Hideo Kojima, creator of the Metal Gear Solid series, founder of Kojima Productions, and creator of Death Stranding, has announced that his studios’ next game will be released in partnership with Xbox Game Studios.
This announcement came from today’s Xbox + Bethesda showcase, following a promise from Xbox Game Studios CEO Phil Spencer that the company would be working to bring more games from Japanese creators to Xbox and Xbox Game Pass. Kojima then appeared via pre-recorded video to offer a special message announcing the partnership.
What game is Kojima Productions releasing on Xbox? The storied (if sometimes eccentric) developer didn’t say. Rumors have been swirling about a horror game reportedly called Overdose, but it’s possible that isn’t the game Kojima discussed today.
There were some clues about what kind of technology Kojima might be using now that he’s entered a partnership with Xbox Game Studios. “It’s a completely new game, one that no one has ever experienced or seen before,” he stated. “With Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud technology and the change in the industry’s trend, it has now become possible to challenge myself to make this never-before-seen-concept.”
We do know that Xbox has been singing the praises of cloud computing technology for game developers, both for streaming games to players and allowing “cloud-native” or “cloud-aware” games to take advantage of massive computer processing streaming data through the internet. Its rollout of an Xbox Cloud Gaming-optimized version of Microsoft Flight Simulator earlier this year might be a thread connecting Kojima’s grand ideas to reality.
It is always worth being cautious about company announcements that don’t show any game footage. Even much-hyped partnerships that come with game footage like Platinum Games’ Scalebound, have been doomed to failure despite being displayed at Xbox’s summer game preview events.
