It’s hailed as one of the scariest horror games of all time. It’s become an object of fascination for hackers trying to unravel its secrets. And 10 years after its debut, it’s still spoken of fondly. Not bad for a game that was never actually released.

On 12 August 2014 PT was released as a free demo on consoles. It lasted just a few hours and took place entirely in a series of long hallways. PT has immediately hooked players with its disturbing premise and spine-chilling horror. As you explore the haunted halls in first person, a radio broadcast discusses a grisly crime in detail while ghostly voices howl and whisper seemingly all around you. You explore the same rooms over and over again, though each time they change inexplicably as it seems as though someone invisible is nearby. The coup de grace comes from a terrifying ghost that eventually appears at the end of the hall, followed by the shocking realization that it has been following you all along.

If that is all there is to PTit may not have achieved the cult-like following it has today, but it would likely still stick in gamers’ minds thanks to its deeply disturbing brand of horror. But what elevates PT The reason it has the cultural status it has today is because it was never able to reach its full potential.

For those brave enough to make it to the end PTa final puzzle reveals that there is more to this demo than meets the eye. A notoriously difficult final challenge requires players to come up with incredibly specific solutions that seem designed to be worked out online with friends rather than discovered alone. Those who passed this final test were rewarded with a revelation as shocking as anything in the game itself – PT is not just any demo, but a “playable teaser” for Silent Hillsa collaboration between Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro, starring Norman Reedus.

Placing this incredible announcement at the end of an already great horror demo cemented PTs place in video game history immediately. But what happened next made it a legend. By now, Kojima’s break with Konami is ancient history, but at the time it was a stunning turn of events. The famous developer left his former employer to found Kojima Productions, taking a large part of his colleagues with him and ending the development of Silent Hills at the same time.

As if that wasn’t disappointing enough, the cancellation of Silent Hills also led to PT disappear from the stores. After all, it was essentially an advertisement for a game that would never be released, so Konami had no use for it anymore. While PT was no longer available for download, it still remained on the consoles of players who managed to get hold of it in the short time it was available. PlayStation 4 consoles with PT installed consoles were quickly listed for over $1,000 on eBay. At least one console reportedly sold for $1,800, making the installed console priced at over $1,000. PT The demo alone is worth well over 1,000.

The exclusive status of PT made it popular with experienced hackers who wanted to look for secrets in its code. These include well-known Dark Souls Hacker Lance McDonald, who made the shocking discovery in 2019 that PTThe most terrifying apparition of , a ghost named Lisa, is actually attached to the player character throughout the game, silently stalking her to create a particularly sneaky shock effect when she looks in the bathroom mirror. It’s the kind of trick that many video games use to make their worlds more alive, but given PTDespite ‘s haunting themes, there’s something uncomfortably eerie about this digital ghost that follows players around at all times.

From my own experience, PT is already a horror game that turns a simple hallway into one of the most terrifying environments in gaming. Since its release, however, it has also faced the departure of a legendary developer from its long-running studio and an ongoing preservation crisis that has seen even beloved games from publishers unwilling to maintain them become completely unavailable. Combined with some real programming magic behind its greatest scares, it’s no surprise that the PT The demo has remained in the public consciousness for a decade after it was no longer playable.