Long-lost horror gaming cult classic P.T. gets a much-needed PC port

For over a decade now, the only “official” way to play Hideo Kojima’s cult classic, P.T.—the long-discontinued “playable trailer” for Kojima’s canceled “Silent Hills” project—has been via one of the increasingly rare PlayStation 4s that previously downloaded a copy during its monthslong availability window.

十多年来，游玩小岛秀夫邪典经典作品《P.T.》（即小岛被取消的“寂静岭”项目那款早已下架的“可玩预告片”）的唯一“官方”途径，就是通过那些在游戏上架期间下载过副本、且如今已越来越稀有的 PlayStation 4 主机。

Now, though, one coder is helping to preserve the game with a porting tool that builds a playable x86 PC executable from the original PS4 files. Coder Lorean Xavier said he was inspired to work on the “P.T. for PC” project “because P.T. deserved to keep existing somewhere other than on consoles that still have it installed.”

然而现在，一位程序员通过一款移植工具帮助保存了这款游戏，该工具能利用原始 PS4 文件构建出可运行的 x86 PC 可执行程序。程序员 Lorean Xavier 表示，他开发“PC 版 P.T.”项目的灵感源于“P.T. 理应在那些仍安装有该游戏的旧主机之外的地方继续存在”。

The open source porting effort rebuilds the P.T. engine in C++ and Vulkan, using the original files from the PS4 game to re-create “every level, model, texture, sound, script and cutscene,” according to its GitHub listing. That means players without their own legitimate decrypted copy of the original P.T. will have to track one down in order to generate a playable PC version.

根据其 GitHub 页面显示，这项开源移植工作使用 C++ 和 Vulkan 重建了 P.T. 引擎，并利用 PS4 游戏的原始文件重新创建了“每一个关卡、模型、纹理、声音、脚本和过场动画”。这意味着，没有合法解密版原始 P.T. 文件的玩家，必须先找到一份副本才能生成可玩的 PC 版本。

The reliance on real P.T. files makes this port more authentic than previous hobbyist efforts to re-create the look and feel of P.T. for a PC audience. And while PS4 emulators recently reached a point where they could run P.T. completely, this native port also sports extra features, like upscaling and frame-generation, a camera mode, experimental third-person and VR support, and a “museum” section where you can look at and listen to in-game assets (including “unused content”).

对真实 P.T. 文件的依赖使得该移植版比以往爱好者们为 PC 玩家重现 P.T. 视觉和体验的尝试更加原汁原味。虽然 PS4 模拟器最近已能完整运行 P.T.，但这个原生移植版还具备额外功能，例如超分辨率和帧生成、拍照模式、实验性的第三人称和 VR 支持，以及一个可以查看和聆听游戏内资源（包括“未使用的内容”）的“博物馆”板块。

Although Xavier admits to using AI tools in developing this port, it doesn’t seem like he simply followed the recent retro-gaming trend of asking a coding agent to decompile the game. On social media, Xavier said that he has “spent years studying P.T. and Fox Engine” in developing the port and only uses AI tools “for debugging, troubleshooting and investigating problems.”

尽管 Xavier 承认在开发此移植版时使用了 AI 工具，但他似乎并没有盲目跟风近期复古游戏界让编程代理进行反编译的潮流。在社交媒体上，Xavier 表示他在开发过程中“花了数年时间研究 P.T. 和 Fox 引擎”，仅将 AI 工具用于“调试、排障和调查问题”。

“I’m a solo developer making a free P.T. port because I love the game,” he added. “Nobody hired me or asked me to spend countless hours on this. I’m sharing something I worked incredibly hard on, simply because I want other people to enjoy it.”

“我是一名独立开发者，制作免费的 P.T. 移植版是因为我热爱这款游戏，”他补充道。“没有人雇佣我，也没有人要求我为此投入无数个小时。我分享这些我呕心沥血的作品，仅仅是因为我想让其他人也能享受它。”

Beyond being of interest to curious gamers who never had access to the extremely limited PS4 version, this port of P.T. should be very useful to preservationists who want to maintain public access to this historically significant game for generations going forward.

除了吸引那些从未接触过极其稀有的 PS4 版本的玩家外，这个 P.T. 移植版对于那些希望为后代保留这款具有历史意义的游戏的公众访问权的保护者来说，也应该非常有价值。

“Personally… I think the hardware super-specific solutions are dead ends for preservation,” Henry Lowood, curator for the History of Science & Technology Collections and Film & Media Collections in the Stanford University Libraries, told Ars back in 2015. “The kinds of equipment/hardware we have, the way they’re manufactured, just have a very small likelihood of surviving for super long periods of time.”

“就我个人而言……我认为针对特定硬件的解决方案是保护工作的死胡同，”斯坦福大学图书馆科学技术收藏与电影媒体收藏馆馆长 Henry Lowood 在 2015 年接受 Ars 采访时曾表示。“我们拥有的设备/硬件种类及其制造方式，在极长的时间跨度内存活下来的可能性微乎其微。”