Toluca Prison is a nightmare. Honestly, it’s arguably the most oppressive section of the Silent Hill 2 remake, trading the foggy streets for rusted bars and a sense of vertical dread that just doesn't quit.
If you’re stuck on the Silent Hill 2 remake prison puzzle, you aren’t alone. It’s not just one riddle; it’s a massive, multi-stage meta-puzzle involving weights, scales, and a literal executioner's gallows. Most players get tripped up because the game doesn't just give you the answers—it expects you to lug heavy chunks of iron across three different floors while dodging Bubble Head Nurses and those twitchy Lying Figures.
The whole thing revolves around the Scales of Justice in the Yard. You find them under a tarp, and they serve as the "hub" for the entire area. You’ll be coming back here constantly.
Finding the Weights: A Long Walk Through Hell
You start with nothing but the Starting Weight already on the scale. To progress, you have to unlock four specific doors: the Serpent, the Ox, the Boar, and the Dove. Each door leads to a new wing of the prison where a new weight is hidden.
The Heaviest Weight (Chapel)
This is your first stop. Head to the Chapel near the Armory. The Heaviest Weight is sitting right on the altar. It’s the easiest one to find, but it's the catalyst for everything that follows.
The Medium Weight (Death Row)
To get this, you need to open the Headless Serpent door.
- Scale Setup: Put the Heaviest Weight on the right and the Starting Weight on the left.
- Once inside, you’ll hit the Witness Room. You have to overload a generator by flipping switches.
- Standard Difficulty Switch Code: 6-4-5-1-3-2.
- Hard Difficulty Switch Code: 4-5-2-1-3-6-7.
Once the power blows, the door to the Death Chamber opens. Grab the Medium Weight off the electric chair. Yeah, it’s as grim as it sounds.
The Heavy Weight (Showers)
Now you need the Hornless Ox door.
- Scale Setup: Put the Heaviest Weight and Starting Weight on the left, and the Medium Weight on the right.
This leads you to the second floor and eventually the Showers. There’s a hole in the wall surrounded by insects. James has to reach in—his favorite hobby—to pull out the Heavy Weight. Be ready for a fight; grabbing this triggers an ambush.
The Light Weight (Warden's Office)
Next is the Eyeless Boar door.
- Scale Setup: Put the smallest (Starting) weight on the left and everything else on the right.
You’re heading for the Warden's Office. There’s a typewriter there. You need to type the word SICK to pop the drawer and grab the Light Weight.
The Lightest Weight (Basement)
The final door is the Wingless Dove.
- Scale Setup: Everything on the left except the Medium Weight (the red-stained one), which goes on the right.
This drops you into the basement (F Block). You’ll need to find a crawlspace near cell F15 to reach a control panel. Press the button to open cell F6, where the Lightest Weight is waiting. Careful in here—the door locks behind you for a scripted "scare" moment.
Balancing the Scales: The Final Solution
Once you have all five weights plus the starting one, you have to balance the needle perfectly on the Sword icon in the center. The tricky part? The scale is naturally weighted to the right, so it’s not an even distribution of numbers.
The Balancing Act:
- Left Scale: Heavy Weight, Medium Weight, Starting Weight.
- Right Scale: Heaviest Weight, Light Weight, Lightest Weight.
If you did it right, the statue shifts and hands you the Executioner’s Lever. This is where the real moral headache begins.
The Gallows Puzzle: Who is Innocent?
You take that lever to the gallows at the east end of the Yard. Six nooses, six poems, and six "crimes." This is the part where most people get confused because the game asks you to find the innocent person.
Except, "innocent" is a strong word for Silent Hill.
You have to match the top half of the poems with the bottom halves found on the tablets. Look for the story that describes someone acting out of necessity or self-defense rather than malice. On Standard difficulty, it’s usually Poem IV (the thief who stole to save a life) or Poem V (the son who killed his abusive mother).
In my playthrough, it was Poem V. The text mentions a "son at mother's mercy" and "either her or him." It’s basically the game asking you to judge their trauma.
How to finish it:
- Match all the poem segments.
- Identify the "innocent" story number.
- Walk to the corresponding noose and pull it.
If you choose correctly, you drop through the floor into the Labyrinth. If you're wrong, you fall into a pit of enemies and have to climb back up to try again. It’s a classic Silent Hill "punishment" mechanic.
That Annoying Bug Room Code
Before you even get deep into the weights, you might hit the "Bug Room" (the one with the keypad and the infinite Creepers). This isn't strictly part of the scale puzzle, but it stops progress cold.
There are no notes for this. You just have to look at the keypad. Three buttons will look "cleaner" or brighter than the others—usually 2, 3, and 9. The code is randomized for every single player. You just have to brute force the combinations of those three numbers:
- 239, 293, 329, 392, 923, 932.
One of those will work. Don't panic while the bugs bite James; just punch them in fast.
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Actionable Insights for your Playthrough
- Conserve Ammo: The Prison is long. You don't need to kill every enemy in the cell blocks; many can be dodged if you keep your flashlight off.
- Double Check the Dial: If a door won't open at the scales, look closely at the icon. The needle has to be exactly on the animal silhouette.
- The Rifle: Don't forget to grab the Armory Key in the Witness Checkpoint after you finish the generator puzzle. You’ll want the Rifle for what’s coming next.
- Ending Points: Some community members believe your choice at the gallows (which "sin" you forgive) might influence your hidden "moral" score for specific endings, though this is still being debated among dataminers.
By the time you've balanced those scales and pulled the noose, you've finished one of the most complex mechanical loops in the game. Make sure you've picked up all the "Strange Photos" in the area before jumping down that final hole, because there is no coming back once you enter the Labyrinth.