Legendary auteur Hideo Kojima may be working on his next big horror experience. Last seen in 2019's Death Stranding, Kojima's work goes unstated in the video game industry, hailed as unparalleled in both design and narrative, most prominently witnessed in the entire line of Metal Gear Solid games.
According to Tom Henderson, industry insider and avid leaker, Kojima's next foray in gaming will see the creator tackling a horror piece titled "Overdose." Henderson notes that he witnessed early game footage via an anonymous source showcasing actress Margaret Qualley, who played Mama in Death Stranding, wearing a blue dress.
The video of Kojima's rumored video game shows the player character striding down dark corridors wielding a flashlight in third-person play, but Henderson explains that "Overdose" could potentially be experienced in first-person, as well. Henderson went on to add that the leaked "Overdose" footage features a jump scare at its climax, showcasing a "Gameover" screen which is aptly followed up by the all-too-familiar tagline "A Hideo Kojima Game," then the title "Overdose" appears.
The leaker adds that it "does not appear to be Death Stranding 2," which is apparently also in active development according to that game's primary lead, Norman Reedus, who recently stated in an interview that "We just started on the second one." Reedus notes that his mocap scenes within the first Death Stranding took nearly three years to finalize. Thus any potential sequel is set to debut much further in the future.
Rumors have long circulated that Kojima had been in talks with Microsoft's Xbox to build a project specifically for the Series X and S platform. As of April this year, according to Jeff Grubb and VGC, the project is still in motion. No one knows for certain what this Xbox exclusive Kojima Productions game could look like, but it's clearly still in the works and could very well be this supposed "Overdose" horror title.
Though it may not have been officially released, 2014's Silent Hills teaser, simply coined 'P.T.," is proof enough of Kojima's potential in horror gaming. Bringing together some of the horror genre's most well-known identities, including film director Guillermo del Toro and manga writer Junji Ito, the canceled Silent Hills remains among the most heralded experiences in horror gaming and yet it never even made it into wider audiences' grasp.
The legacy of Silent Hills P.T. stays strong even to this day, allotting unbound rumors both before and even after the release of Death Stranding on Kojima's potential return to the Silent Hill IP and the horror genre in general. Given his rather kurt departure from Konami, it's safe to say any Kojima-made Silent Hill iteration is far from possible, but with potentially three said games in the works, who truly knows?
"Overdose," on the other hand, seems to be original work from the creator and may well lean heavily into previous rumors of a Kojima reveal on the near horizon. With Geoff Keighley's Summer Game Fest mere days away, slated to kick off on June 9th and wrap up on July 22nd, "Overdose" could be on the docket given Kojima and Keighley's storied friendship. Still, Keighley has noted that Summer Game Fest will be "primarily focused" on already announced games, but there's sure to be a surprise or two snuck in there.
Kojima's Twitter has likewise been quite vocal on the horror genre of late, with retweets of horror-centric posts, like IndieWire's "15 Best Body Horror Movies," and a deep dive into Bandon Cronenberg's "Possessor," among several more. While it proves very little, it does lend credence to his mind being ever-focused on a horror project, made all the more interesting armed with the knowledge that Qualley herself is set to star in Coralie Fargeat's nex body horror film called "The Substance."
