Although the Halloween season for 2021 has now passed, that doesn’t mean that fans of horror games will be putting them down entirely until October 2022. The past month was full of conversations regarding the best horror titles of all time, and in many of them,P.T.was brought up as one of gaming’s scariest experiences. The playable teaser shocked fans due to its horrific imagery, tense atmosphere, and obtuse, fourth-wall-breaking mechanics. However unfortunately, it was delisted in 2015, meaning fans can’t download it and revisit the nightmare that was the teaser for the canceledSilent Hills.
Many who’ve played it have argued thatP.T.is one of the best horror experiences in any storytelling medium across the spectrum of horror, and it’s a shame that those looking to experience it for themselves can’t. It’s been over six years since it officially went offline, and it feels like now is the time for Konami to relist the game and publish it once more for those looking to revisit the most haunted house in all ofSilent Hill.
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The Preservation of P.T.
SinceP.T.’s release and eventual delisting, there have been a lot of projects devoted to remaking it and allowing fans to revisit the game free of charge. Unfortunately, Konami regularly issues takedowns for remakes on account of intellectual property infringement, meaning that players aren’t able to access the remakes for long, and creators are disincentivized from making them for fear of legal action. Essentially, there’s nothing that’s able to preserveP.T.because of Konami’s insistence on taking down every and all recreation of the project.
It’s for this reason that the responsibility should then fall to Konami to make the game accessible to anyone looking to try it. Based on the outcry from fans whenSilent Hillswas canceled, andthe manyP.T.remakesthat have popped up, it’s clear that the teaser has an audience who wants to be able to give it a try once more. Additionally, the legacy of the game has made it one of the most infamous horror experiences in all of gaming, and it seems like a major missed opportunity for Konami to keep it out of reach for so long.
Why P.T. Will Likely Stay Dead
Obviously,Silent Hillsisn’t happening, or at least Konami hasn’t said anything publicly about giving the project a second chance, so it makes sense why the company wouldn’t want to promote the teaser to a game that was unpopularly canceled. That said, fans would likely be satisfied with a republished version of the game that omitted any and all references to theSilent Hillseries. However, even that seems like an unlikely possibility due to thepublic disagreements betweenP.T.’s creative team and Konami.
Because there’s seemingly so much bad blood between Konami and the creatives behindP.T.such as Hideo Kojima and Guillermo Del Toro, it seems like the company is simply done with the idea, despite the game’s popularity with fans. Del Toro said in interviews that part of the reason forP.T.’s delisting is because of how upset Konami was with Kojimaand the rest of his team. Although it’s been over six years since the fallout occurred, professional wounds often run deep, and could be what’s causing the company from shying away from the game’s popularity in favor of other pursuits.
At the end of the day, it seems unlikely that Konami will want to republishP.T.However, if the company wanted to do so and was able to, it should. It’s been long enough since the political issues surrounding the fallout of the project, and it serves as an important piece of gaming history. For the many people who didn’t get the chance to experience it, they should be allowed to tryP.T.at least once. If Konami isn’t interested in republishing it, then it should at least ease offcreators who are making their own versions ofP.T.out of love for it and a mind for its preservation.
