Silent Hill: Ascension is a 2023 interactive fiction developed by Genvid Entertainment. It's a spin-off of Silent Hill by Konami. Production companies involved are Bad Robot (which J. J. Abrams is a co-CEO of), Behaviour Interactive (Dead by Daylight), and dj2 Entertainment (the movie Sonic the Hedgehog 2).
It follows the characters around the world, from Pennsylvania to Norway, shaken by recent deaths. As they face the machinations of a cult feeding on their trauma, it's up to the player community to decide their fate.
From a structure perspective, Ascension is a successor to Genvid's series of massively multiplayer interactive media, following other games like Rival Peak and DC Heroes United. Ascension runs on a set timeslot when the players must be present to enable Audience Participation. During that time period, the player can affect its story by pariticipating in activities like quick time events. Outside of its timeslot, the player can complete side games and other challenges to earn Influence Points, which can be used in live events.
It started on October 31, 2023 and was officially concluded on April 25, 2024. It was followed by the premiere of the "What If" season that consists of alternative storylines that were left unused after the players' engagement.
Silent Hill: Ascension contains examples of:
- Allegedly Free Game: The game is free to download and the episodes can be watched without paying money, but if you want to make a meaningful difference in community voting, you have to purchase Influence Point packs or $20 season pass to earn tens of thousands of them, which is much more than anything you play for free over a day. Some minigames at Arcane Library are also only available with Season Pass.
- Audience Participation: The player can distribute Influence Points to make a decision in the story, e.g. whether the protagonist will save a character or leave them to fate.
- Character Customization: You can create an avatar for yourself, whose feature becomes wider with Season Pass items. In addition, the player avatars can randomly appear within episodes as cameo characters. The cameos are removed for streaming Re-Cut.
- Genre-Busting: The game's advertisements strongly emphasize that the format of Ascension is not easily defined by traditional term, with an interview with Vulture
describing it as "MILE", or “massive interactive live event”. Jacob Navok, the CEO of Genvid, remarked in the interview that "There’s never been anything like this," although this is misleading given that it's a successor to Genvid's series of interactive media. - Play Every Day: The game has Goal rewards that reset every day, which is a source of Influence Points for free-to-play players.
- Press X to Not Die: The "Endure", the Otherworld part of the livestreaming episodes, has a series of Quick Time Events that must be completed by the player manually, which is factored into the community voting.
- Re-Cut: After the livestreaming ends, the game is edited into an animated series episode that removes any Audience Participation elements. This is the version available on external streaming website.
- Recycled Animation: The "Endure" community gameplay, available after livestreaming, recycles the same animations through many episodes. In the October 2023 premiere, the first 5 days re-used the same scene, where a character throws empty bottle to distract a monster, before introducing new community QTEs.
- Rewards Pass: The Season Pass is available at $20 price, which keeps track of your general activities and rewards with Influence Points, avatar cosmetics, chat emojis, and more.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: The game consists of two threads told together between the Hernandez family in Pennsylvania and the Johansens in Norway.
- What If?: After the canon story was over, the game streamed the "What If" season, a compilation of unused scenes.
