Silent Hill Ascension is the series’ latest entry. Unfortunately, though, it isn’t packaged as a game but as an interactive web-based experience. It won’t charge the player once to buy the game and perhaps include some paid expansions.
The game’s format is something unique. In this case, uniqueness isn’t necessarily good. The latest entry in the franchise, Silent Hill Ascension, isn’t a video game. It is an episodic streaming show with interactive elements. Suppose this information isn’t enough to disappoint fans of the franchise. The game even has microtransactions, which aren’t optional. Developers defended the microtransaction-based format of the game.
What makes this event even more unfortunate is that the Silent Hill franchise is celebrated and iconic. The series came to a standstill after the second entry. One demo titled P.T. by Kojima Productions teasing a new game before Silent Hill Ascension.
The demo was decently executed and was scary, even though its playthrough only lasted for 20 minutes. Despite this, the detailing, the textures, and the setting genuinely made for a good experience. Nine years have passed since its release, and the Silent Hill series vanished into obscurity.
The Format of Silent Hill Ascension Seems Like a Recipe for Disaster
The format for Silent Hill Ascension is not conventional at all. In the game, users do not interact with anything in real-time. It is more of a web series in which you can decide the direction at a juncture when the choice is presented to you.
It has nightly installments with new episodes aired at 9 PM ET. This sounds like an interactive novel, which doesn’t seem like the worst idea in the world. That is unless the team introduces microtransactions.
To further worsen things, Silent Hill Ascension introduces a micro-transaction-based voting system where all the viewers can vote. The choice with the highest number of points is the one opted for by the character.
The decision will then be undertaken in the next installment. The choice which is selected is based on points. The points are actually influence points. Viewers can spend Influence Points to make their selected choice carry more weight.
There are various ways to obtain Influence Points as you achieve accomplishments, like watching the latest chapters, solving puzzles, et cetera. You can get 800 of them in a day and almost 1500 with weekly rewards.
Or, you can go down the Microtransaction-based path and pay 20$ for 26,400 Influence Points. The amount is more significant than the Influence Points you can get in a month. There are also packs like The Founders Pack. All of this seems like a new low for the series.
What the Team Has Said About the Microtransaction-Based Format of Silent Hill Ascension
The CEO of Genvid, the studio behind Silent Hill Ascension, defended the game’s transactions. There was some backlash when the format was announced by the studio. Jacob Navok’s take on the game’s format was:
It would be very difficult for a single person to change a decision, it’s only useful if you don’t want to do any puzzles,
To provide some background, the decisions cost 200 points and with the total amount of votes, a decision can be backed up with millions of points. As per Novak, the currency packs which provide the highest amount of 26,400 points won’t be able to singlehandedly change the decision.
But despite these statements, the fact remains that there is no imposed limit on the Silent Hill Ascension store. This means that the packs can be bought over and over.
Navok continued and said:
The only real way to sway the decisions are rallies because when they function correctly, they do 3-4x bonuses on the choice behind, but only for a short time span.
The entire clarification is too in-depth and broad to be quoted and remains beyond the scope of this article. But giving it a read does help to know the developers’ perspective as well. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that the game may be considered pay-to-win as per some people. While others may agree with the developer.
The choice to play or not is ultimately to be made by the player. The question however lies in the extent to which such microtransactions will be taken. Where do they end? The interactive series premiered on October 31st at 9 PM ET.
Follow us for more entertainment coverage on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
