Highlights
- The reveal trailer for Kojima Productions' latest game, OD, contains a hidden reference to the canceled Silent Hills game and its P.T. demo.
- The trailer spells out the word "Atami," which corresponds to the name of a Japanese city in the Shizuoka Prefecture, whose name literally translates to "silent hill."
- This isn't the only P.T. Easter egg that was spotted in the OD presentation at TGA 2023, but it is too early to tell whether these references will amount to anything substantial.
Some eagle-eyed fans have discovered an incredibly obscure reference to Hideo Kojima's canceled Silent Hills game and its P.T. demo in the reveal trailer for OD, Kojima Productions' latest title. The trailer itself premiered at The Game Awards 2023, where Kojima and Jordan Peele officially announced the Xbox-exclusive horror game with a star-studded cast.
Immediately after the 89-second video was shown at TGA, Kojima appeared on stage by walking out of an exact replica of a wooden door from P.T. However, it turns out that this OD reveal Easter egg wasn't the only reference to Silent Hills that was snuck into the presentation.
Every Cast Member Confirmed for Kojima Production's OD Game So Far
Kojima Productions' OD is still shrouded in mystery, but the teaser trailer reveals three prominent actors appearing in the game.
OD Trailer Literally Spells Out One Silent Hill Easter Egg
As several fans later realized, inspecting Kojima Productions' latest trailer frame-by-frame reveals five light-gray letters that briefly appear in the mouth of Udo Kier's character, starting from around the 40-second mark. The letters spell out the word "Atami," which is the name of a seaside Japanese city located in the Shizuoka Prefecture to the southwest of Tokyo. In kanji, the name of this prefecture is written as "静岡." A literal translation of those characters would equate to "quiet" or "silent" for 静 and "hill" for 岡, as recently noted by Reddit user GlazicBlr.
That may not be the only connection between this carefully hidden word and the Silent Hill franchise; according to a 2013 entry from a Niconico Pedia page detailing the original game, the setting of the 1999 Silent Hill was partially inspired by Atami. However, that claim isn't attributed to any particular source, so its veracity remains dubious because Niconico Pedia is a Wikipedia-like crowdsourced platform that anyone can contribute to.
Time will tell whether these P.T. references in the OD reveal presentation are a big deal. Silent Hill is still a Konami IP, making it extremely unlikely to officially be tied into OD, not least because of the infamous 2015 fallout between Konami and Kojima that made the latter leave his employer of 30 years and found Kojima Productions. But given Kojima's long-stated desire to make a AAA horror game, there is a plausible chance that some of the ideas he had for Silent Hills and experimented with in P.T. might end up being incorporated into OD.
On the other hand, Kojima never had any issues coming up with completely original concepts, so expecting OD to simply be the Silent Hills game that never was—sans the established IP—would be a disservice to his creative track record. Not to mention that the man himself already vowed that his Xbox-exclusive game will be something that will attempt to transcend the gaming medium, which should already help it differentiate itself from his long-canceled horror project. Between that and Kojima's perpetual habit of trolling P.T. fans, it's simply too early to tell whether these elaborate OD Easter eggs are hinting toward anything substantial.
Source: Niconico Pedia (Japanese)
