Hideo Kojima says his upcoming Xbox-published horror game OD is being designed to push fear further than other games have managed before.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Kojima described the project as a single-player game built around a new system and said he wants it to be “as scary as possible.”

OD was officially announced by Kojima Productions and Xbox Game Studios at The Game Awards 2023. The project is being made in collaboration with filmmaker Jordan Peele and stars Sophia Lillis, Hunter Schafer, and Udo Kier.

TL;DR – Key Info
  • OD is an upcoming horror game from Kojima Productions and Xbox Game Studios.
  • Hideo Kojima says the goal is to go beyond the level of scariness reached by other games.
  • The game is described as a single-player experience.
  • Kojima says OD uses a “new game system,” but he has not explained how it works.
  • There will be a system designed to help players continue if the game becomes too scary.
  • No release date or release window has been officially announced.

Kojima says OD is built around fear

In the Entertainment Weekly feature, Kojima said he wanted OD to go beyond the “scariness” limit that other games have reached. He also described it as something “no one has ever seen before” and called it a new game system.

OD - KNOCK Teaser Trailer

That ambition reportedly made the pitch difficult. Kojima said he presented the concept to multiple large and smaller companies, but they did not understand it and considered the idea too unusual. Xbox eventually backed the project.

Worth Knowing: Kojima has not revealed the core mechanic yet. For now, the safest description is that OD is an experimental horror project focused on testing the player’s fear threshold.

A horror system for players who get too scared

Kojima also said he has designed a system that will help players keep going if OD becomes too frightening. He did not explain the system in detail, saying that revealing more would give away too much about the game.

That detail is important because it suggests OD is not just aiming to scare players, but to build its gameplay around how players react to fear. Kojima Productions’ original announcement also described the game as exploring the idea of testing the player’s fear threshold and “OD on fear.”