Silent Hill: Ascension Mid-Season Review

ign.com:

Interesting, isn't it, that the first new Silent Hill project for a decade isn't even set in Silent Hill. More interestingly still, it's not even a game – at least, not in the traditional sense. It's a curious decision, and kind of gutsy, too, given the clamor for the neglected horror series. There are loads of things we recognize from that spooky little resort town – there's the signature fog, monsters, a weird cult, and a whole cast of people with haunted pasts – but if you were hoping that Silent Hill: Ascension was ringing in the next generation of great Silent Hill adventures, you may have a little longer to wait.

To be fair, the animated interactive series – available via a mobile app, a website, and as a non-interactive series on streaming services like Sony Pictures Core – has just wrapped up for the holidays, but there are still several months to go, so we've yet to discover its final twists. We don't yet know if the titular town is going to make an appearance, or how – or even if – the seemingly unconnected storylines will converge.

We don't know much at all, really, for although Ascension has been broadcast almost daily since its launch on Halloween 2023 (for a month, new episodes ran seven days a week; it now runs Monday through Friday), the clips have been astonishingly brief, usually no more than a minute or two in length. In totality, that gives us around 30 minutes of footage each week, all of which can be viewed in daily or weekly installments. It's a great format if you like bite-sized media; it's not so hot if you'd prefer to spend time getting to know the characters… or perhaps have poor short-term memory.

The story kicks off as two towns thousands of miles apart experience a shared fate: a death at