Just over five years ago, Hideo Kojima and Guillermo Del Toro released P.T., a playable teaser of their Silent Hills game that never came to pass. Sadly, the demo was pulled from the Playstation Store after the game it promoted was canceled. Since then P.T. has become a ghostly legend in its own right, lingering in the libraries of people who originally downloaded it. But now game hacker Lance McDonald has discovered that some ghosts have a way of…staying with you.
If you don’t know, the basic premise of P.T. was very simple. You wonder through a hallway in an abandoned house that loops through itself across multiple dimensions while a mutated fetus in the bathroom psychoanalyzes you, possibly for eternity. Pretty basic, straight forward stuff. Then there’s also the small matter of Lisa.
Lisa is upsetting. In fact, the first time this writer -who likes horror and is pretty chill most of the time- encountered Lisa, he screamed “Holy Shit!” so loud that he woke up two little girls in the other room, and had to spend half an hour getting them back to sleep. Knowing full well that Lisa would be waiting for him when he came back. *Full body tremor*
Lisa is the vengeful spirit of the house you are trapped in, and she is one of the most effective ghosts in any medium ever. As the game progresses, she will occasionally pop up to scare the crap out of you, or appear behind you in a dirty mirror, daring you to turn around. Her presence is an oppressive one…the slow build, the meticulous tension, and unreliable setting create an atmosphere that makes the game so scary. There’s always a sense that even when you can’t see Lisa, she can see you. Which is true of course, because (dramatic music cue) …she’s right behind you.
In P.T., it’s common to hear noises as if Lisa is right behind you, or see weird shadows moving around in front of you, but when you turn around, there’s nothing there. I hacked the game to allow the player to see behind them without actually turning around and… pic.twitter.com/bj1P0ymIZ6
— Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) September 9, 2019
Lance re-coded the game’s camera to discover that Lisa is actually always following you. In normal gameplay, you can’t see her when you turn around because that ghost is on you like white on my face when I heard about this nightmare.
Why?? What reason would Kojima do this other than for a guy on twitter to figure it out five years later and scare the crap out of everyone again?
Lance continues his thread by showing a video of Lisa following the player through the game world because she is apparently an actual sentient demon that Kojima has trapped inside a “video game” to protect all of humanity from her grasp.
She actually attaches to the player’s back as soon as you get the flashlight, here, I demonstrate how you can see some strange shadows. I then lock the camera in place and walk forward, showing how she’s always there… following you… pic.twitter.com/zarhwjNmZz
— Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) September 9, 2019
Haha F that. F that whole thing.
Honestly, though it’s these weird choices in game design that make Kojima such an artist. While Silent Hills never came to be, the next game from the veteran creator, Death Stranding will be released this November. So far we know that the new game will feature Norman Reedus using digital piss as a weapon and feature a character named Die Hardman. *Rubs hands over face while deeply sighing*
Meanwhile, keep up with Lance’s Twitter and Patreon account for more discoveries from the inside of your favorite games. He’s also finally confirmed a long-standing theory that the only way to beat P.T. is to whisper the name “Jack” into the microphone at the right time, despite there being no reasonable way anybody could possibly figure that out. Good job, Lance, you’ve probably doomed us all!