The unsettling anomaly spotting game The Exit 8 took Japan’s indie scene by storm when it released in November 2023, selling over 2 million copies. Besides being adapted into a full-length film and novel, The Exit 8 has had an enormous influence on game developers – spawning a wealth of games that adopt and play around with its formula. In Japan, this is so widespread that it has come to be commonly referred to as the “Exit 8-like” genre.
Although The Exit 8 wears its own influences on its sleeve, with developer Kotake Create being open about referencing titles like P.T. and I’m on Observation Duty, there’s no doubt that wider audiences consider The Exit 8 a pioneer of a new game format. With the title’s popularity reigniting lately, Bayonetta and Devil May Cry creator Hideki Kamiya recently retweeted a series of his past posts on X related to the Exit 8 phenomenon. He suggests that The Exit 8 is in fact, something of a “P.T.-like” itself – referring to Konami’s 2014 interactive trailer for the cancelled Silent Hills. He laments that due to it being deleted and abandoned, P.T. is starting to lose the recognition it deserves for the innovations it brought to game design.
“The Exit 8 went viral, but I feel like it’s basically a “lite” P.T. of sorts. When I played P.T., I remember thinking it was ingenious, and now, with P.T. being permanently erased, it feels like The Exit 8 has taken that position,” Kamiya commented.
“That’s why the term Exit 8-like feels off to me. From a game history perspective, I think calling it P.T.-like would be more accurate. That’s how innovative P.T. was, completely unique and without precedent, not to mention hugely influential on the developers who followed. (If there actually were looping closed-space games before P.T. I’m forgetting about, please kindly let me know).”
When he first saw The Exit 8, Kamiya immediately perceived it as a P.T.-style game, but was surprised to see that not many others noticed or mentioned a connection. This made him realize how much the iconic title has slipped into obscurity. “We should definitely remember P.T. as the true originator of that game design, or at least, that’s what I think as a game designer.”
Although it’s regarded by many as one of the best (and scariest) horror games of all time, it unfortunately comes as no surprise that P.T. is losing its recognition among wider audiences. P.T was not only delisted from the PlayStation store, but made untransferable to PS5, gravely limiting legitimate means to play it. Given the circumstances behind its removal, it’s unlikely that we can expect some form of revival from Konami’s side, but it might not be futile to hope for Kojima Productions to come back with something similar.
