When I hear that a teaser trailer for a game has been released I find it difficult to stifle a groan. In this day and age, teaser trailers usually consist of a 15-second clip consisting of zero gameplay footage, often complemented by some swanky video footage that will not appear in the finished product. At their best teaser trailers are redundant, and at their worst they’re unrepresentative of the product they’re advertising.
But P.T. was a different beast. We now know that the demo, cleverly pitched as being for an upcoming, brand new survival-horror title, was actually a playable teaser for an upcoming Silent Hill game (titled Silent Hills) developed by Metal Gear series creator Hideo Kojima, in collaboration with Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro. The demo, which took the form of an incredibly convoluted puzzle that many have yet to solve of their own accord, was an incredibly inventive way of revealing a new game, and certainly more interesting than a press release. Yet here I am, elbows deep in the far corners of the Internet, reading a barrage of criticisms leveled at P.T. and Kojima because it’s “too convoluted” and/or “not Silent Hill-y.”
Some are worried that Silent Hills will mark a departure from the series’ roots.
First things first, let’s address the completely obvious: at this juncture, we have no idea whether or not P.T. will be representative of Silent Hills. P.T. is a first-person game, but Silent Hills could well go back to the traditional third-person perspective of the Silent Hill games of old. Yes, if we dig deeper into P.T. we can perhaps gather some evidence regarding the narrative of Silent Hills, but until we see more of the game we can’t possibly comment on which direction Kojima is headed in with the series.
Related: Silent Hills and the Best Video Game Reveals Ever
As we all know from the Metal Gear series, Kojima is a mad genius. Unlike many of today’s developers who remain intent on playing it safe and following the beaten path, Kojima’s garnered himself enough of a reputation that he can afford to not do that, yet still have people follow him wherever he goes. He’s the Pied Piper of Crazy. P.T. is just another example of his fearless showmanship, and the majority are rightfully applauding him for it. However, those who are lambasting him for P.T. are completely missing the point of what it is – it’s not a game that was intended to be played for enjoyment. It was just a puzzle that Kojima wanted you to solve.
Everything is handed to us on a plate by the gaming industry. The big titles receive about 20 trailers each before they’re released, detailing every facet of the game before we hand our money over. Rarely are we surprised by a game because all it takes to learn almost everything about it is a quick Google search, and if it’s not the developers and publishing doing the detailing themselves, then it’s the various leaks that serve to kill the suspense. Kojima recognized this with Silent Hills and crafted a puzzle in the form of P.T. that he naively estimated would take one week to complete.
Seemingly ignorant of the power of the Internet hivemind, P.T. actually took the gaming community less than 24 hours to figure out, but Kojima’s intent was apparent: he wanted this “demo” to get under our skin. Its Groundhog Day-esque gameplay, in which you’re forced to walk through the same corridor over and over again, is evidence of this. It was a regrettable inevitability that P.T. would be solved so swiftly, because we can only imagine that if it had taken the seven days Kojima had expected it would, the experience would’ve been maddening.
Will Silent Hills wind up being YouTuber-bait? We don’t know.
But that is the most common complaint I’ve seen directed at P.T. and, by extension somehow, Silent Hills – it’s too frustrating. That the direction of the teaser “better not” be the direction that Kojima, who is known for his obtuse style of storytelling, goes in with the next installment in the series. This unique, surprising way of unveiling a game has led to Silent Hill fans worrying that Kojima will turn Silent Hills into Slender 2.0, diminishing the subtlety of the series’ unsettling atmosphere in favor of a game that will appeal to the “YouTube crowd” of young men screaming at their PC monitors ad nauseum.
While I get that survival-horror purists would be concerned that Silent Hills will be directly tailored towards PewDiePie and the like, to bemoan what is probably the most exciting video game reveal of all time for the small glimpse it may have given us of Kojima’s voyage into Silent Hill is far too reactionary. While I didn’t particularly enjoy playing P.T. as I found myself wandering down its endless corridor in a constant state of fear, anxiety and frustration (which was really the entire point of it, but it was a little too much for me to handle), it hasn’t made me concerned about what Silent Hills may/may not be. In a sea of mundane press releases, overhyped teasers and identikit trailers, P.T. was really something special, and the only thing we can really say about Silent Hills at this point is that we hope it’s as memorable as its “playable teaser.”
Paul Tamburro is an Associate Gaming Editor of CraveOnline. Follow him on Twitter @PaulTamburro.
