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Silent Hill: Ascension not written by AI, developer insists

Bad robots.

Silent Hill: Ascension concept art of a trashed artist's studio
Image credit: Konami

After speculation on the use of AI in Silent Hill: Ascension, the CEO of developer Genvid has denied that it was used in any of the creative work for the interactive streaming series.

Silent Hill: Ascension viewers suggested the show's script was written by AI due to its abrupt tonal shifts and disjointed nature. The most notable examples of this being shared include the odd berry-man to this argument which is swiftly resolved by... nothing.

Speaking up on X (née Twitter), Genvid CEO Jacob Navok denied Ascension has been written by AI as people are speculating, and revealed Genvid's previous tests with AI were fruitless.

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"Every word in Ascension was written by real people," Navok wrote. "Zero are authored by [large language models] or AI," he added, "and all are from dedicated work of a talented team". Genvid did try using AI for creative purposes, mostly in 2021, but the company pivoted away from the technology as it often ran into issues, Navok shared. "None of that work ended up being used on [Ascension] or other projects," he stated.

Navok previously confirmed Genvid was using an AI filtering system for its global live chat, which was disabled after the first night of streaming because it was "breaking in really weird ways". Ascension has come under fire from fans for its monetisation options, which Navok later justified as a time skip and not pay-to-win.

Fans are still unconvinced by Navok's statement, with some drawing attention back to some of Navok's previous statements where he has said the team has a "simulation" running to create the narrative branches, and the fact the writing team includes people who previously worked on projects including Telltale games, God of War Ragnarök, and Resident Evil Village.

Vikki, a long-time Silent Hill fan, said Ascension's "wobbly infrastructure and uneven progression system" held it back from delivering after a week of episodes, concluding it'd be "painfully difficult" to recommend it to anyone who's not a fellow diehard fan.

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Silent Hill: Ascension

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Liv Ngan

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Liv grew up on Crash Bandicoot and Japanese arcade games. They like to play with their neighbours' cats and have a soft spot for raccoons.

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