Two of the biggest names in entertainment have just joined forces and unveiled OD. Hideo Kojima is one of the most highly-regarded game developers in the world, responsible for the Metal Gear franchise and 2019’s excellent post-apocalyptic adventure Death Stranding. He’s now working with Jordan Peele, the acclaimed director of Get Out, Us, and Nope.
Kojima and Peele have been buddies for some time. Peele is a big fan of Kojima’s work and the pair appeared together on an episode of Kojima’s podcast Brain Structure in late 2022. Rumors that the two were working together have percolated for some time, all relating to a mysterious project codenamed “Overdose.”
This is now officially titled OD and was officially unveiled at December 2023’s The Game Awards. Kojima and Peele appeared on stage to describe the project as “a game and at the same time a movie and at the same time a new form of media,” and teased that other “legendary” creatives are also on board.
The teaser trailer
OD was unveiled alongside its teaser trailer, which shows the impressive cast’s faces rendered in exacting realistic details. No gameplay is seen, only the cast reciting this:
“The hungry purple dinosaur at the kind zingy fox the jabbering crab and the mad whale and started vending and quacking.”
Uh… huh. My suspicion is that this phrase is intended for actors being scanned for mocap to read so they make every possible phoneme. However, it could just as easily be confirmation that Barney the Dinosaur is making a comeback so who knows?
The cast
As is typical for a new Kojima title, the cast are all known Hollywood stars.
Sophia Lillis looks to be in the lead role, and has already cut her teeth on horror with her role in It and It: Chapter 2, as well as Netflix’s I Am Not Okay With This, Sharp Objects, and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.
Hunter Schafer is best known for playing Jules Vaughn in HBO’s Euphoria, and more recently as Tigris Snow in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbird & Snakes. Schafer has also been named as a modern LGBTQ+ hero as someone “leading the nation toward equality, acceptance, and dignity for all people.”
Udo Kier is a bonafide horror icon. The veteran 79-year-old actor has a ridiculously long list of credits, but is perhaps best known for Blade, Antichrist, Armageddon, Grindhouse, My Neighbor Adolf and many, many more.
Expect further names to be announced at a later date.
The plot
Right now little is known, though leaked video of an early version seems to confirm that OD will be a horror game set in the modern day. The footage showed a female character in a blue hospital gown exploring a ruined hospital armed only with a torch, eventually being attacked by a mysterious being.
We don’t know how much of the leaked video will actually make it into the final game, so for now everything remains a mystery.
Release window
The teaser trailer didn’t show any gameplay, leading us to believe this may be a long way from release. Kojima Productions is also working on Death Stranding 2, which may land in late 2024. Unless we get a surprise drop, we wouldn’t expect to see this before late 2025.
Platforms
OD is being published by Xbox Games Studios, who are also very likely funding its development. This means it won’t come to PlayStation consoles for some time, if ever. However, we would expect it to be released on Xbox Series X|S and PC, as well as being available as part of Xbox Game Pass from launch.