Image: Konami
Konami’s first new Silent Hill game in 11 years has been met with nothing but backlash from players.
When Konami first announced that the Silent Hill franchise would be making a comeback with four whole new games, fans were ecstatic. That excitement faded somewhat when the first of these games, Silent Hill: Ascension, aired its first ‘episode’ this week. The game is rife with expensive microtransactions and goofy emotes, all of which seem completely at odds with the franchise’s grim horror roots.
What is Silent Hill: Ascension?
Silent Hill: Ascension was marketed as a “live, real-time interactive series,” that lets viewers tune in and make choices to influence the fate of its characters. When the game launched with its first episode earlier this week, fans discovered that it features a bizarre pay-to-win model that lets players influence in-game voting by forking up cash.
When you boot up the game, you’re immediately faced with the option of purchasing a $20 Founder’s Pack that includes a season pass, all puzzle unlocks and a range of colourful and weirdly out of place emotes. These emotes are meant to be used in the game's in-game chat, like this sticker that says, “IT'S TRAUMA!” in bright rainbow colours. To be fair, that is the Silent Hill franchise in a nutshell.
Still, not the best start Silent Hill's promised comeback, that’s for sure. Developer Genvid Entertainment has maintained that the game is entirely free-to-play, but its microtransactions seem to disagree. Here’s how it works: in between new episode releases, viewers are given the option to vote on the different decisions characters make to influence the story. Voting on an action costs a virtual currency called ‘Influence Points’, and you can throw multiple votes at a specific choice by - you guessed it - buying more Influence Points! It costs $20 to buy 26,400 points, and anyone who gets too invested in the fates of certain characters might actually spend money just to keep them alive.
It’s not so much pay-to-win, as it is pay-to-live. There are a few other ways to earn points, like solving puzzles and logging in daily, but buying these points takes the least amount of effort. Only a few of these puzzles are actually available right now, while the rest demand that you buy the Founder's Pack to unlock them. I tried logging into the game myself to see what all the fuss is about, and it really cannot be understated how wildly un-Silent Hill it is. There are pop-ups for microtransactions everywhere, whether it’s for the in-game store or the $20 Founder’s Pack.
One user on Reddit has noted that the game has disabled reviews following a backlash against its launch this week. Reception on Twitter/X has not been kind toward the game either, with users either poking fun of the game’s greedy monetisation like so:
Silent Hill: Ascension will continue to release new episodes over the course of the next 16 weeks, to the dismay of fans everywhere. At least the Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater remake looks good!