Team Silent’s latest project (in a series of many new, upcoming projects), Silent Hill: Ascension, is kind of a doozy to explain. It will be a streaming series, yet animated in a very video-gamey style with mo-cap actors, and similar to a video game, the viewer will be able to make choices within it.
You won’t be the only one, however: Millions of other viewers will be weighing in, too, meaning the show will evolve over time based on how viewers decide to “judge” the characters in it.
The show will be hosted through interactive streaming “event” service Genvid, which describes the show thusly:
“I can feel it. Your guilt. So thick it chokes the air. You want to know how you can escape from this place. But you can’t… any more than you can escape yourself… and the pain you carry. It fills you up. Like a sickness. A disease, that you pass on to everyone you meet. Everyone you love.”
SILENT HILL: Ascension follows multiple main characters from locations around the world tormented by new and terrifying SILENT HILL monsters. Lurking in the shadows, these monsters threaten to consume people, their children, and entire towns as they’re drawn into the darkness by both recent murders and long suppressed guilt and fears.
In SILENT HILL: Ascension the actions of millions will determine the outcome. By the time the last scene streams, which characters have survived? Will those who are left be redeemed, damned, or suffer? Even the project’s creators do not know how SILENT HILL: Ascension will end. Instead, the character’s fates are in the audience’s hands.
Genvid with Team Silent
Conceptually, it’s reminiscent of a few different things. The first thing that comes to mind is Netflix’s interactive Black Mirror film Bandersnatch, in which you directly control how the story progresses using your remote. It also reminds me of some choice-based adventure games that use an internet connection to show you how other players made decisions, such as The Quarry. And, of course, the plot itself seems to hearken back to how Silent Hill 2 mapped out the town’s lore: It can sometimes draw people with dark pasts in, and then “punish” them accordingly.
However, I’ve never heard of a show that’s directly impacted by viewers as it’s airing—at the very least, not a show like this, with a plot and sense of narrative direction. Reality TV shows technically function this way, but it’s like apples and oranges. Polygon spoke to Genvid CEO Jacob Navok to get some more details, but his answers only raised more questions—questions that the team attempted to answer with this inside look:
Judging from this video, it really seems as though the team involved wants to honor fans of Silent Hill to the umpteenth degree, and in multiple ways. They want to make sure that viewers don’t miss out on participation, leaving open a wide window of engagement so that even if viewers miss the initial stream, they still have an opportunity to cast their own votes. In addition, the writers are returning to the central motif of trauma’s impact on how the town of Silent Hill reacts to its denizens. Mystery will be a central component of Ascension‘s growing narrative, meaning viewers will have to keep allowing the characters to engage with their traumas in order to fully understand why they’re experiencing these horrors in the first place. This is reflected in the monsters, whose concept art is shared in this link.
What I found especially interesting is that cEvin Key, co-founder of the industrial band Skinny Puppy, will be scoring Ascension. Key seems incredibly excited about this project, and claims to have been in a Silent Hill-esque state of mind for the last few years (honestly, relatable), while paying immense respect and homage to the franchise’s original composer, Akira Yamaoka. From what I’ve heard, I can certainly see how Key will be a good fit for this series, and I’m curious to see what he brings to it. The song “Worlock” is especially making me consider the possibilities.
The one thing that still has me raising an eyebrow is how the ever-evolving nature of Ascension relates to the treatment of the series’ creatives. After learning about various time-crunches and working conditions for animated films, I’m a little concerned that the team will have to work overtime in order to pull off a project as ambitious as this. I suppose all remains to be seen, and we can only hope that this will truly prove to be a project of passion for everyone involved.
What do you think of Silent Hill: Ascension thus far? Do you plan on watching it? Let us know in the comments!
This article has been updated as of July 13 to include new information.
(featured image: Genvid)
