Modder Lance McDonald worked out how to break out of the house in P.T. to explore the streets of Silent Hills that are shown in the final cinematic (via Eurogamer).
McDonald’s at it again with his elastic trickery within the bounds of P.T.—he previously discovered that the eerie Lisa is a very literal hanger-on and that the player is playing as Norman Reedus. P.T. and Silent Hills have been laid to rest as a result of the Konami and Hideo Kojima fallout, but it’s incredible that it still captures our fascinations five years on from the original demo.
Now, we’re able to catch a glimpse of what Silent Hills could have been. To achieve this, McDonald linked P.T.’s starting room to the map file of the environment seen in the final cinematic—wherein Norman Reedus wanders an empty street. Because players were never intended to be here, there is no collision, and so Norm falls through the map. That triggers a jumpscare from Lisa and sends the player back to the beginning, which is theorised to be a fix for players accidentally walking out of bounds in the hallways.
She does the jumpscare any time you mess with the player location without applying a special fix to make the game think you’re still on the ground, it’s hard to predict and I screamed multiple times while getting a few of the overhead camera shots for the video
— Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) December 20, 2019
McDonald bypassed this by making the player float, and so he was able to stroll the streets of Silent Hills with a pep in his step. So to speak. As for the town, there’s a detailed area outside of one of the apartments, with a potted plant on the fire escape stairs, insinuating that the player may have visited several residences in their journey. It’s certainly spooky and suffocating with its clutter and towering but dilapidated buildings. The environment may have only been used for the cinematic, but it’s an intriguing artefact on what Kojima’s take on Silent Hill might have become.
