Silent Hill fans have been treated to a short inside look at the upcoming interactive streaming series Silent Hill Ascension, but it's left some with doubts on the project.
Since it was first announced in October, there's been little confirmed on the plot of Ascension other than it being described as "an exploration of intergenerational trauma" by developer Genvid Entertainment.
A new video from IGN delves a bit deeper into the themes of Ascension and it goes heavy on the trauma. Shiaw-Ling Lai, director of production at Genvid, describes the premise of the original Silent Hill games as "how somebody's individual trauma and unresolved issues can become very real threats and monsters that can hurt you". Lai says Genvid's direction seeks to explore trauma "across a broader lens" - how could unresolved trauma affect the community around you and your descendants?
Shanon Ingles, lead writer of co-developer Martian Brothel, describes Silent Hill as "a beautiful but disturbing meditation on our human experience of trauma, guilt and fear, and how difficult it is to work our way through that". It's easy to "get lost in the fog of our own trauma," Ingles says, "to be haunted by what has happened to us and what we've done".
How this manifests is, in Ascension's interpretation of these themes, literal fog and literal beings haunting us down for our trauma. Reaction to the new information revealed in the video is mixed in the Silent Hill community, as many feel that Ascension is missing what made the original games interesting.
Gone is the lore on The Order, the religious cult which set so many of the titular town's events in motion - instead, here's the physical fog to show us how hard it is to navigate through trauma. Some fans are pointing out the heavy-handedness that's being used to illustrate the trauma theme, and others are doubting whether Ascension really understands the Silent Hill which was presented to us in the games.
Ascension's focus on personal trauma, and in particular its effect on others, will take the form of "collective delusion", says Martin Montgomery, creative director at Genvid. "This is not just localised to one person," he explains, "an entire town is experiencing this shared delusion."
The deviation from Silent Hill's depictions in the games and the unsubtlety that's being used to hammer home the point of trauma is causing fans to remain sceptical of Ascension, which is slated for release later this year.
Ascension forms one part of Konami's big comeback for the Silent Hill series, including a Silent Hill 2 remake.
