Hideo Kojima has teased his upcoming Xbox horror game, OD, revealing it includes a special system designed for people who are too scared to keep playing.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Kojima stopped short of explaining exactly how this new system works, saying doing so would get him into trouble.
“I wanted to go beyond the limit of the ‘scariness’ that other games had reached,” Kojima said. “It’s a single-player game, and I wanted to make it as scary as possible. But for those that might stop playing when it gets too scary, I have thought of a system that will allow them to keep going. I can’t say much more, because it’ll give too much of a hint on the system, and I could get in trouble for saying too much!”
OD, published by Xbox Game Studios in collaboration with Get Out director Jordan Peele, is still shrouded in mystery, but we do know something of what to expect. The original plan was for the game to feature three main actors: Sophia Lillis, Hunter Schafer, and the late Udo Kier. Kier died in November aged 81, and while Kojima Productions had completed a scan of the legendary actor, it didn’t manage a shoot in time.
EW said Kojima wouldn’t discuss Kier’s involvement with OD, or say if he’s been recast, but did confirm filming has now properly begun with the game’s various actors.
“I wanted to do something new. I wanted to do something different,” Kojima said. “I had this OD concept since I was working on DS1 [Death Stranding] and I was working on it just by myself. I can’t reveal much detail, but it’s something that no one has ever seen before. A new game system.”
“I pitched to many people, to the big companies, and also to the up-and-coming companies. All of them said the same thing,” Kojima continued. “They said that I’m crazy, and that they really don’t understand the concept — that they will not be able to do it.”
Former Xbox boss Phil Spencer did understand the concept, however, and signed the game. Spencer was replaced at the top of Microsoft’s gaming business earlier this year by Asha Sharma, who told EW she’s just as keen on it.
“I’ve got great artists and creatives that can pick a great game better than I can, and so I want to give it space, but most importantly, I think it just represents another kind of game,” Sharma said.
A game like OD tells Sharma that Xbox has “not reached the boundary of games,” Sharma continued, “and, therefore, we need to make sure our platform is sufficiently open so more creators and developers can come on board and be successful, because the next Kojima is yet to be known.”
Based on those comments, you’d imagine that OD safe from Microsoft’s big Xbox “reset,” which will reportedly result in significant layoffs across the business, potential studio closures, and even game cancelations. IGN has asked Microsoft for comment on recent reports about those potential layoffs, which are said to be due by the end of this month, but it has yet to respond.
OD isn’t the first time Kojima has dabbled in horror, of course. P.T. is his uniquely terrifying spin on the horror genre, presented via a home filled with unexpected encounters and bizarre mysteries. In the end, P.T. revealed itself to be a “Playable Trailer” for the secret project Silent Hills, which never came to fruition.
Unfortunately, Konami cancelled Silent Hills in 2015 after a painfully public fallout with Kojima. The free-to-play demo was then scrubbed from PlayStation Network, provoking false rumors that the company was removing already downloaded copies of the demo from PS4 consoles worldwide. OD seems to pick up where P.T. left off, at least in spirit, and its latest trailer suggests it’s going to be every bit as terrifying, sparking speculation that it is connected to P.T. in some way.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
