Silent Hill: Ascension revealed, promises fans a chance to “shape Silent Hill canon forever”

Announced during the Silent Hill Transmission event, Konami unveiled a brand new game in the survival horror series called Silent Hill: Ascension. The title, which is currently slated to launch sometime in 2023, will be developed as a joint venture between Genvid, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot Games, Dead by Daylight developer Behavior Interactive, and DJ2 Entertainment.

Related: Bloober Team’s Silent Hill 2 Remake takes fans back to that spooky town

Billed as a “live, real-time interactive series” where players can cooperatively determine the outcome of each episode, players can participate in scenes depending on choices made as the series unfolds. Genvid CEO Jacob Navok stated that the project’s goal is to bring the “communal fear” of watching a horror movie to “a massive scale.” Notable Hollywood director J.J. Abrams (Lost, Star Wars: The Force Awakens) added that this title is “a wild, epic, and innovative new way to immerse yourself in the horrors of Silent Hill.” Judging by these quotes, the new massively multiplayer TV series, for lack of a better term, could be like a whole crowd controlling a playthrough of Until Dawn or a classic adventure game such as Day of the Tentacle.

This is not anything entirely new, as there have been Twitch streams where the chat can control actions in the game from viewers typing commands or donating points and actual money to do something. The potential for this kind of experience to blend the social aspects of Twitch or Discord with a live-running episode of a show is something that could prove to be a new way for streaming services to entertain audiences.

Bad Robot Games art director Chris Amaral claimed that the game would maintain the same tone and feeling that fans know and love from the franchise, and add “a twist of an oppressed, tormented, and morose dimension of reality.” Amaral also mentioned the monsters being representations of personal traumas and internal demons of characters’ past lives. While lots of the Killers featured in Dead By Daylight are basically riffs on horror movie tropes, the creativity by Behavior Interactive could end up giving us a Silent Hill monster as memorable as Pyramid Head.

Not much is known about how this will play out with millions of players participating, but those interested can sign up at the official website for more details about the title.