Silent Hill Ascension is a new "live real-time interactive series" launching in 2023.
Amid the deluge of new Silent Hill projects announced today - which include a Silent Hill 2 remake, an entirely new project called Silent Hill f, a Silent Hill 2 movie, and something called Silent Hill Townfall from Annapurna Interactive - is this curious collaborative effort from interactive livestream platform Genvid Technologies, Dead by Daylight studio Behaviour Interactive, and DJ2 Entertainment, which specializes in adapting video games for film and TV.
The brief footage we saw of Silent Hill Ascension shows a probably horrific creature armed and armored and shrouded in darkness, while online text conversations flash onto the screen intermittently. Assuming those are examples of ways we'll interact with the game as a shared audience, it seems we'll bear witness to some pretty awful things and be able to chat and make decisions with other players around in real-time. "Face your trauma together," reads an ominous message displayed at the end of the trailer.
"For over 20 years Silent Hill has haunted my memory, and lately I enjoy watching streamers playing Silent Hill with their fans," said Genvid CEO Jacob Navok. "We love the feeling of being scared together, of experiencing fear with friends. It's why watching horror films in the theater is so fun. Silent Hill Ascension takes that feeling of communal fear to a massive scale."
Bad Robot Games art director Chris Amaral said Silent Hill Ascension maintains the "tone and feeling" of Silent Hill while adding its own unique twist of an "oppressed tormented morose dimension of reality." Amaral also said the art style will be a "fresh take on the brand," with creature designs inspired by the personal traumas and internal demons of the characters' past lives.
Again, we didn't get a whole lot of footage today, and it's unclear whether there will be any actual gameplay elements at all. However, it has been confirmed that decisions you and others make will be "life and death" and affect the outcome of the story. Filmmaker and Bad Robot CEO JJ Abrams described the game as "a wild, epic, and innovative new way to immerse yourself in the horrors of Silent Hill."
Silent Hill Ascension will "go live" in 2023.
Find out which Silent Hill game made it on our list of the best horror games ever made.
