Silent Hill: Ascension

Last year, a company known for making pachinko machines discovered they actually own some of the most popular and storied IPs in all of video games!  By now, you almost certainly know that Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is getting a remake, and it's been confirmed that Konami will be doing it in house.  But last year, Konami did a showcase for one of my favorite video game series, Silent Hill.

The showcase featured multiple Silent Hill projects in the works, only one of which got me genuinely excited while the rest left me mostly feeling worry and concern.  Honestly, although not all of the later Silent Hill games were bad, the series tanked considerably after Konami broke up the team that created the first three games.  That's why many fans have been excited that many of those projects are being farmed out to other studios where new creatives might be able to do original things.

Among those was a complete unknown called Silent Hill: Ascension.  The project was an almost complete mystery, with many of the details provided raising more questions than answers.

Now it looks like Ascension is going to jump on the hype started from MGS, and is kicking off a new press campaign.  I received an email newsletter last night before I went to bed.  Let's see what the email and the website have unveiled.

THE NEWSLETTER

The text of the newsletter is mostly focused on the idea that we'll get to have a direct impact on the Silent Hill cannon.  The story apparently is focused on multiple characters around the world.  It seems the evil of Samael, or perhaps something even darker behind the demon, is affecting more than just a sleepy town in West Virginia.  Perhaps this will explain how Silent Hill F is taking place in Japan.

The big thrust is once again that we will have control over the outcome of the story.  But how we get that control, and how the entire fandom as a whole will decide, is still unanswered.

Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this premise too.  The thing that made Silent Hill cool as a series was that it didn't revolve around characters, or even a continuing plotline, but that it revolved around a setting.  The town of Silent Hill was a character in it's own right, and the most important aspect of the game.  Konami and the studios it has hired/licensed will have to tread carefully if they're going in this direction.  They'll need to make sure that each new "Silent Hill" has its own identity while still making it feel connected to the original setting.  If they just go "Every town has an Elm Street!" and literally just reuse the same setting and premise throughout the new franchise, it will probably kill enthusiasm for it.

I'm still excited for Silent Hill F though.

THE WEBSITE

Okay, this imagery is creepy, if a little generic, though it's ruined by having it looped.  They should have had it fade to a static piece of artwork.

Looks like the main piece of content is the trailer.  Let's see what we've got.

These candles remind me of the opening of Diablo III.

The voice over calls back to the concept of guilt.  It looks like they're going to be focusing in on guilt as one of the main themes of Silent Hill.  This is definitely appropriate, though it's not the only negative emotion the setting seems to feed on.

In addition to mister barbed wire, we get some teasers of some monsters.  One definitely has that corrupted, Silent Hill vibe.

I'm not sure about this one though.  This feels a bit more like something I'd see in a Soulsborn.

This is really on theme though.

We then get some action scenes with more monsters though.  I'm not sure I like the character work.  All of them seem to have that generic, Poser/Daz3D feel to them.  Some of the monsters and animations look good, other not so much.

DETAILS REVEALED

The article begins with the same text of the newsletter, so nothing new there.

We then get a quote from Chris Amaral, Art Director at Bad Robot games.  "The detailed environments, the eerie ambiance, and the realistic characters and monsters . . ."  Honestly Chris, that trailer was a pretty mixed bag.  I'm not sure you've quite achieved what you set out to do, and this is supposed to be out this year.

The quote then goes on to again emphasize that the global community will get to shape the narrative and the future of the franchise.  But how!  How will we get to do this?  Will this be like the Dark Pictures franchise where we'll get a game we get to play and our collective decisions will determine the cannon outcomes?  Or will this be, a frankly bland series of CGs with some type of American Idol voting?

What actually is this thing?

FINAL THOUGHTS

The mysteries surrounding this project are not getting me excited for it and that trailer isn't helping.  The fact I still don't know what this actually is, let alone how bland so much of that trailer was, is not getting me hyped for this.  If this is coming out this year, we should at least know what kind of game/project it is.

Konami seems to have forgotten they fired the man who was the master of this kind of mystery marketing.

I remain concerned for the future of Silent Hill.