EUREKA!
There is not a single more groundbreaking nor impactful game release from the 2010s than P.T. The deceptively simplistic title is a radical deconstruction of narrative storytelling conventions and gameplay mechanics, perhaps even moreso than the original Silent Hill games. By only allowing the player to walk and zoom in through a first-person perspective, Hideo Kojima and his mysterious team are demanding them to look closer, to observe, to see what you’ve done, you monster.
Repressed memory causes a psychological influx, the mind turning against itself, and the ghosts of this machine are the grieving recollections of past sin. A rotting woman, a demented fetus in the bathroom sink, liquor bottles scattered all over the floor, eyes, eyes, so many eyes staring. Every layer of P.T. is drowning in metaphysical context, pushing the limits of what a storyteller can accomplish with environmental implications alone.
The game presents a horror story for the internet age, where solving puzzles prompts insight through communal investigation, with startlingly innovative results. By stressing the damage wrought by the nameless, faceless protagonist, whom which Kojima places the player directly within the shoes of, the game becomes a psychological assessment examining the remorseful individual’s longing for recompense and redemption.
But P.T. denies forgiveness; and with each venture through its now-iconic, dreaded hallway, this purgatorial nightmare draws closer and closer to a reality that implicates mindful immorality. The future of gaming has never seemed so bright nor alarming.
There is not a single more groundbreaking nor impactful game release from the 2010s than P.T. The deceptively simplistic title is a radical deconstruction of narrative storytelling conventions and gameplay mechanics, perhaps even moreso than the original Silent Hill games. By only allowing the player to walk and zoom in through a first-person perspective, Hideo Kojima and his mysterious team are demanding them to look closer, to observe, to see what you’ve done, you monster.
Repressed memory causes a psychological influx, the mind turning against itself, and the ghosts of this machine are the grieving recollections of past sin. A rotting woman, a demented fetus in the bathroom sink, liquor bottles scattered all over the floor, eyes, eyes, so many eyes staring. Every layer of P.T. is drowning in metaphysical context, pushing the limits of what a storyteller can accomplish with environmental implications alone.
The game presents a horror story for the internet age, where solving puzzles prompts insight through communal investigation, with startlingly innovative results. By stressing the damage wrought by the nameless, faceless protagonist, whom which Kojima places the player directly within the shoes of, the game becomes a psychological assessment examining the remorseful individual’s longing for recompense and redemption.
But P.T. denies forgiveness; and with each venture through its now-iconic, dreaded hallway, this purgatorial nightmare draws closer and closer to a reality that implicates mindful immorality. The future of gaming has never seemed so bright nor alarming.