Hideo Kojima’s OD Features a Secret Mechanic That Was Initially Rejected as Crazy
There’s renewed sense of speculation and excitement in the gaming community today following the release of a new still from Hideo Kojima’s highly anticipated upcoming game OD. And although fans have been busy dissecting every inch of the image for clues (What is the meaning behind eyes as light switches? Who is that figure in the skylight? Will game mechanics involve unlocking those chained doors?) it was Kojima’s comments that drove most of the conversation.
The ambitious new horror game, created by Hideo Kojima in collaboration with Oscar-winning filmmaker Jordan Peele (Get Out, Us, Nope), stars Sophia Lillis (Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves), Hunter Schafer (Euphoria), and the late Udo Kier (Flesh for Frankenstein) among other familiar faces.
With OD short for Overdose, the game aims to push the limits of single-player scariness in gaming. Although Kojima-san is famous for making similar grandiose statements about his upcoming projects, anyone who played PT, a 2014 interactive teaser for the unrealized video game Silent Hills, will innately understand the level of claustrophobia, unease, and dread this studio is capable of creating.
“I wanted to do something new. I wanted to do something different. I had this OD concept since I was working on Death Stranding 1 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,” Kojima said. “I wanted to go beyond the limit of the ‘scariness’ that other games had reached. It’s a single-player game, and I wanted to make it as scary as possible.”
To that end, OD is said to feature a highly secretive never-before-seen game system that will somehow allow terrified players to keep going even when the game gets too scary.
“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!”
It’s not the first time a Kojima game has featured a unique gaming mechanic designed to help those who are finding things a bit overwhelming. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach featured a “Pretend You Won” option to help those stuck in a boss fight to progress by automatically winning.
Despite XBOX CEO Asha Sharma describing OD as a deeply moving game, Kojima admitted that his unusual pitch was initially rejected as “crazy” by multiple major companies before former Xbox CEO Phil Spencer took a chance on it.
“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 said. “They said that I’m crazy, and that they really don’t understand the concept — that they will not be able to do it.”
OD will be published by XBOX Game Studios. Filming is currently underway on the project.
Catch the new still, released via Entertainment, Weekly for XBOX’s June showcase.
