A camera hack for P.T., Konami’s demo for the cancelled Silent Hills, proves that players were actually controlling Norman Reedus the entire time. Earlier this year, the same person responsible for the new reveal also discovered lots of other secrets in P.T. through camera trickery.
P.T. gained a lot of attention when it showed up on the PlayStation Network in 2014. The demo claimed to come from 7780s Studio, a fictional developer serving as a pseudonym for Hideo Kojima. The demo managed to pack an incredible amount of narrative depth and horror into its short run-time, and only in the end was it revealed to be a teaser for Silent Hills, the follow-up to the Silent Hill series. The end of the demo also revealed that the protagonist was to be portrayed by Norman Reedus and that Hideo Kojima and filmmaker Guillermo del Toro were co-directing. Not long after P.T.’s release, Konami announced that it was cancelling Silent Hills and pulling the demo from the PlayStation Network. By then, the demo had become a hit, leading to fan recreations of P.T. coming as recently as this year.
While the end of P.T. showed a character portrayed by Normal Reedus, there was always a little room for doubt about whether he was always the one under the player’s control, given the surreal, looping nature of the demo’s narrative. Even if he was meant to be the game’s only protagonist, it would be easy to assume that his likeness wasn’t actually rendered throughout the whole demo, since it’s seen from a first-person perspective and the character’s face is intentionally obscured when the player looks into a mirror. Thanks to modder Lance McDonald, it’s now confirmed that the player character in P.T. was Norman Reedus all along. McDonald posted a short video on Twitter showing the character looking into a mirror with a modified camera angle that reveals his face.
Despite P.T.’s cancellation, Kojima did eventually get to work with Del Toro and Reedus again in Death Stranding, one of the most talked-about games of the year. Given the success of that collaboration, it might not be out of the question for them to come together once again. Recently, Kojima has hinted that he may be returning to horror for his next game, which could make it a natural project to bring back Del Toro.
It may not come as a huge surprise that P.T.’s player character had Reedus’ likeness the whole time, but it’s nonetheless interesting to see the detail put into something that players were never intended to see. The unique circumstances surrounding P.T.’s release and the cancellation of Silent Hills have also helped foster a cult following, making every reveal about the doomed game one more aspect of its mystery.
Source: Lance McDonald/Twitter