Silent Hills' unexpected cancellation means that P.T. is the closest we're currently going to get to Kojima's horror masterpiece. It would undoubtedly have been a 'horror masterpiece', by the way. When P.T. itself was pulled from the PlayStation Store, all traces of this chilling dream was in danger of vanishing forever. The whole situation captured creative gamers' imaginations and resulted in a large number of P.T. remakes being made. And some of them are superb. P.T. is dead. Long live…
PuniTy
This was designed as a 3D modelling workshop for students looking to make games with Unity (the title is a pun on Unity and P.T.... and possibly even 'pun'), but was turned into a playable experience all the same. It took Farhan Qureshi four weeks to make, and apes the original experience very closely. Only 'that bit' doesn't look entirely convincing (Lisa looks a bit… melted), but otherwise this is very well done. Here's a video of it, but you can find out more here.
Project Spark
Xbox One's game creation suite isn't the most obvious place you'd start looking for a remake of P.T., but this one is rather excellent all the same. Underneath the cartoony, Fantasy-styled graphics, the quality of the recreation of that L-shaped corridor of nightmares is superb. Project Spark's excellent lighting engine is used really well for scares, too, even going so far as to include a torch. You can see a trailer here:
Minecraft
This is brilliant. Admittedly, the detail of Brutec's recreation is only possible thanks to a mod, but even though it's close to the look of the original P.T., it still feels like Minecraft. I was half-expecting Lisa to be a Zombie or Herobrine, but she's a bit more detailed than that. Check out the trailer:
Fallout 4
Of course someone was going to make P.T. using Fallout 4's home-building side game. And this one has everything you could wish for, from a corridor to a bathroom… admittedly there's some video trickery involved in terms of the loop (only a single instance of the corridor actually exists in Fallout 4's world), but you can't have everything. Great work, ki da.
Dying Light
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking how in the world is anyone going to reproduce the corridor in Dying Light? And then you watch this walkthrough video and it becomes clear.
That is exceptionally well done. Named 'The Horror House', this custom map is full of brilliant surprises, and feels almost as convincing as P.T. itself. Perhaps it goes a bit off-template by having moving objects that aren't in P.T., but they all work really well.
Real Life
What a funny old game this is, eh? This one isn't quite as faithful to that corridor (which by now you should probably know like the back of your hand), but it nails the style of P.T. in terms of view, motion, unsettling edits and lighting. The ending is a tad anticlimactic, but it's still an impressive piece of videographic art, for the most part.
LittleBigPlanet 3
There are several homages to P.T. in LittleBigPlanet's user-created levels, but the extreme attention to detail in this one is superb. Obviously the atmosphere is shattered by Sackboy being added to the scene, so let's just enjoy the craftsmanship, sans-Sack for a moment:
And here's one with Sackboy. Dressed as Cloud from Final Fantasy 7. Like I said: atmosphere. Shattered.
Unreal Engine 4
And finally, this recreation in the open-to-all Unreal Engine 4.
It's so good, it may as well be footage of P.T. as far as I'm concerned. Maybe it is. It certainly had the same effect on me as real P.T. So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and lie down in a darkened room. With the light on. I don't care if that doesn't make any sense, leave me alone. What's that? No, I absolutely will not look behind me! Aaargh!
