OD: All the news on Hideo Kojima’s Xbox horror game

Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima is a very busy guy. Since parting ways with Metal Gear publisher Konami and establishing Kojima Productions as an independent studio in 2015, Kojima has released Death Stranding in partnership with Sony, and announced three more titles: Death Stranding 2, action-espionage game Physint (also with Sony), and OD, a horror game published by Xbox Game Studios.

Not much is known for sure about OD, other than it will utilize Xbox’s cloud technology to make something (in Kojima’s words) “groundbreaking” and “immersive” that “no one has done before.” It will also be a collaboration between Kojima and filmmaker Jordan Peele (Get Out, Nope), as well as other unnamed creatives. Read on for every detail we’ve been able to glean about OD.

What’s OD’s release date?

No idea, sorry. Kojima Productions and Xbox Game Studios have not yet announced a release date for OD. One thing we will say is that, with the studio’s Death Stranding 2 set to be released in 2025, it’s highly unlikely OD will come out before 2026 at the earliest.

Is OD an Xbox exclusive?

It’s hard to say! Since it’s published by Xbox Game Studios, the assumption is that OD will be released on Xbox Series X and Windows PC, as well as taking pride of place on the Game Pass subscription service, as all in-house Xbox games currently do. But it’s notable that no platforms are mentioned in the trailer. Depending on how long it takes to make, it’s not impossible that OD will come out on the next generation of Xbox hardware.

It’s also possible that Microsoft will choose to publish it on other, competing platforms, such as PlayStation — that’s a choice it’s been making recently for Xbox titles like Sea of Thieves, and, reportedly, no Microsoft game is considered off the table for multiplatform publishing. That said, the point of signing a Hideo Kojima game to your platform is the prestige and press coverage he brings, as opposed to massive sales. So, that would be a strong argument in favor of OD remaining Xbox console-exclusive.

Another potential factor affecting OD’s platform availability is its use of Xbox’s cloud gaming technology. This could restrict it to Xbox platforms — or, just as likely, it could make the game easier to play anywhere, on anything. Will OD be Xbox’s first cloud gaming exclusive?

Who’s in the cast?

OD’s teaser trailer, which premiered at the 2023 Game Awards, announced three actors who will be in OD, and showcased their performances: Sophia Lillis (It, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves), Hunter Schafer (Euphoria), and Udo Kier (literally hundreds of Hollywood and Euro arthouse films from the 1970s to now). Nothing is known about the roles the three actors will be playing.

One person who is not confirmed to be appearing in OD is Margaret Qualley. Qualley appeared in a leaked video demo of a Kojima horror game called Overdose that emerged in 2022, but which may have dated from earlier. While this is presumably the same project as OD, it’s possible that the video was a proof-of-concept demo, and that Qualley filmed it when she was working with Kojima on the first Death Stranding.

Image: The Game Awards/Twitch

Who else is collaborating on it, besides Jordan Peele?

When announcing OD at the 2023 Game Awards, Kojima appeared beside Peele and revealed that he’d be working closely with the horror movie auteur on OD. Kojima also said Peele wasn’t his only collaborator on the project: He said he had assembled a team of storyteller “legends” to work on the game that he called “The Avengers.”

The identities of the other creatives remain a mystery, though Kojima has not been above bragging about their clout. “When we reveal these names, my name will be completely forgotten,” Kojima said on Kojima Productions’ YouTube channel. “Whenever I show this list to agents and managers, they can hardly believe it’s true. They say ‘How did you manage to gather all these people who won’t listen to anybody else? How do you do it?’”

Possible names with a horror background include Kojima’s friend Guillermo del Toro, who played a role in Death Stranding and was due to collaborate with Kojima on his canceled Konami horror game, Silent Hills; and Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar) who is one of many Hollywood types to have visited the Kojima Productions offices in Tokyo.

What will OD’s gameplay be like, and how will it use cloud technology?

Once again, OD’s gameplay remains a mystery, although Kojima has strongly hinted that it will be unusual at the very least. When first announcing his partnership with Xbox, Kojima said he was making a “never-before-seen concept,” using Xbox’s cloud gaming technology to do it. Kojima repeated this message at OD’s unveiling, saying that the title “is a game, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a movie. It’s a new form of media.”

Kojima Productions says the game “explores the concept of testing your fear threshold, and what it means to OD on fear — while blurring the boundaries of gaming and film.”

The leaked Overdose footage (which is no longer available online) showed what appeared to be a fairly standard survival horror game, with Qualley’s character exploring a spooky abandoned building with a flashlight and getting caught by a killer. The video also had a picture-in-picture element showing a woman playing the game on what appeared to be a mobile device.

An unverified leak from a playtest claimed the game was an “experimental experience involving players using multimedia” with “long cinematics” and “active and passive gameplay.” Players would allegedly “guide” the in-game characters using information from sources outside the game, like web pages.

Is there a connection to Silent Hills?

Kojima’s first stab at horror was the canceled Silent Hills, which produced the legendary playable demo P.T. While Overdose isn’t likely to be connected to Silent Hills in any way (the Silent Hill franchise is a Konami property), Kojima Productions did drop an Easter egg into OD’s trailer that appears to be a — rather obscure — tribute to the unrealized project.