In August 2014, the world of horror games was taken by storm. A demo called P.T. appeared on the PlayStation Network and accumulated more than a million downloads in a month. Those brave enough to reach the end of P.T. discovered it was an interactive teaser for Silent Hills, the ninth entry in the Silent Hill series, which was to be handled by Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro, with Norman Reedus as the protagonist. Unfortunately, Konami decided to 'restructure,' broke ties with Kojima, canceled Silent Hills and removed the P.T. demo…. But guess what? A fan decided to make it again.
The Legendary P.T.
The impact of P.T. still affects us today, almost four years after its official release. Kojima aimed for a deeper kind of horror, stirring the mind and the guts of players rather than using simple graphic violence. As if that weren't enough, some puzzles inside the teaser proved extremely difficult, becoming the biggest source of criticism. The cursed hallway that changes with each step, the baby's cries and laughter, the ghost with one eye missing and a mouth full of pus, the fetus, the radio, the phone, a refrigerator with blood hanging from the ceiling… claustrophobia, vulnerability, anxiety. P.T. was explored and analyzed to exhaustion; fans studied its internal resources closely, and one day… it disappeared. Konami went into "full retard" mode, did everything possible to sever ties with Kojima, canceled Silent Hills, and blew the demo to pieces. Players demanded its return, but Konami didn't listen. The solution? Create P.T. again.
The Fan Remake
That brings us to the Reddit user known as Qimsar who has released version 0.9 of P.T. for PC based on Unreal Engine 4. Qimsar has indicated that his version uses "almost all" of the original resources, with the major exception of the animations. P.T. for PC can be played 100 percent, but what Qimsar needs right now are testers to help detect errors. He also called on any animator willing to recreate the missing cutscenes, or those who have done datamining of the demo and took the trouble to save the original animations. The plan is for the final version 1.0 to contain all its elements from start to finish, and also add virtual reality support. The question is: Who in their right mind is going to play this with a headset…?
At the same time, we have doubts about how Konami will react. Qimsar has already invested more than 150 hours of his time (during which he had to learn to use the Unity engine), and it would be a shame if they end up discarded by a damned "cease and desist". Some of our readers probably remember the Metal Gear Solid remake in Unreal, and how it vanished overnight. I hope the same doesn't happen to P.T., and if you missed it on PS4, download a copy now.
