TOKYO, September 21 — Hideo Kojima says Sony Interactive Entertainment cancelled his planned game Physint on a Zoom call, and that he still does not know why. The Japanese designer behind Metal Gear and Death Stranding made the remarks in a recent interview, which video game news outlets picked up and reported. Neither Sony Interactive Entertainment nor Kojima Productions has issued a public statement confirming the cancellation or explaining the reasoning behind it.
Kojima announced Physint in January 2024 as a new action-espionage game for PlayStation, describing it as a return to the stealth genre after years spent focused on Death Stranding. At the time, Sony and Kojima Productions presented the project as a partnership.
No release date was confirmed, and no platforms beyond PlayStation were named. According to his recent remarks, that partnership ended on a video call. He said he was not given a reason for the decision and remains unaware of why the project was scrapped.
The cancellation, if confirmed, would mark another high-profile project halted in the gaming industry, which has seen multiple cancellations and layoffs in recent years. Kojima has not indicated whether Physint could be revived or moved to another publisher.
From Konami to independence
Kojima’s career gives the Physint story its weight. Born in Tokyo on August 24, 1963, he worked at Konami from 1986 and created the Metal Gear series there. He departed the company and founded Kojima Productions in December 2015.
His first independent game, Death Stranding, arrived in November 2019 for PlayStation 4 and later for Windows and other platforms. A director’s cut followed in 2021, and a sequel, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, was announced in December 2022 and is in development.
Kojima Productions is currently working on that sequel and on the Xbox-published game OD, announced in December 2023. What to watch next is whether Sony or Kojima Productions breaks its silence, and whether Kojima says anything further about where Physint stands.
