Is Konami Killing Access To P.T.?

P.T., the playable teaser for the Silent Hills game we'll never see has already achieved legendary status due to the fact that the game is no longer available for new players to download. However, reports are coming in that the game is now becoming unplayable even for some that had it downloaded on a PlayStation 4. The culprit appears to be a recent update that allegedly makes the game unplayable.

A user on Reddit recently brought the issue to attention. He claims that his PS4 with an installed version of P.T. can no longer load the game. What makes this interesting in that, according to a screenshot he posted, seen above via Wario64, his version of P.T. updated from version 1.00 to 1.01 on the 22nd of this month. Needless to say, an update to a game that Konami basically tries to pretend doesn't exist is odd, so some are suggesting the update may be designed to break the game.

What makes this all the more interesting is that, while this user is reporting this update, others are saying their version of P.T. runs fine and they're also reporting no 1.01 update having installed or even being available.

There are a number of possible reasons for this. It's possible that the update is region specific and just hasn't been rolled out everyplace, meaning that people in some places can still play the game just fine while others cannot. It's also possible that this is some sort of hoax or some other issue is causing the problem.

P.T. has not been available for download in the PlayStation Store for some time, meaning that only PS4 consoles that already had it installed when it was removed have had access to it. Some have apparently found a workaround to allow them to get the file working on newer systems. Some theorize that this new update may only effect that workaround.

While it's unclear exactly what is going on, needless to say, most fans are instantly assuming Konami is up to something. P.T. was originally released as a playable teaser for a new Silent Hill game which was being developed by Metal Gear Solid developer Hideo Kojima in conjunction with filmmaker Guillermo del Torro. When the working relationship between Kojima and Konami ended rather unceremoniously, Konami also killed plans to develop Silent Hills, which included removing P.T. from the PlayStation Store. This latter move was viewed by many as punitive, as Konami seemed to be trying to erase also contribution Kojima made to the company. If Konami is indeed slowing killing access to P.T. to those who have had it, it would not be much of a surprise to many.

Still, it's far from clear that's actually what's happening here. We'll have to wait and see if any more evidence surfaces to make things clear. If you do have access to P.T. you might want to disable auto updates just to be safe.