A video game demo is like peeking through a keyhole into another world. You get an idea of what’s waiting for you on the other side, and the view is almost always enough to get you waiting for the full experience.
Such demos were my gateway into gaming as a kid. Every day after school, I’d rush home, eager to dive into small slices of upcoming titles, squeezing every bit of enjoyment from them.
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But the demos that stuck with me the most were more than just teasers. They were separate, fleshed-out experiences that left a lasting impression even years later. These demos told their own stories, took substantial risks, and sometimes became legends in their own right.
So, with that in mind, let’s examine a few legends that completely changed the way we view video game demos.
9Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance: Skate Level
Snake… On a Skateboard?
Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance
Back whenMetal Gear Solid 2first came out, there were many, me included, who spent our time on the Big Shell wondering what it would look like if Big Shell exploded.
Little did we know that Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance would answer that question in the weirdest way possible. Bundled with it was a bizarre standalone demo, a tie-in with Konami’s Evolution Skateboarding,which saw us setting off bombs all across the rig while pulling off some sick tricks on our skateboard.
It’s hardly the stealth espionage experience an MGS fan might crave, and Evolution Skateboardingdidn’t exactly review very well upon release, despite being a fun time. But hey, at least we got to tear our way across Big Shell as Raiden and Snake. That’s a strange fantasy made real, at the very least.
8Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast Demo
Jedi Power Fantasy Unleashed
Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
I love it when a demo throws you straight into the deep end, giving you a real taste of everything the full game has to offer.
Star WarsJedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast Demo does precisely that, throwing us into a standalone mission on Alzoc III, the Talz home planet, and granting immediate access to lightsaber combat and Force abilities.
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Years before Respawn’s Star Wars Jedi franchise would successfully bring our Jedi fantasies to life with a modern coat of paint,this demo showed me just how fun playing as a Jedi in a video game could feel. For that, it has my utmost respect.
7Half-Life: Uplink
A lost chapter of Black Mesa’s Story
Half-Life: Uplink
Valve isn’t known for half-measures, and the perfect way to prove that is byshowcasing the sheer effort placed into their debut title. You see, they could have just chopped out a segment ofHalf-Lifeand called it a demo, as was the trend with most PC games back then.
Instead, they built Uplink,an entirely original mission featuring a ton of enemies and weapons from the full game, along with the now-iconic training coursethat serves as a neat little what-if scenario for Gordon Freeman’s worst day at work.
For those who played it first, it was an unforgettable introduction to one of gaming’s greatest titles. For those of us who found it later—especially during the long drought between Episode 2 and Half-Life: Alyx— it felt like uncovering a lost artifact from a bygone era.
6What’s Shenmue?
The Weirdest Sega Promo Ever
What’sShenmue? is one of those bizarre oddities only the creative souls at Sega could dream up, while also beingan experience that only a console like Dreamcast could offer. Instead of highlighting Shenmue’s combat or semi open-world exploration, this standalone demo sends protagonist Ryo on a mission to track down then-Sega executive Hidekazu Yukawa.
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It’s a strange premise with an even stranger execution, but after playing the fan-translated version, I couldn’t help but wonder if Yu Suzuki and his team were trying to showcase the mundanity of Shenmue’s world and set expectations for the kind of everyday realism that the full release would entail.
It’s messy, strange, and barely a demo in certain aspects, but much like Shenmue itself, it carries an undeniable charm, and that makes it worthy of a shout.
5The Stanley Parable Demonstration
A Demo That Hates Being a Demo
The Stanley Parable
The Stanley Parable Demonstration mocks the very nature of video game demos, yet in doing so, it accomplishes its purpose better than most.
It constantly teases a “real demo experience” while leading you through bizarre, self-aware scenarios thatperfectly capture the humor and unpredictability that we’ve all come to expect from the full game by now.
Beyond that, it also does a great job setting itself apart from the original mod, particularly by adding new shades to the Narrator’s personality— from his smug commentary to an unexpectedly tender voice near the end.
Speaking of the ending sequence, it convinced my younger self I’d missed 99% of what it had to offer. Of course, that was the joke all along—and that’s precisely why I still love it.
4Platinum Demo Final Fantasy 15
A Dream of What Once Was
Final Fantasy XV
For me, Final Fantasy Versus 13 remains a wound that refuses to heal. So, whenFinal Fantasy 15finally emerged from its ashes along with an onslaught of pre-release content, it felt like peering into an alternate timeline—one where Versus 13 still existed.
The Platinum Demo was one such pre-release piece of content that shared a self-contained story starring a much younger Noctis.It was meant to showcase Final Fantasy 15’s combat system and visuals, but its dreamlike tone made it feel more like a self-contained fairy tale.
With the wild content rollout leading up to FF15 (including Episode Duscae and Brotherhood), this demo remains a fascinating relic of that chaotic era—one that is now, sadly, lost to time.
3Resident Evil 7: Beginning Hour
The Return of True Survival Horror
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
Speaking of unhealed wounds, after the cancelation ofSilent Hillsand the Konami-Kojima debacle, coupled with the overall decline in the horror genre as a whole, I desperately needed a horror game that could reduce the pain of what was lost.
Resident Evil 7: Beginning Hour, thankfully, delivered exactly that. The demo,with its unnamed and faceless player character, “less action-more scares” approach, lore connections, and different endings, has a very found-footage feel to it.Back when it first dropped, though, it felt like a promise that horror gaming hadn’t yet lost its way.
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To this day, I’m just grateful that someone at Capcom saw what Resident Evil had lost in its shift to action and fought to bring true survival horror back. Resident Evil 7 breathed some much-needed life into the franchise, and Beginning Hour was the best possible way to get started with this revival.
2Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes
Big Boss’ Big Stealth Sandbox
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
As a standalone prologue toMetal Gear Solid5: The Phantom Pain, Big Boss' first encounter with the XOF was initially criticized for its length, lack of variety, and price. Thankfully, today, it’s bundled with MGSV on most storefronts, making it far easier to appreciate the masterpiece it is.
Short as it may be, it felt as though Kojima pulled off some kind of impossible trick, creating an open-world stealth sandbox so deep that most games are still playing catch-up.
Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes demonstrates the potential of the said sandbox even better than its successor,wherein you could approach a single mission in more ways than you’re able to count.
In my opinion, it’s one of thoseperfect stealth-action experiences that you come across only once in a while, and sets up the premise for the Phantom Pain with absolute perfection. Also, special thanks to it for adding Here’s to You by Ennio Morricone and Joan Baez to my daily playlist.
A Ghost From the Past
Sometimes, a piece of media is so haunting, so unnerving and so cursed in its execution that it refuses to leave your mind till the end of time. P.T., for me, is one such experience.
Going through the looping hallway again and again, solving obscure puzzles, and, of course, struggling to understand why Lisa haunts you,you get this primal feeling that something is just extremely wrong with what we’re experiencing. There’s simply nothing like it out there.
Even now, just thinking about it conjures that same haunting imagery and sends chills down my spine all over again. It’s a cruel reminder of the mystery of exactly what happened between Konami and Hideo Kojima, and an even crueler reminder of what Silent Hills could have been.
We may never have gotten the full release, but P.T. is without a shadow of a doubt one of the greatest standalone demos of all time.
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