P.T. unleashes new wave of terror after rumor that Konami has disabled it

The legend of P.T. continues, more than four years after Kojima Productions’ playable teaser for Silent Hills arrived on PlayStation 4. Today, terrifyingly timed to Halloween, a rumor that P.T. had been disabled and rendered unplayable by Konami as part of an update to the game spread like wildfire. As with P.T. itself, figuring out what’s actually going on has proved a bit perplexing.

The source of that rumor appears to be a five-day-old post on the Silent Hill subreddit by a user who said that they can no longer access P.T., even though it was downloaded and “purchased.” That user posted a screenshot of the game’s information screen, showing that they’d most recently updated the game on Oct. 22, and that they have version 1.01 installed. The information screen notes that the software is “ineligible” to start, which typically indicates that a PS4 user needs to restore their license for the game. Other members of the subreddit responded in the original thread to say they could play the game, as they had done for the past few years.

Today, that same screenshot was reposted to the Silent Hill subreddit and the Super Best Friends Play subreddit with much more alarmist thread titles. Redditors warned others that Konami was “seemingly revoking the license for P.T.” and that PS4 owners should disconnect their consoles from the internet and turn off automatic software updates to preserve their downloaded copy.

“In the most Konami move possible, Konami may have just sent out a patch for anyone that still has PT installed,” Reddit user Chucklay wrote. “The patch disables the game. Happy Halloween, and Fuckonami!”

While there was no shortage of ire directed at Konami, there was little evidence to support the claim that the publisher had issued a kill switch “stealth update” to P.T. to disable the demo for PS4 owners who had already downloaded it.

We checked with our installed copies of P.T. on two PlayStation 4 consoles and were able to play the game without incident. The console did not force an update to the game, and a manual check for an update indicated that we were playing the most recent version (listed as version 1.00).

Hours after the rumor spread widely, Twitch streamers were still playing P.T. Reports from other users on Twitter, the ResetEra forum and Reddit indicate they can still play the game, and haven’t been subject to a software update.

When reached for comment, a Konami spokesperson told Polygon in an email that “after our investigation we can confirm that there have been no Konami or PlayStation Network (PSN) update that would have affected or prevent access to the game.”

Still, the notion that Konami would believably issue an update to kill a game that PS4 owners have desperately clung to, after the cancellation of Silent Hills and the removal of P.T. from the PlayStation Store, speaks to the company’s reputation in this regard. Silent Hill fans and Hideo Kojima supporters have long cursed Konami for their handling of P.T., one of the best surprise game announcements ever and one of the best horror games of all time. PS4 owners have carefully guarded their installed copies of the game and found workarounds to download it unofficially, adding to the allure of actually owning P.T.

Whatever its ultimate fate may be, more than four years on, P.T. is still capable of delivering scares. And today’s panic is a good reminder to play the game while we all still can.

Update (Nov. 2): Konami commented to refute that P.T. has been updated recently. This story has been updated with comment from a spokesperson from the publisher.