During The Game Awards final week, Hideo Kojima was given a large chunk of stage-time – alongside horror director Jordan Peele – to point out off a really transient, unnerving teaser for Kojima Productions’ upcoming sport, OD.
This weird teaser confirmed two characters, portrayed by Sophia Lillis and Udo Kier, as they recited poetry. After a minute or so, Lillis’ face contorts and she or he begins to scream as we hear a door open, and see its reflection in her eyes. Kier’s character, however, has one thing just a little extra elusive occurring; there are letters showing – albeit very blurred – in his mouth.
First noticed by Central Xbox, these letters in the end spell out Atami. Atami is a metropolis in Japan primarily based in Shizuoka prefecture, and when Shizuoka is written in kanji, it reads as 静岡. Split aside, 静 can imply ‘quiet’ or ‘silent’, whereas 岡 can imply ‘hill’. That’s proper; Kojima has seemingly had a Silent Hill tease quietly and discreetly inserted into OD’s teaser trailer.
Now, the chance of OD being a Silent Hill sport is slim. Beyond slim, even. We’ve seen Konami’s plans for its Silent Hill reboot, and Hideo Kojima – after a troubled previous with the writer whereas being slated to develop Silent Hills – just isn’t part of these plans. But Kojima’s foray into making a horror sport alongside massive names equivalent to Jordan Peele and Hunter Schafer, laced with a Silent Hill-related tease, leads me to imagine that OD and P.T. might have extra in frequent than I first thought.
This raises the query; might Kojima’s OD be the P.T. sport we all the time wished? Is it lastly taking place, albeit a decade later? Anyone who retains updated with Hideo Kojima or Guillermo Del Toro on social media will know that yearly, with out fail, the pair will commiserate the cancellation of what P.T. was destined to be: Silent Hills. And in the end, OD won’t be a Silent Hill sport, however evidently, Kojima – like many followers of the P.T demo – has not let go of what might’ve been.
The entrance onto The Game Awards stage by way of a mysterious door, Sophia Lillis’ screams, the letters in Udo Kier’s mouth, even the sport identify being OD itself; all proof factors to Kojima hopefully persevering with P.T.’s legacy, with out the shackles of Konami to restrict his studio’s efforts.
During the Xbox Showcase in 2022, Kojima introduced Kojima Productions’ partnership with Xbox Game Studios, stating: “Yes, there’s a sport I’ve all the time wished to make. It’s a totally new sport, one which nobody has ever skilled or seen earlier than. I’ve waited very lengthy for the day after I might lastly begin to create it.”
At the time, no one knew what sport Kojima was speaking about. Leaks occurred, rumors of a horror sport referred to as ‘Overdose’ emerged, and nearly all of us additionally bore witness to a topless man filming alleged OD gameplay on his telephone. Last week, we noticed the sport formally revealed as ‘OD’, and described as “like a film, but in addition a brand new type of media,” with Kojima additionally confirming that there are different artistic collaborators on the mission other than Jordan Peele. Fingers crossed that Guillermo Del Toro is concerned once more.
With all of that in thoughts, it’s secure to imagine that the “sport I’ve all the time wished to make” is a horror sport. Whether that horror sport is Silent Hills, we’re unsure, however we’ve an inkling – particularly following this teaser trailer – that it’s, and that Kojima Productions is lastly making it with the assistance of Xbox Game Studios.
While driving the hype of P.T.’s legacy, the one subject that Kojima might be dealing with is, surprisingly, P.T.’s legacy. The cancellation of Silent Hills resulted in plenty of studios and modders creating their very own P.T. like experiences; there’s Layers of Fear, Visage, and even Resident Evil 7, in a approach. Let’s not neglect the endless plight to get P.T. up and dealing on trendy consoles, which some succeeded with on the PS5 final 12 months.
That stated, you may’t low cost the Social Scream techniques employed in OD that we are able to look ahead to listening to extra about, both. Perhaps Kojima is increasing on his self-proclaimed ‘Strand’ style, constructing a horror sport with social techniques for gamers to assist or warn each other, very like in Death Stranding. We’ll have to attend to listen to extra, however that would definitely be refreshing – and enjoyable – to expertise.
It’s additionally vital to notice that whereas it is easy to be enthusiastic about all of this, Silent Hill followers are additionally more and more drained. Konami’s reboot of the sequence was a shock, however after latest occasions, plenty of hope within the writer and its plans have been misplaced. This fatigue positively carries over to Kojima Productions’ OD. Fans can solely wait and hope that OD is all the pieces we would like it to be; a religious successor to P.T. and extra. Something to actually reignite the psychological horror-shaped gap in our weary hearts. I additionally maintain out hope that the Silent Hill 2 Remake – which is being developed by Bloober Team – can put the hearth in our loins once more, nevertheless it’s very straightforward to not belief or think about Konami’s course.
If Kojima actually does intend to create the Silent Hills sport that he by no means received to make with the creation of OD, then he – and the remainder of the group working at or alongside Kojima Productions – have gotten their work lower out for them. There are P.T. clones galore and a relatively spectacular horror revival to cope with (taking a look at you, Alan Wake 2), but when anybody’s able to capturing the sensation of P.T. in 2023 and past, I feel it’s secure to say that my guess could be positioned on Kojima and his cohort of collaborators being the one to do it.
