Three months of uncertainty. That is how long Hideo Kojima spent searching for a publisher after PlayStation Studios delivered the kind of news no developer wants: your project is cancelled. On Wednesday, the Kojima Productions founder announced that the game is very much alive — and it has found a new home at Xbox.
Physint, Kojima’s long-awaited return to the tactical espionage action genre he helped define through the Metal Gear Solid series, had been a PlayStation exclusive since its 2024 reveal. That arrangement came to an abrupt end in mid-June, when Sony informed Kojima Productions it was pulling out of the project entirely.
How PlayStation’s Cancellation Notice Arrived
The news broke through a statement from Kojima himself, posted on X. “As confirmed earlier through our official channels, in mid-June of this year, we unexpectedly received notice from PlayStation Studios that they would cancel the Physint project,” he wrote. “Physint is an important project both to me personally and to Kojima Productions.”
“Determined to keep the project alive, we have spent the last three months searching tirelessly for a new partner.” — Hideo Kojima
Sony responded with a statement of its own, acknowledging it had stepped back from the collaboration. “After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to step away from collaborating with Kojima Productions on its project Physint,” the official PlayStation account posted. “We continue to have great admiration for Hideo Kojima’s vision for the game.” The company declined to explain why it pulled the plug.
Speculation among fans has pointed towards Kojima’s vocal opposition to PlayStation’s push towards digital-only formats, though neither Sony nor Kojima Productions has confirmed any such link.
Xbox Steps In as Physint Finds a New Home
After three months of negotiations across “many fields”, Kojima found that shared vision with Microsoft. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma — who took over from Phil Spencer earlier this year — has made Kojima a centrepiece of her effort to rebuild Xbox’s first-party ambitions. “We’re honoured that Kojima-san has chosen Xbox to work with Kojima Productions on Physint,” Sharma said. “His ambition to challenge conventions reflects the kind of creativity we want to support at Xbox.”
The deal is not Kojima’s first with Microsoft. Xbox is already publishing OD, Kojima’s horror collaboration, which survived Sharma’s sweeping reset of the Xbox business that saw thousands of jobs cut and multiple projects cancelled. Physint will follow OD into the Xbox line-up, with no release date confirmed for either title.
A Partnership That Goes Beyond Games
What makes this arrangement notable is its scope. According to an Xbox press release, the new partnership between Kojima Productions and Microsoft extends into film and television. Sharma’s brief statement on X captured the ambition succinctly: “Physint and OD! Proud to build both with Hideo Kojima in Japan. A big moment for Xbox.”
What is Physint? Described by Kojima as a “genre-defining action-espionage title”, Physint is designed to be simultaneously a game and a movie — a concept that sounds every bit as unconventional as you might expect from the creator of Death Stranding.
For Xbox, landing Physint is a significant trophy as it attempts to court the kind of prestige gaming experience that draws core players. The Kojima name carries enormous weight in the industry: his departure from Konami in 2015 was itself treated as a seismic event, and every project from Kojima Productions since has attracted intense scrutiny.
One Unanswered Question: The Decima Engine
There is one unresolved complication that competitors have largely glossed over. Physint had been built using the Decima Engine — the proprietary technology developed by Guerrilla Games and owned by Sony. Kojima Productions used Decima for Death Stranding and its sequel. Whether the studio will continue on that engine, negotiate a licence from Sony, or pivot to a different technology is yet to be confirmed.
Given that Sony spent three decades cultivating its relationship with Kojima — and has publicly insisted that relationship “remains strong” — a licensing arrangement is not out of the question. But the engine situation represents a genuine complication that could affect Physint’s development timeline.
For now, Kojima’s message to fans is simple: development is ongoing and moving forward. Whether the game arrives on PC and Xbox console, or carries any exclusivity arrangement, is yet to be announced. After a summer that nearly killed the project entirely, that in itself is something.
