana says that Renie has to go to the throne room with the shard and literally no one but Renie even understands the cryptic messages of Silence, she believes that she can't possibly leave the world in the hands of a child, multiple times almost dooming it.
- Not in This for Your Revolution: Both Sadwick and Renie are quickly over trying to help the Revolution once Kyra starts threatening them.
- Not Now, Kiddo
- Oh, Crap!: Sadwick getting turned into a Seeker.
- Only Fatal to Adults: The Seekers ignore Renie. Averted, it's not because she is a child, but because she is the only non-Silence person.
- Orange/Blue Contrast: Both Sadwick and Renie's outfits are mostly orange-red and blue-gray. Accordingly with their Red Oni, Blue Oni status, Renie is more red and Sadwick more blue.
- Please Wake Up: Averted with Sadwick who does this to Kyra in the form of slapping her before resorting to using electrified tentacles to save her life. It works.
- If Renie smashes the mirror, then she wakes up next to dead Noah. The player can make her shake him for as long as they want, but only by letting go of the button will the story continue by her mourning her dead brother.
- Rapid Aging: Mostly averted. To save Kyra, Noah has to bring her "candle of life" to her - he cuts it short in the process. While her life time is probably cut half by this, Kyra shows no signs of aging except a white streak in her hair.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Renie is more daring and wilder, doing most things spontaneously and with a lot of vigor. Sadwick on the other hand is calm and depressed, thinking his actions through and lacking passion.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Spot fills this trope to a T! While in The Whispered World he looked a bit weird, more an
Ugly Cute then, he now is the very embodyment of cuteness - Scenery Porn: All backgrounds are hand-drawn and absolutely gorgeous.
- Sibling Team: Noah and Renie. Subverted, only Renie is real. Noah is just Silence's version of him, so she names him Sadwick instead.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: If you ask Kyra, then the False Queen will have to get stabbed at least.
- Trailers Always Spoil: Averted. The trailer makes it seem like Sadwick is the main character, like Silence isn't a live-or-death world anymore and doesn't show either the False Queen nor the Seekers.
- Together in Death: The queen shows Renie that Noah died during the bomb attack. Renie is given the choice to stay in Silence as the queen and continue living a fantasy, having Sadwick at her side who is at least what remains of her brother, thereby choosing to remain between life and death while Noah, whose death was faked by the queen, wakes up alone in reality. Or she can return into the real world, being alive and conscious but alone because, if she lives, Noah truly dies. In both cases one of the siblings stays behind and can only find back to the other by dying themselves someday. A saying the siblings share hints on this subtly:Noah: "Don't forget what Dad always said: We are..."Renie: "...like two clouds in the wind."Noah: "No matter how far the wind drifts us apart..."Renie: "...we'll meet in the ocean."
- Tomato in the Mirror: After Renie collects the mirror fragment which only reflects the true ruler of Silence, Noah finds that while he can't see himself in the fragment, Renie can. This causes him to realize that he isn't the real Noah, but is rather a figment of Renie's imagination.
- Too Dumb to Live: Kyra. If she weren't so violently antagonistic starting in Chapter 2, then she, Janus and Samuel might have made it on the boat instead of getting overrun by the Seekers.
- Ugly Cute: The Mother in Chapter 1 and the Lumis in Chapter 3. Spot averts it.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: There are plenty of achievements that reward dying, getting hurt or doing obviously unhealthy things such as licking hallucinogenic mushrooms or tar pits.
- War Is Hell: What kicks off the plot. Noah and Renie hide during a bombing attack, and to distract his little sister, Noah tells her about Silence. The two of them are carried over to his fantasy world, probably in taking flight from the unbearable reality.
- Was Once a Man: The Seekers.
- Wham Line: When faced with the Seekers on the Lighthouse Island, Sedwick has the following options: Sacrifice yourself to help Renie get away or Nothing. Your only option is to allow Sadwick to get killed.
- The final speech of the False Queen has a few, but the biggest one would be:
False Queen: Take a good look. Noah is dead. - Would Hurt a Child: Renie possibly six. Kyra would still stab her for the shard.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Only the rightful ruler can end the terror of the False Queen.
- Youngest Child Wins: Renie is destined to become Queen, not Noah.
