With Silent Hill: Ascension due out later this year, the team has started to divulge more info on the game. IGN has snagged an inside look at the game’s development, including news that cEvin Key of Skinny Puppy fame has signed on to be the composer for Silent Hill: Ascension.
The clip begins with Genvid Entertainment’ CCO Stephen Bugaj explaining the concept of the interactive streaming series, and how it (along with Ascension) is the next evolution of interactive television that builds off of the fundamentals that were created for Telltale Games and Netflix’s “Bandersnatch”.
“All of the viewers will interact with our series simultaneously. They will be influencing a continuously unfolding story canon that they all experience together,” says Bugaj. “Everyone sees the same thing, everyone participates in the same decisions. And when those decisions are made, that’s canon for everyone.”
Of course, seeing as it’s Silent Hill, the focus on creature design is a big component, and how they relate to the characters’ traumas. Luckily for fans, Bad Robot appear more than up to the task. “The creatures in Silent Hill are often projections from the minds of the major characters,” explains Bad Robot Games art director Chris Amaral. “The nature and the appearance of these creatures are also linked to their surroundings, which at times can create an incredibly horrifying visual contrast.”
As mentioned, cEvin Key is revealed in the video as the composer for the game’s score, and explains how Ascension was “perfect” for him. “When I first got spoken to about it by Stephen, I thought ‘This would be perfect, actually.’ because I almost feel like I’ve been living in Silent Hill for quite a number of years.” cEvin recognizes how Akira Yamaoka‘s iconic score from the original is special for fans, and feels that it’s a source of inspiration for his work on Ascension. Referring to it as “fantastic” and “mood setting”, cEvin saw that score as “setting the guidelines for the inescapable sadness and the inescapable beauty, but also horror.”
Featuring “an extensive ensemble” of intricately developed new characters, monsters and locations in the Silent Hill universe, Ascension follows multiple main characters from locations around the world tormented by new and terrifying monsters from the world of Silent Hill. Using Genvid’s real time interactive system, the series will be driven by the millions of people watching to help characters survive and to change those characters’ fates.