While the video game world is full of stories that are successful, there are plenty of other stories to fill the void and the other reaches of its history. There are stories of failures, there are games that took the world by storm for reasons no one can ever truly explain (Goat Simulator and Untitled Goose Game come to mind…) and then, there are the “What If?” games. The ones that seemed to be destined for something and yet something happens that makes them terrible, or not live up to the height, or…in the case of the legendary/infamous P.T. Demo…just never come out at all.
If you don’t recall the story, it all starts with Hideo Kojima, the legendary video game developer. He was tasked by Konami to go and make the next Silent Hill game. But no one knew that at the time until it was unveiled that he was not only making it, but it would star Norman Reedus (who was riding high at the time off of The Walking Dead via his character Darryl) and would be guided along by none other than award-winning filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro. In other words, this was a dream team designed to try and make the franchise relevant again.
Not surprising, they were not only good at what they set out to do, but using that “Kojima Charm”, he started to plug it in interesting ways, including that of P.T. Demo. Which was a “Playable Teaser” meant to be an interactive experience to get gamers excited for the title in full. Sure enough, it worked, and it was actually rather scary. So much so that word of mouth made the demo an icon…think about that. Just the demo was iconic.
However, things quickly went south, and Konami got rid of Kojima in a very public feud, Silent Hills as it would be known was canceled, and the demo was removed from the PlayStation Store. Which ironically made the demo even MORE popular, just saying.
Fast forward to now, eight years after the demo’s release, the person in charge of taking the demo down popped onto Twitter (in a now private account) to talk about what happened:
“Believe me, I wish it had gone differently too,” the woman known as “Pearl L” said when asked about it, “It was definitely really fun to be plotting this secret cool thing for the fans. it was amazing to see everyone come together to try to figure out the experience and seem them come away with so much love for it!”
Obviously, that “love” was not felt by Konami given what they did, and it should be noted that since then, no Silent Hill games have come out, while Kojima went and started his own company and made a game that still has people talking via Death Stranding. So you tell us who really “won” here.
Source: VGC
