Kojima Productions at 11: Physint Moves to Xbox, OD Survives, and Bill Skarsgard Steps In
A year after Death Stranding 2, Hideo Kojima's studio has two games in production, both now with Xbox, plus films and an anime. Here is what is confirmed, what changed in 2026, and why a Korean action star is in the cast.
When Hideo Kojima left Konami in 2015, he started over with almost nothing: no engine, no office, and no games. What he did have was a mascot. His new studio's logo, a figure in a spacesuit called Ludens, was named after Homo Ludens, the idea of humans as "playing animals". Eleven years later, that astronaut sits on top of one of the most closely watched studios in games, now working with a new partner.
In September 2026, Xbox confirmed it will publish Physint, the espionage game that Kojima Productions first announced with PlayStation in 2024. At the Tokyo Game Show on September 17, Kojima named Bill Skarsgard as its lead. Xbox was already publishing the studio's horror project, OD. Both of Kojima's next games now sit with Microsoft.
The studio Kojima built
Kojima Productions was relaunched as an independent studio on December 16, 2015, in a joint announcement with Sony Computer Entertainment. Kojima brought along two long-time collaborators: artist Yoji Shinkawa, famous for his Metal Gear designs, and producer Kenichiro Imaizumi. The studio is based in Shinagawa, Tokyo, and opened a small team in Amsterdam in 2016.
The studio's first game, Death Stranding (2019), was a strange and divisive delivery-man epic set in a broken America. It ran on Decima, an engine Kojima borrowed from Guerrilla Games in Amsterdam. In November 2024, Kojima Productions took back the rights to Death Stranding from Sony and released the Director's Cut on Xbox Series X|S and PC.
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach launched on PS5 on June 26, 2025 and came to PC on March 19, 2026. It took Sam Porter Bridges to Australia and earned an OpenCritic average of 90, one of the best scores of 2025. With it shipped, the studio said its development focus would move to two projects: OD and Physint.
OD: the horror anthology that refused to die
OD has had a rocky road. Kojima Productions and Xbox Game Studios announced their partnership in June 2022, and the game was revealed with a teaser at The Game Awards 2023, alongside its co-writer, Get Out director Jordan Peele. The cast includes Sophia Lillis, Hunter Schafer and the late Udo Kier.
What we know about the game:
- Genre: single-player horror, built in Unreal Engine 5.
- Format: an anthology, with segments written by several directors, Kojima and Peele among them.
- Teaser two: a second trailer, subtitled Knock, appeared at the studio's 10th anniversary event in September 2025. The studio says "Knock" names one part of the experience, not the whole game.
The anthology idea suits both writers. Peele built his film career on horror that hides social commentary inside a genre story, and Kojima has always enjoyed breaking a game into strange, self-contained episodes. Letting several directors each shape a piece of OD turns that into a structure.
Then came setbacks. Production was slowed by the SAG-AFTRA video game strike, and in November 2025 Udo Kier died before finishing his work on the game. In mid-2026, as Xbox restructured, there were reports the project might not survive. On June 30, 2026, those reports were answered: Xbox would not cancel it, and Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said the company would keep supporting it. By September 2026, Kojima said production had resumed, with Lillis and Schafer doing additional performance-capture and voice sessions.
Physint: from PlayStation to Xbox
Physint is the project Kojima fans have waited longest for: a return to the action-espionage genre that he defined with Metal Gear Solid. It was announced as a working title during a PlayStation State of Play on January 31, 2024, described as something between a film and a game, with Sony and Columbia Pictures involved.
Then, in June 2026, Sony was reported to have dropped the project. In September, the rights moved to Xbox Game Studios, and Xbox confirmed it will publish the game. Days later, at the Xbox Tokyo Game Show broadcast, Kojima announced the lead.
The confirmed cast:
- Bill Skarsgard as the protagonist. "I'm delighted to confirm the lead role for PHYSINT will be Bill Skarsgard," Kojima said, adding that early tests with the cast had given him "tremendous confidence".
- Charlee Fraser, Ma Dong-seok and Minami Hamabe in the ensemble, first named in September 2025.
Xbox has not announced platforms or a release window.
Beyond games
Kojima Productions is also becoming a small media company. It opened a film and TV division in Los Angeles in 2021, and a live-action Death Stranding film is in development with A24 and Hammerstone Studios. An animated film, Death Stranding: Mosquito, is planned, and an anime series, Death Stranding Isolations, is due on Disney+ in 2027. The 2024 documentary Hideo Kojima: Connecting Worlds followed the studio's early years.
Xbox's deal goes beyond games as well: the two companies say they are also working together on film and television projects. For a director who has always talked about blurring the line between cinema and games, that may be the most Kojima-like part of the whole arrangement.
Why it matters
The Physint move is one of the most surprising platform swaps in recent memory. Kojima's first independent game was a Sony exclusive, and Death Stranding 2 was one of PlayStation's showpieces in 2025. Now his next two games are both Xbox titles, in a year when Xbox has been cutting studios elsewhere. That says a lot about how much Microsoft values a name like Kojima's.
It also adds pressure. OD has been in the works since at least 2022, and Physint will need a long production after casting. Kojima has never been a quick developer, and two games at once is new territory for a studio of about 200 people.
By the numbers
- 2015: Kojima Productions relaunched as an independent studio
- ~200: employees in 2025, up from a planned cap of 100
- 90: Death Stranding 2's OpenCritic average
- 2: games in development, both now published by Xbox
- 2027: Death Stranding Isolations anime due on Disney+
What to watch
Expect the next real news on OD first, since it is further along. For Physint, the next milestones are more casting news, which Kojima has promised, and a first look at the game itself. Neither game has a release date, and given Kojima's history, it would be wise not to expect one soon. If there is a surprise, The Game Awards on December 10 is the likeliest stage: Kojima used it to reveal Death Stranding 2 in 2022 and OD in 2023.
In the meantime, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is the studio at its most confident, now on both PS5 and PC. And if you have never played the original, the Director's Cut runs on every current platform, including Xbox.