This Halloween, while many people will be out trick or treating, going to Halloween parties, or watching a bunch of horror movies, gamers like myself may become immersed in the first new entry in the Silent Hill franchise in nearly a decade, Silent Hill: Ascension. Announced last year, there’s been a lot of confusion as to what exactly Konami and Genvid Technologies’ experimental interactive series is. So, let’s take a look at what this project is and how you can explore and be a part of whatever Silent Hill: Ascension is attempting to do.
What is Silent Hill: Ascension?
Silent Hill: Ascension is an interactive streaming series/video game centered on the world of Silent Hill. The event is being produced by Genvid, a company that has had experience creating Massively Interactive Live Events, or MILEs, like Rival Peak and The Walking Dead: Last Mile, both of which were highly successful on Facebook. Silent Hill: Ascension is being marketed as an interactive streaming series wherein players will be presented with a series of cutscenes detailing the game’s plot with limited moments of interaction where the audience can decide how the plot progresses.
Genvid CEO Jason Navok has stated that there will be daily content for players to experience over the course of six months. This is a significantly faster pace and larger scope than the team’s previous titles, which ran for approximately 12 weeks with a new episode premiering each week. That being said, the extent and length of these interactive scenes are not fully known yet.
The plot has been kept under very tight wraps, with the only information coming from the official press release. It states that the plot is about two separate towns, one named Hope’s Junction in Pennsylvania that is trying to “rebuild itself after a fatal steel mill accident decimated its economy,” with players taking the role of Rachel Hernandez, the woman responsible for the accident. The series will also follow the story of a Norwegian fishing village called Stilledalen and the Johansen family, whose lives are “upended when their matriarch, Ingrid, dies under suspicious circumstances.” Whether the game will take place in Silent Hill or merely use the concepts of it as a springboard for an alternate setting, like what was attempted in Silent Hill 3 and Silent Hill Homecoming, is yet to be seen, as is how these two locations are connected, but that will almost certainly be revealed as the series progresses.
How Do I Play Silent Hill: Ascension?
As far as actually playing Silent Hill: Ascension, calling it a video game is a bit of a stretch. Genvid has stated on multiple occasions that the player’s interactivity will range from being able to decide how scenes will progress to solving various puzzles. These scenes will most likely be decided via a system that is similar to most choose-your-own-adventure games like Telltale’s The Walking Dead or other interactive streaming events like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. As for the extent of the puzzles, since we haven’t seen any footage of them, we can only speculate as to their complexity. Given the fact that interactivity will be limited to mobile devices, one can assume that the puzzles probably aren’t going to tax your phone’s operating system.
These new episodes will premiere daily on the Silent Hill: Ascension app as well as on Silent Hill: Ascension’s website so PC users can get in on the fun, with packaged compilations of episodes appearing on Sony devices, including the PS4 and PS5. As of this point though, it does not appear that console users will be able to interact with the series as those packaged episodes will show the results of that week’s decisions. Of note is the fact that the Google Play Store and App Store make mention of in-app purchases, though there has been no confirmation of what that may entail.
And that’s everything you need to know about Silent Hill: Ascension before it releases!
