Silent Hill: Ascension not written by AI, developer insists

Bad robots.

Image credit: Konami

News by Liv Ngan Contributor

Published on 29 Nov 2023

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.

Every word in Ascension was written by real people, many of whom have long-running careers in writing including Telltale titles, Pixar titles, GoW Ragnarok, Resident Evil Village and more. Across our 100,000+ words, zero are authored by LLMs or AI, and all are from dedicated work…
— Jacob Navok (@JNavok) November 27, 2023

Just some more general thoughts on AI given that it's in the conversation a lot recently.

We ran tests several years ago to see whether AI could improve animation or cinematic production pipelines. Generally the results weren't different than the animation you get in that Twitch…
— Jacob Navok (@JNavok) November 28, 2023

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.

What's pre-determined? We have one scene in week 4 that has 45 variations on a single scene. It's a simulation, it will have 1k variations by the end of it. As time passes the simulation will change radically based on input.
— Jacob Navok (@JNavok) November 1, 2023

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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