Hideo Kojima has unveiled the first proper trailer for the horror game OD he is developing with Jordan Peele during an event celebrating the 10th anniversary of Kojima Productions. The show also saw the premiere of footage from a Death Stranding anime, some casting details for the espionage game Physint, the announcement of a collaboration with Niantic on an AR game, and more.
The OD trailer, subtitled “Knock,” strongly recalls P.T., the infamous playable demo for the cancelled Silent Hill game Kojima was working on with another horror movie director, Guillermo del Toro. Presented in photorealistic first-person, the trailer shows the player lighting candles shaped like babies (what is it with Hideo Kojima and babies?) in a half-empty room while loud knocks sound on the door. Then the camera flips to show the player character’s face, played by Sophia Lillis, looking terrified before she is grabbed by large, grayish hands.
The OD trailer was introduced by Kojima and Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer; Xbox Game Studios is publishing the game and helping with development. Spencer called the game “truly visionary” and said that “Kojima is innovating in gameplay, story, and player engagement.” “This is totally different, even as a system,” Kojima said. Both remained coy about what makes OD‘s supposedly revolutionary gameplay different, though Spencer said that Xbox Game Studios was helping out on technical work within Unreal Engine for the game, “both in what’s flashy on the screen, but also a lot of behind-the-scenes work.”
Kojima did reveal that the studio was scanning spooky real-world locations for the game, as hinted in the redacted text intro to the trailer. “I want to go all over the world where there are scary places,” he said. “I want to scan a ghost for the first time, and I want to get an award for that,” he joked. At least, I think it was a joke.
Lastly, referring to the subtitle “Knock,” Kojima said that “there’s a different kind of fear Jordan [Peele] will do, mine is the fear of the knock. I’m really afraid of the knock sound!” It wasn’t clear if he meant that Peele has authored a different segment of the game, or will just be presenting a different trailer at some point. No release date or formats for OD were announced.
Kojima also shared a few details of his PlayStation tactical espionage game Physint, a spiritual successor to Metal Gear Solid. He showed a poster of a male character carrying a gun with his face obscured and the slogan “Here comes the feeling.” He said Physint “will be using technology even further than OD.” And he said that, while he was not ready to announce casting for the main character, he could reveal three other cast members: Australian actor and model Charlee Fraser (Furiosa’s mother in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga), Korean action man Ma Dong-seok (Train to Busan), and Japanese star Minami Hamabe (Godzilla Minus One).
Elsewhere in the packed show — which featured onstage congratulations and testimonials from many luminaries of the worlds of game and film, including no less than Mad Max creator George Miller — it was announced that Kojima Productions was working on an AR game with Pokémon Go creator Niantic. Alongside a visual of a person walking up a mountainside and the slogan “Move beyond the screen,” and a vague trailer featuring a man wearing AR glasses exploring a hilltop, Kojima said the game would be “like the real Death Stranding in the real world.”
A24’s Death Stranding movie also got a segment, with director Michael Sarnoski taking to the stage to say that the movie will tell a new story, with new characters, in the world of the games. “We want to find all of that scope and all of those incredible real locations, but also find all of those nuanced characters and just do justice to this on a micro and macro scale,” Sarnoski said.
