Konami's latest entry in the iconic psychological horror franchise, Silent Hill Ascension, has players face the most horrendous horror of all — unrestrained capitalism.
The first new Silent Hill game in over a decade, Silent Hill: Ascension, failed to impress with its release date announcement trailer in early October. Long-time fans of the franchise were worried that this would be just another attempt by Konami to cash in on the franchise's reputation. And they were right to be skeptical, because the game's premiere has been, to put it mildly, disastrous.
Silent Hill: Ascension is essentially an interactive TV show in the vein of "The Walking Dead" or "Until Dawn" where viewers get to vote on what happens next. Not a bad premise by itself, but there's a catch: Every player can give more weight to their vote with Influence Points. Which can be earned for free by solving puzzles and engaging with the game's other content! Or you can just pay real-life money to give your votes a boost, making individual votes meaningless and turning the whole thing into a plutocracy.
This is a real screenshot of Silent Hill Ascension. Anyone "excited" for this is completely out of their mind or just not aware of what it is. Spend money to vote on what weekly pre-rendered cutscene you get to watch on a streaming service. This is awful. pic.twitter.com/o4coCCnXRR
— Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) October 31, 2023
Of course this Silent Hill game has a Battle Pass too, in case it didn't sound like enough of a nightmare already. For just $20 you can start working towards such illustrious cosmetic rewards as the especially tasteful "It's Trauma!" sticker! Which you can pay Influence Points to put onto everyone's screen at any time during an episode, because players can clearly be trusted with not abusing this kind of feature during a tense moment.
There's also an in-game chat that takes up a large amount of screen space, where players could, in theory, discuss what is happening in the current episode and coordinate their votes. Except whichever spam and content filters were supposed to help with moderation evidently skipped work on launch day: The chat was quickly filled with offensive language and slurs before it was suddenly removed entirely.
you cannot type "scam" or "hideo kojima" into the silent hill ascension chat but you can drop a hard R.just in case you were wondering how things are going with that
— Punchy (@Succinct_Punchy) November 1, 2023
Silent Hill Ascension: The Silent Hill Game Nobody Asked For
Suffice it to say I'm not happy with how this game turned out. A choose-your-own-adventure serial was an interesting concept that could potentially even have meshed well with the Silent Hill IP. But a livestream of a lower-budget Dark Pictures clone viewed through a horrendously cluttered interface with an unmoderated chat is not exactly what I had in mind. And don't even get me started on the pay-to-vote monetization!
Silent Hill: Ascension is currently sitting at a less-than-healthy 1.8 Stars on Google Play. The game/show was apparently supposed to run for 16 weeks, but I somehow doubt that it will have much viewer retention for that runtime. This certainly isn't the grand Silent Hill revival long-time series fans were praying for.
It also bodes ill for the Silent Hill 2 remake currently in development. If Konami thought that this game was an acceptable entry in the franchise, what all-too-familiar horrors do they have in store for us next? Even Silent Hill fans might be better off looking for their next horror fill elsewhere.