P.T. or “Playable Teaser” was meant to announce a new installment in the Silent Hill franchise called Silent Hills from famed game director Hideo Kojima and filmmaker Guillermo del Toro. P.T. had its own story that existed outside the game.
Most video game demos are meant to give players a vertical slice to play or be a proof of concept. P.T. is a critically acclaimed demo for a game that never even released.
In the demo, you play as an unnamed individual that is forced to endlessly walk through the same corridor repeatedly. Once the player leaves, you start back up at the entrance, but the hallway subtly changes in creepy ways.
The player can see a ghostly apparition in the house known as Lisa. Other changes include clocks no longer telling the correct time and the light in the hallway changing to red. It gives the players the feeling that they are stuck in limbo. They are somehow trapped outside of reality.
P.T. tells its story within its environment. A radio program will be playing a news broadcast in the background giving the players hints about a murder that happened in the house. The hallway itself is in disarray. The trash the player sees scattered about indicates that this house was once lived in. There are strange pictures hung up including one that is of the very hallway the player is "standing" in.
There is barely any music present throughout the demo. Lots of emphasis is put into small sounds you can hear in the distance. You will hear an odd creaking sound as you start your journey followed by distorted sounds of a woman breathing and an infant laughing. Ambient music will play when a supernatural event occurs like an appearance by Lisa.
Since P.T. belongs to an iconic horror franchise, the demo will get creative in trying to scare the player. Traditional jump scares involving the ghost are included, though the demo will also send the player a fake game crash message which breaks the fourth wall.
P.T. does not have much gameplay. The player just walks in the first-person perspective from one part of the hallway to another. There are no enemies, but the player will have to interact with random objects to proceed.
The demo does not indicate to the player what they have to do in these instances.
One puzzle will involve the player zooming into a picture of a family while another involves them zooming into newly formed messages that appear on the wall of the corridor.
If the player manages to complete all of the objectives, they will leave the hallway one last time and they will be greeted to a teaser trailer for Silent Hills with actor Norman Reedus.
Sadly, this game will never come out. Konami would cancel Silent Hills in April 2015 and remove P.T. from the PlayStation Store. PS4 owners who still own the demo can play it, but if it is deleted, it’s gone for good.
Not much is known about the cancellation, other than Konami wanting to restructure its gaming business. Hideo Kojima, Guillermo del Toro, and Norman Reedus would collaborate years later on a new game called Death Stranding which was backed by PlayStation. P.T. has developed a big cult following over the years.
PS4s with the demo loaded on it can be sold for top dollar on eBay. Fans have successfully recreated versions of the demo on PC and on a content creation game called Dreams.
The Silent Hill franchise has remained dormant since the release of P.T., but Konami has expressed interest in continuing it despite the cancellation.