{"id":242480,"date":"2025-10-27T01:44:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T01:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/242480\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T01:44:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T01:44:08","slug":"hideo-kojimas-p-t-demo-is-helping-japanese-kids-learn-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/242480\/","title":{"rendered":"Hideo Kojima’s ‘P.T.’ Demo is Helping Japanese Kids Learn English"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been over a decade since Kojima Productions<\/a> released P.T.<\/a>,\u00a0an interactive PlayStation 4 demo meant to set up the studio\u2019s next project, Silent Hills. The demo was pulled after the game\u2019s cancellation<\/a>, but it\u2019s found new life over in Japan as a tool to speak English.<\/p>\n

Per Automaton<\/a>, the Niigata Prefecture\u2019s Tsunan Secondary School recently began having a fifth-year class\u2014roughly high school sophomores for those in the west\u2014play through P.T.\u00a0entirely in English, from the dialogue to the menu text. After certain sections, the teacher pauses the demo to ask students what direction to go, and they\u2019d have to answer in English with phrases like \u201cwalk around the room\u201d or \u201canswer the phone.\u201d From there, they\u2019d dictate the player\u2019s next action.<\/p>\n

In a translated school blog<\/a>, the teacher revealed the demo spooked the students a few times with its jumpscares, but ultimately called the class \u201can atmosphere that was a mixture of excitement and excitement\u201d as the students learned the new language.<\/p>\n

The Niigata Prefecture\u2019s use of P.T.\u00a0adds an interesting wrinkle to the demo\u2019s ongoing legacy. After its release and delisting, several games like Layers of Fear\u00a0and\u00a0Resident Evil 7\u00a0(and the Director\u2019s Cut of Kojima\u2019s own Death Stranding) referenced or took clear inspiration from it. There\u2019s also been several fan-made remakes<\/a> released for free on PC and VR, and Christophe Gans, director\/writer of the upcoming Return to Silent Hill\u00a0movie, used the demo as a reference point<\/a> during production. Even Kojima hasn\u2019t fully left P.T. behind: his next title, the horror game OD<\/a>,\u00a0has drawn comparisons to his formerly playable teaser. It\u2019s too bad the demo and game are both lost to time, but they\u2019re preserved in more ways than one.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been over a decade since Kojima Productions released P.T.,\u00a0an interactive PlayStation 4 demo meant to set up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,52814,114033,114034,61],"class_list":["post-242480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-hideo-kojima","tag-p-t","tag-silent-hills","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}