Hideo Kojima's mysterious OD reportedly escapes the cancellation axe at Microsoft

OD trailer still - woman screaming — (Image credit: Kojima Productions)

Microsoft laid off 9,000 employees earlier this week, cancelling games Everwild, the Perfect Dark reboot, and an unannounced MMO in the works at ZeniMax Online Studios in the process. Romero Games' new shooter fell victim to the massacre too. One game that apparently didn't get cancelled, though, is OD, the new thing from Hideo Kojima, with support from Xbox Studios, that was announced in 2023.

You'd be forgiven for forgetting OD. It's a game, Kojima said through a translator at the 2023 Game Awards, "but it's at the same time a movie, but at the same time a new form of media." The bizarre teaser, featuring Sophia Lillis, Hunter Schafer, and Udo Kier reciting a nonsensical sentence, wasn't any more informative.

OD - TGA 2023 Teaser Trailer - [ESRB] 4K - YouTube

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Kojima's attention since then has presumably been taken up mainly by Death Stranding 2 (which still hasn't been announced for PC, for the record, but we remain confident it's coming), and some folks online have speculated that OD may have been forgotten and lost in this most recent Microsoft bloodbath.

Windows Central claims that's not the case, however, reporting sources that say Kojima's oddball project is still alive and kicking—although the site ominously adds, "for now."

That cautionary qualifier is probably called for. Pulling the plug on a new Kojima game at this point in the man's career might seem an unlikely move, but I'd say the same about telling John Romero he can't have a little bit of money to float a small team for a new FPS too, and look how that turned out. Microsoft is an AI company now and it intends to drop $80 billion-with-a-B on the tech in 2025 alone. That's an all-or-nothing bet, and with that kind of money on the table, no individual videogame or game maker is exempt from the axe.

For now, though, it seems that OD is still on. For now.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.

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