10 Games You Didn’t Realize Were Inspired By P.T. (Silent Hills)

Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro’s P.T. (Silent Hills) fundamentally changed the gaming horror genre. With a central story lasting only around 90 minutes, the game nonetheless received universal acclaim, and many would argue that P.T. is among the scariest and most memorable games of the last decade, if not all time.

Its central narrative device — a looping haunted hallway — has practically become its own subgenre for indie horror games, and production companies large and small continue to draw inspiration from Kojima and del Toro’s masterpiece to this day. Even the harrowing story behind the game’s development and cancellation has influenced the design of subsequent properties. P.T.’s influence can’t be overstated

10 Visage (2018)

With its first chapter published in 2018, SadSquare Studio’s acclaimed indie game Visage is one of the earliest games inspired by Silent Hills. There are clear aesthetic similarities between Dwayne Anderson’s haunted house and P.T.’s endless hallway, and both games also feature themes of self-loathing and supernatural punishment for those who commit terrible crimes — a central motif in the Silent Hill franchise.

Visage also borrows from P.T. in its structure. The game is divided into four chapters, each a self-contained story roughly the same length as the Silent Hills demo.

9 Layers Of Fear (2016)

While Layers of Fear unquestionably draws from P.T. in the shifting interior of a haunted artist’s mansion, there are more elegant and subtle ways in which the game references Kojima and del Toro’s demo. For all of the game’s aesthetic similarities to Silent Hills, the most noteworthy connection is in its story. Layers of Fear tells the tale of a tormented painter in the process of creating his magnum opus through a harrowing, reality-bending journey within an old mansion.

In a broad sense, the story of a tortured artist is itself an homage to the ill-fated process behind P.T.’s development, in which creative conflict between Hideo Kojima and publisher Konami led to the two parting ways. The schism is a well-known story among gamers, and Layers of Fear palpably brings one of the gaming industry’s true horror stories to light in an effective and nuanced way.

8 Resident Evil VII: Biohazard (2017)

While it’s possible to argue that each Resident Evil game and remake released since 2014 has been somehow inspired by P.T., the most direct example is 2017’s blockbuster hit Resident Evil VII: Biohazard. Representing the franchise’s first foray into first-person gameplay, designers Hajime Horiuchi and Keisuke Yamakawa clearly draw inspiration from P.T. in the game’s level design — winding, claustrophobic hallways that make up the Baker family’s derelict Louisiana mansion.

Resident Evil VII also debuted the RE Engine, a direct competitor to Kojima’s Fox Engine, which provides for the shadowy, naturalistic lighting and ambiance reminiscent of Silent Hills.

7 Phasmophobia (2020)

One of the most overlooked qualities of Silent Hills is its cooperative mechanic, most noticeable during the early days of the demo’s release. Gamers who played the early download will remember that it required collaboration to beat. Unable to reach its ending, players from all over the world took to online forums to compare notes, translate hidden messages in multiple languages, and finally escape the never-ending hallway into downtown Silent Hill.

Though Phasmophobia may not rank with P.T. among the scariest video games of all time, it takes a more direct route at incentivizing player cooperation in a similar environment, and it works to stunning effect. While it doesn’t feature the world-warping magical realism of Silent Hills, Phasmophobia clearly builds off of P.T.’s confined, domestic-haunting aesthetic built around its core co-op mechanism.

6 Blair Witch (2019)

Blair Witch is an underrated title and draws much of its narrative inspiration from P.T. What it lacks in gameplay, Blair Witch makes up in narrative momentum and suspenseful immersion, both of which are hallmarks of the Silent Hills demo.

Based on the hit Blair WitchProject movies, the game replaces the halls of P.T.’s house with twisted forest trails and abstract flashbacks from protagonist Ellis Lynch’s military deployment. It artfully utilizes the psychological horror mechanisms of Silent Hills to add a meaningful entry into the franchise series.

5 Until Dawn & The Dark Pictures Anthology (2015)

Silent Hills is often applauded for its brevity and mechanical simplicity, but with franchise inspiration drawn from such iconic shows like Twin Peaks, the game’s sweeping cinematic scope and polish cannot be ignored. From start to finish, P.T. is just as engrossing and polished as any blockbuster horror flick. This influence shines in Supermassive Games The Dark PicturesAnthology and the first entry in its franchise, Until Dawn, which can feel more like a movie than a game at points.

Even in subsequent installments, The Dark Pictures Anthology franchise leans heavily into the prestige cinema aesthetic that Silent Hills pioneered, demonstrating that horror video games can be more than just sequences of jump scares; they can be an immersive cinematic experience to rival any Hollywood production.

4 Summer of ’58 (2021)

One of P.T.’s most remarkable qualities is how much it does with so little. At the time of release, it was only a 1.3-gigabyte download. Some indie developers, such as EMIKA_GAMES, have taken this “less is more” approach and built a brand based on P.T.’s mechanics. The best example of this is in their 2021 underground hit Summer of ’58. 

Featuring a recursive narrative design full of shifting hallways and heart-stopping jump scares, Summer of ’58 is a notable step toward emulating the mechanics that worked in P.T. without feeling like a carbon copy. There’s no shortage of creepy and compelling fan-made Silent Hill artwork in the world, and EMIKA_GAMES’ project easily distinguishes itself among the best in class.

3 Resident Evil Village (2021)

As one of the world’s leading producers of horror video games, Capcom would be remiss if not to continue to draw inspiration from one of the industry’s most respected horror franchises. For this reason, Resident Evil Village is the second series entry to be influenced by P.T. The game’s entire first act can be considered an abstract homage to Silent Hills, in which protagonist Ethan Winters attempts to escape a claustrophobic labyrinth while being chased by a tall, deadly, supernatural woman adorned in white. Indeed, if not for P.T.’s iconic Lisa, there may never have been a Lady Dimitrescu.

Also, when Ethan reaches House Beneviento, he’s chased through a narrow corridor by an enormous mutant fetus — an undeniable nod to the Silent Hills “sink fetus” that appears mid-game.

2 Death Stranding (2019)

2019’s Death Stranding is another game that pulls direct inspiration from the Silent Hills demo. With both titles among the best games Kojima has developed, P.T. and Death Stranding nonetheless seem nothing alike on the surface. They’re both in vastly different genres and represent opposite ends of the player agency and narrative spectrum. Despite this, Death Stranding marks Kojima’s first non-Metal Gear project after departing Konami, and there’s certainly more connection than meets the eye.

P.T.’s main influence resides in Death Stranding’s treatment of the supernatural. As porter Sam Bridges traverses the United Cities of America, he’s relentlessly plagued by interdimensional specters known as Beached Things, or “BTs” — a less-than-subtle nod at Kojima’s prior work. In their presence, the palpable dread of Silent Hills’ returns as players attempt to sneak by, made particularly poignant when Sam’s communicator crackles to life with cryptic messages like the hall radio in P.T. 

1 Watchdogs: Legion (2020)

Another somewhat surprising entry, Watchdogs: Legion appears to be a far cry from Silent Hills with its expansive open world and intricate gameplay mechanics. In its most recent DLC Bloodline, however, Watchdogs dedicated an entire mission to P.T., placing character Jackson Pearce within a facsimile of the looping Silent Hills hallway, hunted by a familiar-looking phantom named “Lena.”

More than a simple easter egg, the segment of the game plumbs the protagonist’s psychological trauma resulting from losing his niece. While it’s a small nod to Kojima and del Toro’s famed demo, it nonetheless grants insight into the influence the game has had even outside the horror genre in major production studios.

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