New P.T. Hack Reveals The Character You're Actually Playing As
It feels strange to keep learning things about P.T. years after its release — and years after it was pulled down from the PlayStation Store — but the hits keep on coming. Hacker Lance McDonald has been behind most of these discoveries, so it should come as no surprise that McDonald is again the mind behind this latest one, which shows us who the player character really is in Hideo Kojima's "playable teaser."
As it turns out, Kojima pal Norman Reedus doesn't just show up for the end-game cinematic in P.T.; you're actually playing as Reedus the whole time.
McDonald tweeted out a video of the hack showing that, yes, Norman Reedus does indeed have a starring role throughout Kojima's cult classic horror title, even if you can't see him.
Just to put any uncertainty finally to rest after all this time, yes, the guy you play as in P.T. is the same guy we see in the ending cinematic. Not that there any real doubt, but yeah, it's Norman Reedus the whole time. pic.twitter.com/PXh5svLRSi
— Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) December 12, 2019
And how did McDonald manage to figure this one out? As he noted in a statement, it involved tweaking the camera to get by obvious steps the game took to keep its star a surprise.
"You usually can't see his face because the mirror is covered in filth specifically to obscure it," McDonald told IGN. "I moved the camera down to a little above chest height to get a clear look at one of the cleaner parts of the mirror."
This whole revelation is kind of crazy when you think about it. Norman Reedus isn't revealed as the protagonist in P.T. until you reach the very end of the game, yet the team at Kojima Productions painstakingly modeled his character anyway. We suppose it makes sense, given that Kojima and his crew thought they'd be doing a whole Silent Hills title following the release of the demo. But it's still wild to discover that, long before we played as Reedus in Death Stranding, we were actually controlling him in P.T. And we had absolutely no idea.
P.T. has even more grisly secrets
The Norman Reedus surprise isn't the only one we've had sprung on us thanks to McDonald's work. The hacker is also credited with making two other significant P.T. discoveries that, quite honestly, might send chills running down your spine.
The first involved what we might call the "villain" in the game; the terrifying being known as Lisa. You encounter Lisa a number of times throughout P.T., but as McDonald found out by freeing the camera up, Lisa was actually watching you long before you knew she existed. Even worse, while you're stalking through the hallways in P.T., she's never far behind.
McDonald was able to determine that the strange figure we see in the doorway at the start of the game is, in fact, Lisa. She vanishes once we reach the door ourselves, so we never get to see her peeking through the crack. But the eyes we feel on us as we come to, and the silhouette we can vaguely see in the door is very much her. Spooky.
She actually attaches to the player's back as soon as you get the flashlight, here, I demonstrate how you can see some strange shadows. I then lock the camera in place and walk forward, showing how she's always there... following you... pic.twitter.com/zarhwjNmZz
— Lance McDonald (@manfightdragon) September 9, 2019
Not only that, Lisa is apparently keeping close tabs on us throughout our experience in P.T. If you ever noticed strange shadows around you during the game, or heard noises that sounded like they were right behind you, those weren't figments of your imagination. Lisa's character model is actually attached to the back of the player, making this already frightening title even harder to play now that we know the truth.
And it seems Kojima Productions had grand plans for the bathroom in P.T. that never made it into the final release. By manipulating the game, McDonald was able to uncover an alternate state for the bathroom, in which a headless corpse rests inside the bathtub. The corpse — based on the outfit covering it — presumably belongs to Lisa. So this scene could have been intended to show us the gruesome way Lisa lost her life.
We imagine the bathtub scene was over the line due to its graphic nature, or otherwise had to be cut in order to get P.T. out the door. In any event, it makes us wonder about what could have been. Would P.T. have taken a closer look at this same story, and perhaps provided us with a bit of closure with regard to Lisa? Or would it have started fresh with a brand new tale and left the business in P.T. unfinished? Because P.T. is now lost to time and Silent Hills is just never happening, we'll never know.
We'll keep an eye out for more interesting discoveries about P.T. and get them in front of you when they surface. It sure feels like there's more for someone — perhaps Lance McDonald — to find.