Silent Hill Ascension Developer Insists It Was ‘Written by Real People’ Amid AI Accusations

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

The developer of Silent Hill Ascension has insisted the controversial interactive streaming series was written by real people after a number of observers accused it of being authored by AI.

The group-based choose-your-own-adventure project, which lets some viewers appear as character cameos, initially came under fire for its microtransactions, with Genvid CEO Jacob Navok telling IGN that “the notion that users can ‘win’ by paying is generally false”.

But more recently, a series of tweets from user @VoidBurger that called into question Ascension’s dialogue went viral for highlighting some odd lines as well as their odd delivery. Here’s a snippet:

Silent Hill Ascension is absolutely written by A.I. and I cannot be convinced otherwise. This random NPC pops in, declares he’s berry hunting, says he’s seen weird shit and does not expound on it, provides no information, leaves for more berries. Goodbye forever, BerryMan https://t.co/IrwahA1tuc

— VoidBurger (AKA Jess) 🍔🎮 (@VoidBurger) November 25, 2023

Catching up on Silent Hill Ascension (lol) and I am more and more convinced this was written by AI with each new “episode”. The blandness in the writing is uniquely robotic feeling. I’d be shocked if a human wrote this boring shit pic.twitter.com/WUzAakbuDL

— VoidBurger (AKA Jess) 🍔🎮 (@VoidBurger) November 25, 2023

Old: “It’s bread”
New: “I like to make jams” pic.twitter.com/GzVTdKrqIz

— VoidBurger (AKA Jess) 🍔🎮 (@VoidBurger) November 25, 2023

Responding, Navok tweeted to say that across the project’s 100,000+ words, “zero are authored by LLMs or AI, and all are from dedicated work of a talented team.”

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

Still, questions about Ascension and AI continue, with some pointing to previous comments from Genvid that focus on the potential use of AI characters in the series.

genvid’s ceo jacob navok is on record saying all of their upcoming projects feature AI characters a few months before silent hill ascension was released

he also says ascension’s story is a “simulation”

the question isn’t if ascension uses AI – it’s how much https://t.co/uz8IKtKQgk pic.twitter.com/A3Td4qecYB

— 🐢 bob 📼 (@bobvids) November 27, 2023

In a follow-up tweet, Navok admitted that while Genvid had tested the use of AI for Ascension, none of that work ended up being used, and called recent accusations “a veiled insult” to the developers.

“We ran tests several years ago to see whether AI could improve animation or cinematic production pipelines,” Navok said. “Generally the results weren’t different than the animation you get in that Twitch Seinfeld show, which is to say, not great. Characters who were in the AI tests did a lot of repetitive movements (walking in circles, walking into walls, etc.)

“We also tried to have programmatically-directed scenes like what L4D’s AI director was doing nearly two decades ago, but this led to a lot of wonky shots where cameras sat too long, or on wrong objects, or cut incorrectly. Basically, they don’t have a proper sense of timing for TV.

“I mostly thought this would be useful for the Endure scenes, and we have videos of the NPC characters running through the gauntlets, but they would just get stuck too often, so we moved to the current system which is a selection of hand-crafted scenes similar to Dragon’s Lair.

“Most of the test work was done in 2021. None of that work ended up being used on this or other projects. We have a team of animators working on the project, a team of writers who wrote the scripts, and narrative designers who made the choices. Suggesting otherwise is just a veiled insult to talented humans who have worked hard to create something they are proud of.

“Returning to the AI topic: our earlier work in the field made me a skeptic on the use of AI for a lot of creative endeavors. I get asked a lot about AI in games, and my response has been that I think AI is a long way away from doing creative work.

“We previously used AI to try to do chat moderation, but this failed. We are using AI to detect offensive names for account registration. This is working to an extent. Still not perfect, but better than previous solutions.

“We are actively working on a new chat moderation solution, though just your standard models available for license. Once we feel comfortable with it we’ll bring text chat back.”

The use of AI in video games and beyond has been a hotly debated and controversial topic as of late, even playing a part in the recent Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strike.

The guild also voted in September 2023 to authorise a strike as a part of the resumption of bargaining over its Interactive Media Agreement, which governs voice, motion capture, and other actors working in video games. While this doesn’t mean a strike is currently happening, it does mean that SAG-AFTRA has the power to call one if negotiations continue to stagnate.

Video game voice actors previously called out AI-generated explicit Skyrim mods, and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate voice actress Victoria Atkin called AI-generated mods the “invisible enemy we’re fighting right now” after discovering her voice was used by cloning software. Paul Eiding, the voice actor behind Colonel Campbell in the Metal Gear Solid series, also condemned its use. Embark Studios was also slammed by actors and developers for using AI in its hit shooter The Finals.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.