Allison Road, the PT-inspired horror game, is back in development

It's been a few months since we last heard anything about the PT-inspired horror game Allison Road, mainly because the last thing we heard was that it had been canceled. But today, creator Christian Kesler told IGN that work on the game has resumed under the banner of a new studio called Far From Home.

PT is short for “playable teaser,” which was a brief demo for Silent Hills that appeared on the PlayStation Store in 2014. Konami's deteriorating relationship with Hideo Kojima led to it being pulled (and buried), but in a classic example of the Streisand Effect in action, that only added to its mystique. Some fans sought to recreate the demo in perfect detail, while Kesler aimed to capture the essence of the experience in something (relatively) new. He launched a Kickstarter for Allison Road in 2015, but canceled it before completion when Team 17 offered to publish the game—an arrangement that ultimately fell through.

“It did take a bit of soul searching to find the drive again to work on Allison Road and to simply make a call on what to do next,” Kesler said. “After the setback, I took a bit of a break from working on it and re-evaluated all the work that had been done so far—the whole journey, so to speak. I started making a few (in my opinion) necessary changes to the story and the flow, little bits and pieces here and there, and before I knew it, it sort of naturally came back to life.”

Kesler didn't offer any new insights into what led to the breakup with Team 17 and the subsequent dissolution of Lilith, the team that had been working on the game, but he did express confidence in his ability to finish Allison Road on his own. “For our gameplay trailer, I did all the modeling, texturing, shaders, lighting, etc., and thankfully a lot of the mechanics are already implemented from the previous development phase, so I can comfortably take the game forward by myself,” he said. “If and when it comes to a point where new features and mechanics are required, or old ones need changing, I'll go look for support.”

There's no indication of a release target at this point, and the Allison Road website doesn't appear to have been updated since before the cancellation. The Twitter and Facebook pages have sprung back to life, though, so for now, you can follow along there.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.