We miss you, ‘PT’
Eight years ago, noted video game director and designer Hideo Kojima released PTor Playable teaser, via Konami Studios. The project, in collaboration with horror master Guillermo del Toro, took place in a single corridor that you have to run through again and again. With each new loop, new clues appear on the walls, or the phone rings, or you hear a baby cry. You slowly summarized that something horrific has happened here in which an entire family has been murdered. It’s a masterclass in building terror and delivering jump scares at the perfect time to make you feel like your soul has left your body.
At the end of the demo, a trailer revealed that: PT was actually a teaser for silent hillsa brand new entry in the Silent Hill franchisee. The Silent Hill franchise is one of the best in horror video game history, tackling gripping subjects through abject terror. And PT captures that essence perfectly. But unfortunately, silent hills never seen the light of day. The game was canceled and, in a surprising twist, Konami removed it from the PlayStation Store. So unless you’ve already downloaded it to your PlayStation, you’ll never be able to play it again.
It’s downright depressing to think about what we could have had with silent hills. But on the game’s eighth anniversary, we take a moment to remember how terrifying it is.
Use of space
Of PTKojima shows how much he understands the concept of liminal space, or a space that seems to be outside of time and space. This one hallway, though full of strange details, is dark and dingy, a place that never seems to see the light of day. Something just isn’t quite right here, even down to the colors of the walls. It’s just a hallway, yes, but the way Kojima manipulates that space makes turning a corner the hardest thing you’ve ever done in your life. Each loop unleashes different versions of hell where a blood-filled fridge dangles above you and pictures turn demonic. The domestic space is made positively monstrous.
The devil is in the details
As I mentioned, each loop brings new details into play. If you don’t look closely, you can miss something and keep running in the same loop forever. You need to examine everything you see, from family photos to small trinkets on tabletops, to decipher the next step in your journey to hell. Kojima doesn’t want you to be passive about PT He wants you to really pay attention and immerse yourself in this world. And when you’re so focused on the details, you’re not always ready for the next huge jump scare lurking just around the corner.
Complex puzzles
utilities PT isn’t just scary. It is difficult. I mean really hard. Kojima wasn’t messing around making this game. He expected it to take at least a week for everyone to finish the game. Much to his surprise, the first player reached the credits within a few hours. But that doesn’t mean the game isn’t hard. Clues are skillfully hidden and, as I’ll discuss later, they aren’t always resolved in the traditional ways expected in a video game. It’s not just scary, it’s challenging, and that makes it even scarier. That increased the tension even higher as you struggle to find your way out.
Monsters around every corner
Like any good Silent Hill game, PT has some stellar monsters. Most terrifying to me is the screaming bloody fetus lying in the bathroom sink. It’s stomach-churning and deeply unsettling as its guttural sounds reverberate through the hallways. It’s grotesque and you want it to stop. Then of course there’s our dead pregnant wife who likes to scare you when you least expect it. Although the monsters seem very human, they can’t wait to feast on you. And let’s not forget the strange talking paper bag gargling at you about reality. It’s all so deeply disturbing that PT feel even creepier.
Sonically Terrifying
It’s not just the visual details that are steep PT of horror. It is his gruesome soundscape as chandeliers creak and shrill telephone rings accentuate the silence. A sinister chatterbox radio host fills in the horrifying blanks about what happened here. And his speech changes depending on the loop. But more than that, you also have to use your voice to unlock puzzles. Sound is used to terrify you and engage you in gameplay in ways you wouldn’t expect. Kojima expanded what it means to interact with a game and the new ways of solving traditional game puzzles.
With the amount of support shown for PT and the abiding love of the Silent Hill franchise, we will get more games in the future. But for now, we can only watch YouTube videos from past playthroughs and wish it returned to consoles one day. Oh, and you can listen to this episode of the Development Hell podcast also about the project:
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