Hideo Kojima has once again posted another teaser for his next project, this time with a puzzling teaser image featuring three mysterious logos, saying he has started a “new journey.” The tease has sparked a lot of interest in Kojima Productions’s new work, theorized by most to be a sequel to Death Stranding.
The image, along with the timing of the post, seems to be hinting at the reveal of the anticipated Death Stranding sequel at the upcoming Game Awards 2022, as Geoff Keighley has doubled on the mystery with his own tease, and the Game Awards official account has also joined the hype with another curious comment of its own.
This post follows a series of earlier teases and statements where Hideo Kojima spoke to the Guardian about how his new work is intended to change both the gaming and the movie industry. He is not building a one-time experience, but a complete infrastructure that he hopes will become integrated into everyday usage. As Kojima Productions is a small independent studio, Kojima considers the promotion for the games an important part of his job, and his quirky promotion with teasing Shioli Kutsuna and Elle Fanning’s inclusion into the Kojimaverse is indeed working its magic so far.
Kojima is a master at building hype for his works, and he considers the process to be as important as releasing the game itself. The reason is – as he told to 4gamer in a special interview – that it is easier for creators to speak directly to fans in the age of social media, and reveal more not only about their creations, but also their process, ideas, methods, and techniques of creating things, and how they are stimulated by books, movies, radio, or even social media posts. And with that in mind, we can consider his teases to be a part of the upcoming game experience as well.
Kojima Productions currently has one confirmed game in production, which was announced in partnership with Xbox back in June. Journalist Tom Henderson reported that he has allegedly received a Death Stranding-related video starring the character Mama, and that the new title might be called OVERDOSE, so it appears that the studio possibly has two games in production at the moment.
Kojima Productions has also recently opened a second studio in LA to focus on creating movies and other experiences in various mediums, while the Japanese studio will continue to focus primarily on games.