P.T. demo will scare you senseless

Watch out. The gap in the door…

It’s a separate reality.

The only me is me.

Are you sure the only you is you?

These cryptic words are the first things you see when you boot up the mysterious PlayStation Network demo simply titled “P.T.” The eerie, foreboding sentiment they muster is only the beginning of a strange, incredibly creepy and chill-inducing journey. Skip to the next paragraph if you only want a little more info on the demo, as I’m about to talk about what this is a demo for. It’s been noted for several days on various websites that P.T. is actually a teaser demo for the upcoming “Silent Hills” game, being made by Hideo Kojima and Guillermo Del Toro and starring Norman Reedus, best known as Darryl from “The Walking Dead.”  Upon completion of the demo (which I haven’t been able to figure out yet), you get to view a short trailer, teasing the collaborators and star of the upcoming survival-horror game.

I’ve always been a fan of horror video games. The original Resident Evil series, the first few Silent Hill games (1 and 2 were great, 3 was just OK and The Room and Downpour were forgettable) and Outlast really stand out as some of the best scare-inducing titles I’ve ever played. But thanks to the advanced power of the PlayStation 4, P.T. takes the disturbing horror aesthetic to another level.

This screen of P.T. was posted on Reddit earlier by u/LukeLOL. This creepy guy isn't an enemy and you'll never interact
with him. I didn't even know he was there til I saw this...which makes it even worse.

 

The demo takes place all in first person, not allowing you to do much besides walk and zoom your view slightly with R3. It begins with you waking up in a small, bare, concrete room with a single door, slightly ajar. When you walk through, you enter a long hallway with pictures on the wall, empty bottles strewn about, a phone off the hook, a radio playing in the distance and several doors you can’t open. Walking to the end of the hallway, you find an open door which leads you…back through the doorway you first entered.

As you traverse this hallway, elements change, odd, discomforting sounds ring out in the distance and you get the feeling you aren’t alone in this strange, seemingly endless environment. Sometimes the layout changes, sometimes mysterious messages are written on the wall, sometimes a second voice comes through on the radio that seems to be speaking directly to you, making for a very creepy experience, heightened by the fact that all you can do is move and look around.

The visuals in P.T., while only of a simple, modern household, are truly stunning – almost photorealistic. The use of light and shadow will make you very uneasy as shadows cloak corners and distant hallways and strange sounds ring out on all sides.

There are allegedly different endings to P.T., though I haven’t finished it myself so I can’t say for sure. If you have the fortitude to get the true ending (or a good walkthrough), you’re rewarded with a teaser trailer for the game that P.T. is a demo of and fans of the survival-horror genre will be ecstatic when they discover this game’s true identity. Check out the video below for a walkthrough (without commentary) of the demo but don’t click to Part 2 if you don’t want the ending spoiled.