Silent Hill Ascension, the interactive mobile game from Genvid and the first new Silent Hill in over a decade, passed a major milestone ahead of its Halloween release date. Genvid announced that over 1 million people around the world pre-registered for the horror game, which sees viewers determine the story by voting on key character decisions in every episode.
“Audiences will experience Silent Hill: Ascension for the first time tonight and we have no idea what choices they will make, or how it will end,” Genvid CEO Jacob Navok, said in a press release “It’s a perfect time for Halloween, where the community will shape this one-of-a-kind horror series over the course of the next several months. We’re thrilled by the enthusiasm we’ve seen thus far.”
The first episode airs on Oct. 31, 2023, at 9 p.m. Eastern, and Genvid is holding a pre-show event with Kinda Funny Games and Greg Miller, where fans can chat with Ascension’s creators about the upcoming season. The initial scene centers on Rachel Hernandez, the leader of a mystical cult, and Joy Cirelli, who seeks healing from the cult. What Joy gets is a sliced palm, cold feet, and a terrible monster lurking outside – right before the scene ends with a choice about how Rachel should respond.
“We’ve put a lot of effort crafting the story of the Johansen and Hernandez families, working with Konami Digital Entertainment to expand the Silent Hill lore in intriguing ways,” Stephan Bugaj, Genvid’s Chief Creative Officer, said. “Creating a story where collective audience choices will determine the canonical ending has never been done before.”
Bugaj and Navok tell me Ascension has roughly 1,000 outcome combinations, including character deaths, different endings for each character story, and, of course, different outcomes for every branch point.
Viewers get roughly a day to cast their vote and use influence points – earned by completing tasks in the Ascension app or from buying the season pass – to determine a scene’s outcome, but if you just want to watch the show, you can do that, too. Genvid is taking every episode and combining them into a 45-minute-long feature at the end of each week.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF
