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Hideo Kojima's OD: Everything we know so far

Hideo Kojima's mysterious horror game, OD (Overdose), blurs the lines between video games and movies, featuring top talent from Hollywood. Despite being in early stages, the game explores the nature of fear, leveraging Microsoft's cloud gaming technology.

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Hideo Kojima unveiled OD at The Game Awards 2023, but it's still shrouded in mystery. This upcoming horror game puts Kojima Productions' partnership with Xbox Game Studios into action, having been teased years ago, and we now have a little more information. Well, as much information as can be gleaned at this early stage from a guy like Kojima, who loves him some mystique.

OD – or Overdose as it's also being called – is set to explore the true nature of fear, blurring the lines between a traditional video game and a movie experience. Kojima has been busy drawing in top talent from Hollywood, including beloved actors and Oscar winning writers. 

We've been left with a lot of questions following Kojima's big reveal. According to the man himself, Kojima is expecting a "tough" 2024 as he balances OD and Death Stranding 2. There's still a lot we need to learn about OD, including more details on what form it will take, and how Kojima will be leveraging Microsoft's cloud gaming technology to make it all happen. Still, we have the latest OD news for you below, as well as an in-engine reveal trailer that teases out the fidelity Kojima Productions is shooting for with Unreal Engine 5. So keep on reading to discover everything you need to know about Project Overdose, one of our top new games for 2024 and beyond to keep an eye on.

This OD game hub was updated on June 6, and although we don't have anything to add right now, check back soon as Kojima drip-feeds us more about his upcoming horror experience.

At least when creative director Hideo Kojima was working on Metal Gear Solid games, you sort of knew what you were getting – cinematic stealth action. But as soon as he started to stretch into other franchises and new IP, his work became more difficult to anticipate. P.T. was a masterclass in looping psychological horror, Death Stranding, an oddly esoteric game about hiking through an apocalypse, and then there's OD. 

Kojima himself has said that he is "creating a very unique, immersive, and totally new style of game – or rather, a new form of media." The first teaser trailer ends with a sting claiming that Overdose will be "for all the players and screamers." There's a lot to unravel here, so let's start with genre, as that's easier to figure out: OD will be a horror. Kojima Productions says that "OD explores the concept of testing your fear threshold, and what it means to OD on fear." 

Okay, so that's a start. The studio also says that it will do this "while blurring the boundaries of gaming and film", which is where things start getting a little more complicated. At The Game Awards, Kojima reaffirmed that OD "is a game, don't get me wrong" but then went on to note that "at the same time, it's a movie; and at the same time, it's a new form of media." It sounds confusing is what it sounds like, which is likely why Academy Award winning filmmaker Jordan Peele (Get Out, Us, Nope) has come on board to collaborate – one of "several talented storytellers involved in the project."

A very bizarre leak in 2022 wasn't all that helpful in figuring out what style of play we should anticipate here, I'd say that it will likely blend some degree of active and passive play – owing to the fact that Overdrive development is being driven through a partnership with Microsoft Gaming, leveraging the power of Xbox Cloud Gaming for development. I've written in the past about why the Xbox Game Studios and Kojima Productions partnership is important, and in that article I touch on how important the speculation game is to these sort of weird creative endeavors. Kojima says he wants to "make something nobody has seen before" – we know that it'll be a horror, and that it'll blur the line between games and film, but exactly what shape that will take remains to be seen. And I wouldn't expect to see anything more for a while yet.

Hideo Kojima has unveiled the actors who will take starring roles in OD, although he is yet to confirm the names of the characters that they will eventually play. It's likely to be a little while before we learn more about the OD cast, but you can find the current list of will star in the project here: 

The first OD trailer was unveiled at The Game Awards 2023. The short teaser shows three of the core cast in what appears to effectively be motion-capture screen tests – floating heads on a black background, rendered by Epic's Unreal Engine 5 and MetaHuman technologies, as the eyes illuminate the lights and camera in front of them. You can watch the first teaser trailer for Hideo Kojima's OD above. 

The OD release date is still likely to be years away at this point. Creative director Hideo Kojima is certainly focused on development of Death Stranding 2 right now, with this upcoming Xbox Series X game expected to follow after. Kojima Productions and Xbox Game Studios announced their collaboration in 2022, explaining that the two development houses were working to utilize the power of the cloud. What that means for platforms is anybody's guess, but I'd suspect that it will land on Xbox Series X, PC, and mobile devices via Xbox Cloud Gaming and Xbox Game Pass.