Silent Hill: Ascension does not look like the game we’ve been holding out for

Silent Hill: Ascension has revealed a model new trailer, giving us a have a look at precisely what this dwell gameplay expertise will entail. And it doesn’t seem like the sport we’ve been holding out for. For a number of causes.

The primary being that, effectively, Ascension isn’t going to be an ordinary sport. The PR has been very clear with us about this – Silent Hill: Ascension will take the type of ‘an interactive streaming sequence’ by which the viewers determine the destiny of the characters, collectively, by bidding on them. Per the PR, “nobody is enjoying a personality” – so there isn’t any James Sunderland-type company right here. Does this sound eerily like a hobbled model of Supermassive Video games’ Till Daybreak and The Quarry? Sure.

You’re not mistaken for considering that, both. With some caveats. If somebody offered me the trailer for Ascension with no prior context or branding, I might’ve truthfully mistaken this trailer for one more Supermassive endeavour, maybe minimize by way of with just a little Netflix Bandersnatch. This isn’t a foul factor, contemplating Supermassive’s titles are equal components unnerving and enjoyable.

The Silent Hill: Ascension trailer introduces us to a number of foremost characters; as we see them flee in terror and catch glimpses of horrific monsters, it’s express that Ascension will discover their trauma. What occurred in these characters’ pasts for them to wind up right here? Will they be capable of withstand their trauma and escape? Or will they merely cross on their trauma to their kids? The trailer raises a whole lot of questions for gamers, however cemented one factor for me: this will’t be good.

I’m not denying that the format by which Silent Hill: Ascension is being delivered in can be an enchanting one to see unfold – a ‘actual time interactive system’ for viewers to determine what occurs subsequent, enjoying with format just like the Blair Witch of its day. I believe the difficulty right here revolves round Konami forgetting what made Silent Hill so particular, and easily slapping that branding label on its future video games to generate extra hype.

The unique Silent Hill titles centered on psychological horror, there’s little doubt about that. Extra particularly, how a personality carries their trauma with them, and in what methods it manifests. James Sunderland fought his interior demons within the type of Pyramid Head in Silent Hill 2, for instance. Sorry if that one was misplaced on you.

You would play everything of Silent Hill 2 and take it at face worth, with out even realising that the true horror at play was the unresolved trauma that James was carrying with him. When you do realise the journey that James is on, Silent Hill 2 all of a sudden turned all of the extra unnerving – it’s now not in regards to the bodily threats James is dealing with, however a way more actual, private horror he’s tackling as an alternative. You do not want a therapist to inform you why that, for many individuals, reaches previous the fabric world and tickles one thing rather more unsettling deep within the amygdala.

Group Silent captured lightning in a bottle with the unique Silent Hill trio; it was a time period by which horror was discovering its toes as a style, and Silent Hill 2 formed as much as be among the finest horror video games of all time. There was a stage of intrigue and thriller surrounding this nasty little sport due to the way it managed to get below its participant’s pores and skin so simply. You possibly can revive a sequence, and remake a sport, however you may’t recreate a second in time like that. Particularly not in the event you pull up all of the subtext in a cinematic trailer like tooth from a jawbone.

Silent Hill: Ascension seems to be an fascinating expertise to share alongside different Silent Hill followers, but it surely doesn’t seem like Silent Hill. Perhaps Bloober Group will blow my thoughts with the Silent Hill 2 remake, and I’ll eat my phrases.

However maybe it is price contemplating what would occur if Konami thought-about beginning a brand new sequence, reasonably than slapping the ‘Silent Hill’ seal of approval on a couple of horror video games that target trauma. Perhaps it’d have one other basic property within the making. And perhaps it’d cease tarnishing the title of the nice that is come earlier than.