Over these past week I “participated” in the release of a brand new and ambitious horror game called Silent Hill Ascension, set in the iconic universe of the Silent Hill video game franchise. From the get go, it’s a significant departure from the well-known Silent Hill survival horror gameplay style, moving towards a more Supermassive Games-style interactive storytelling akin to titles like Until Dawn, The Dark Pictures Anthology, and games such as The Quarry.

However, the format is, in fact, much more unique. It doesn’t provide the same experience as those games where there’s a small gameplay element involving direct character control or even rendering graphics using your hardware. The Silent Hill Ascension app or website functions more like a streaming service, akin to Netflix or Disney+. It serves as a platform for players to engage in the narrative, watch clips, scenes, and episodes of the story. This format resembles Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, but with added interactivity and a social media touch. It’s an amalgamation of gaming, Netflix, and Twitch, sprinkled with microtransactions.

It truly offers a one-of-a-kind experience but, ultimately, proves detrimental to the overall Silent Hill experience. The story fails to engage, and the daily release of long and drawn-out scenes doesn’t create the same lasting impact as a traditional series.

Moreover, affecting the narrative is challenging as it requires collective effort for all choices – essentially, votes. Even if you purchase influence points with real cash, you can’t exert direct influence as you would in a typical interactive game. In those games, choosing between options like A, B, or C is an actual choice made by the player. In Silent Hill Ascension, it’s more like casting a vote. No matter how much you desire the outcome represented by choice A, it won’t happen if choice C has one million more votes.

However, after the series finale which is expected in around six months, there’s the promise of a New Game Plus speedrun with canonical outcomes disabled, featuring alternate story branches and deleted scenes. So, I find myself more excited about the series concluding and the game being released as a singular experience for everyone.

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Originally posted on TapTap.