It seems like Konami’s foundational horror anthologySilent Hillis ready to enter a new phase with the announcement of several games, includingSilent Hill: Ascension. TheSilent Hillseries has been a solid addition to the horror genre for decades, but it’s been a little quiet of late. With the reveal of aSilent Hill 2remake and a brand new mainline entry entitledSilent Hill f, the franchise is coming back strong after a hiatus, butSilent Hill: Ascension’s ambitious new formula has taken fans by surprise.
The brief glimpse ofSilent Hill: Ascensionduring the highly anticipatedOctober 2022Silent HillTransmission eventraised a few questions, and there are still lots of mysteries around how the game will actually function. However, the upcoming title, which is a collaboration between Genvid, Bad Robot Games, Behaviour Interactive, and dj2 Entertainment, certainly looks intriguing. In what appears to be a natural evolution of what games likeThe QuarryandUntil Dawnintroduced,Silent Hill: Ascensionwill be making horror storytelling even more interactive, for better or worse.
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Silent Hill’s New Interactive Approach
Chris Amaral, Art Director at Bad Robot Games, insisted thatSilent Hill: Ascensionwill “maintain the tone and the feelingthat fans have come to love from the franchise,” even if the overall gameplay will be vastly different. This will be good news for players who love the previous titles, but still want to see the series grow and evolve, as well as push the boundaries for horror gaming. Others involved in the title, like CEO at Genvid Jacob Navok, have also reiterated that this will be a “new kind ofSilent Hill,” and thatSilent Hill: Ascensionwill be “an experience that [players] haven’t seen up until now.”
This feels true not just for the franchise, but for horror games in general. Players may only have had a very small glimpse into whatSilent Hill: Ascensionwill entail, but the game’s tagline of “face your trauma together” opens up so many possibilities for interactive gaming. Gaming can typically be a solitary experience, particularly when players are working their way through a story rather than facing off in PvP multiplayer matches.Silent Hill: Ascensionwill be looking to shake this up, creating a completely interactive media project that allows players to experience the scares simultaneously.
How Silent Hill: Ascension Evolves Horror Games
There have been decision-based stories in horror games before, like Telltale’s award-winningThe Walking Deadseries. Players could influence the outcome of the game and help shape the stories, but while it felt like there were incredibly high stakes at times, gamers were still only able to play through the various strands of the developer’s narrative.Games likeThe QuarryandUntil Dawncontinued to evolve this trend, ensuring that players could have completely different playthroughs that depended on their decisions and the fates of the entirely disposable cast.
Silent Hill: Ascensiontakes this another step further, and will be even more hands on as gamers take on the responsibility of not only choosing how the story plays out, but what thefuture canon of theSilent Hillseriesis. This democratizes the storytelling of video games in a way that hasn’t been explored before, and will let everyone get involved and shape the world ofSilent Hillin their own way. Fans will be able to be an integral part of the series while engaging in an exciting, innovative way to immerse themselves. Kavok’s assertion that it will “revolutionize what horror means in interactive media” is bold, butSilent Hill: Ascensionmight just pull it off.
