For PlayStation, this is one of the year’s most surprising personnel shifts: PHYSINT, the new action-spy game from Hideo Kojima and Kojima Productions, is no longer being developed with Sony Interactive Entertainment. Kojima says PlayStation Studios announced in mid-June 2026 that it intended to end the project. Rather than shut things down, Kojima Productions spent the past three months searching for a new partner. The studio has now found one: Xbox will publish PHYSINT, significantly expanding its collaboration with Hideo Kojima.
The move is notable because PHYSINT was announced in early 2024 as a joint project between Kojima Productions and Sony Interactive Entertainment. For Hideo Kojima, the title was meant to return him to the action-espionage genre that made his name. From the start, the team planned to blur the line between games and film.
Now the landscape has shifted. The project lives on, but without PlayStation. Moving forward, Xbox will partner with Kojima Productions on both OD and PHYSINT.
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According to Kojima, Sony wanted to shut down PHYSINT in June
Kojima provided the clearest account of the background. He said Kojima Productions received a surprise notification from PlayStation Studios in mid-June that PHYSINT was to be canceled. He did not specify a concrete reason for this decision.
Kojima described PHYSINT as a project of great significance to him and to Kojima Productions, so the team immediately began looking for a way to continue development without Sony. Over the next three months, the studio held discussions and evaluated potential new partners. After three months of talks, Xbox emerged as the new partner because both sides share a common vision for the project’s future.
For players, the key takeaway is simple: PHYSINT remains in development. How the partner switch affects technology, production, financing, or target platforms is still unclear.
PlayStation Confirms Withdrawal from the Project
Sony itself phrased the separation somewhat more cautiously. PlayStation Studios stated that, after careful consideration, it had made the difficult decision to withdraw from its collaboration with Kojima Productions on PHYSINT. 
At the same time, Sony emphasized that it continues to have great respect for Hideo Kojima’s vision. The relationship with Kojima Productions is also expected to remain close despite the decision. PlayStation points to its decades-long creative partnership with Kojima and explicitly holds out the prospect of further collaborations. This highlights an important difference in wording. While Sony refers to a withdrawal from the collaboration, Kojima describes the original June announcement as a planned discontinuation of the project. The statements aren’t necessarily contradictory: Sony planned to end the existing production, while Kojima Productions later sought a way to continue PHYSINT with a new partner. Neither company has explained the split, citing no financial, creative, or strategic reasons.
Xbox Officially Takes Over PHYSINT
Microsoft has since officially confirmed the new deal. Xbox and Kojima Productions are expanding their existing partnership and will collaborate on PHYSINT moving forward.
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma says the team is honored that Kojima Productions chose Xbox as a partner and praises Kojima’s commitment to challenging conventions and creating new forms of interactive entertainment. Hideo Kojima calls the move an expansion of the existing relationship that began several years ago with *OD*. PHYSINT is an action-spy title designed to redefine the genre. The partnership may also expand beyond games: Xbox and Kojima Productions say they plan to collaborate on film and television projects, though no specifics have been announced.
A former PlayStation flagship project is now an Xbox project.
The shift is surprising because PHYSINT was initially closely tied to PlayStation. Kojima Productions announced the project during a State of Play event on January 31, 2024, and explicitly confirmed its partnership with Sony Interactive Entertainment at that time.
During the reveal, Kojima said development would start after *Death Stranding 2*. He highlighted his long-standing relationship with Sony and decades of shared experience in the action-spy genre. Sony was to be more than a traditional publisher, with its film and entertainment divisions involved from the outset. The plan was to blend cutting-edge technology, high-profile actors, and a style that blurs the line between game and film. That close alignment with Sony makes the shift to Xbox more surprising than a typical publisher change.
PHYSINT will return Kojima to espionage
Details about the game remain scarce. Kojima describes PHYSINT as a next-generation action-espionage title. Many players draw comparisons to *Metal Gear Solid*, though PHYSINT is a standalone brand unconnected to Konami’s series.
Kojima shaped Metal Gear for decades, making stealth, espionage, political narratives, and cinematic direction central to his work. After leaving Konami, he launched Kojima Productions and focused on Death Stranding. PHYSINT now returns him to classic espionage action without repeating past ideas. Kojima has said he wants to create a new form of interactive entertainment. The title will function as a video game but will closely resemble a film production in presentation and workflow. Exactly how this will work remains unclear. Gameplay, the game world, the main character, and core mechanics have not been detailed.
Xbox and Kojima Productions have worked together before on OD.
For Microsoft, the new partnership isn’t a surprise. Xbox and Kojima Productions have collaborated since 2022, when both sides announced a project designed to use Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure in an unconventional way.
That effort later became OD, an experimental horror project. Xbox has been involved as a partner and publisher for this title from the very beginning. Kojima has emphasized on multiple occasions in the past that the concept is unusual both technologically and structurally. As recently as the summer of 2026, he explained that he had previously pitched the idea to various large and small companies. Many had not understood the concept or considered it feasible. He finally found a partner for the project in Xbox. Through PHYSINT, this collaboration is now expanding significantly. Microsoft is now overseeing two of Kojima Productions’ most important upcoming projects. At the same time, a scenario is unfolding that would have been hard to imagine just a few years ago: a project originally developed for PlayStation is shifting directly into a partnership with Xbox.
Does this switch automatically mean the end of a PlayStation version?
One of the most important questions currently remains unanswered. Xbox has confirmed that it will publish PHYSINT with Kojima Productions, but the latest announcement does not list any target platforms. Therefore, it’s impossible to say with certainty whether PHYSINT will launch exclusively on Xbox and PC or if a PlayStation version could follow later. Previous plans do not automatically apply to the new publisher arrangement. Moreover, the term “Xbox project” no longer carries the same meaning as it did a few years ago. Microsoft has broadened its publishing strategy in recent years and has released several titles once tied to its ecosystem on competing platforms.
No such announcement has been made for PHYSINT, so players should not assume either Xbox exclusivity or a guaranteed PlayStation release; both remain speculation.
New questions are also arising regarding the technology
The shift could also have technical implications. Kojima Productions collaborated closely with Guerrilla Games on Death Stranding and Death Stranding 2, using the Decima Engine developed by the PlayStation studio.
Whether PHYSINT will use that engine remains unconfirmed. It is also unclear if the shift from Sony to Xbox will necessitate changes to the project’s technical foundation. PC Gamer notes that the question of Decima Engine support after the publisher change is still unanswered.
For a title that Kojima says will blend film and gameplay with especially realistic visuals, the underlying tech matters. Still, it’s important to separate unanswered questions from confirmed details. So far, there is no official word on an engine switch, a technical restart, or scrapped work.
The timeline remains long-term anyway
A release of PHYSINT is not expected in the near future. Even at the time of the 2024 announcement, it was clear that Kojima Productions wanted to finish Death Stranding 2 first.
Kojima later said development would take several more years, and in 2025 he mentioned roughly five to six additional years of work. Even without the publisher change, PHYSINT was always intended as a long-term project. It is unclear whether the move to Xbox will alter that timeline. Adjustments to technology, production, or financing are possible, but nothing has been confirmed.
For gamers, the announcement affects the long-term future of one of Kojima’s most important upcoming projects rather than any near-term release.
For Sony, the loss is nonetheless significant
Even though PlayStation emphasizes that it will remain closely connected to Hideo Kojima, Sony is losing a project of considerable prestige with PHYSINT. Kojima’s name continues to carry significant clout in the gaming industry, and a new espionage game in particular raises special expectations given his history with Metal Gear. On top of that, Sony itself had prominently showcased the collaboration in 2024 during a State of Play event.
The withdrawal therefore stands out more than the cancellation of an unannounced project. PlayStation had publicly presented PHYSINT as part of a long-term collaboration. Two years later, responsibility now lies with a direct competitor. The strategic considerations behind Sony’s decision remain unclear. Without concrete statements from the company, speculation about development costs, internal priorities, or potential risks cannot be substantiated.
Many key details remain unknown.
Despite the surprise announcement, several key details remain unclear. There is still no specific release date, no confirmed list of platforms, and very little information about gameplay or the plot. Sony also did not disclose its reasons for withdrawing. It is unclear what stage of development PHYSINT is in or how much of the pre-production work completed under Xbox can be reused.
For now, the only certainties are that Kojima Productions remains committed to the title and that Xbox has stepped in as the new partner, securing the project. PlayStation players will likely focus on the platform question. Until Microsoft and Kojima Productions share more details, it is unclear whether PHYSINT will ever launch on PlayStation hardware.
In any case, the project’s trajectory has changed dramatically within just a few months. What was once a high-profile collaboration between Sony and Kojima Productions is now an Xbox project, and because PHYSINT is likely still years from release, this shift could shape the game’s direction more significantly than is currently foreseeable.
Source: https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/09/09/xbox-and-kojima-productions-expand-partnership-to-publish-physint/ Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
