Silent Hill: Ascension Will Let You Decide The Series' Canonical Story

Silent Hill: Ascension was announced alongside the Silent Hill 2 remake a few months ago, and while most of us were understandably focused on returning to one of the best horror games of all time, it looks like Ascension could be one of the series' most ambitious games yet. You could play a direct role in shaping the official Silent Hill story, too.

In a new trailer, developer Genvid Entertainment--the studio behind The Walking Dead: Last Mile--paint a suitably bleak picture. Set in several places around the world rather than in the titular Silent HIll, the game sees horrors living in communities and passed on from one generation to the next. Murders in the various communities, as well as "long-suppressed guilt and fears," cause monsters to emerge and terrorize those within. We see several monsters in the trailer, including a Lovecraftian giant and some sort of bat-like monster, with a human figure wielding a scepter in the shadows at the very end.

Silent Hill: Ascension makes use of real-time streaming gameplay to allow the community to decide what happens. Which of the characters live will be entirely determined by players, and there will be "live story moments" later this year, with daily changes based on what the community did so far. These won't just be one-off "what if" stories, either: They will exist alongside the rest of Silent Hill as official canon.

"By participating in Silent Hill: Ascension, you will leave your legacy in the canon of Silent Hill," Genvid CEO Jacob Navok said in a press release. "And, in collaboration with Konami Digital Entertainment, Bad Robot Games, and Behaviour Interactive, we're offering fans the unique chance to become part of the story themselves."

Silent Hill: Ascension releases later this year.