This morning brings us rather shocking news on PHYSINT: in a matter of minutes, Sony announced it had dropped its partnership with Kojima Productions on the Metal Gear-inspired espionage IP, and Xbox immediately revealed it had picked it up instead.

Sony’s decision was communicated through social media, as there’s no trace of it on the Official PlayStation Blog website. The brief message only said the publisher made the “difficult decision to step away from the project” after “careful consideration“, while reiterating the respect they have for Kojima’s vision and maintaining their goal to continue collaborating with the Japanese studio in the future.

Kojima himself released a statement about the whole situation, too:

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. 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. In the course of seeking advice and pursuing negotiations with people across many fields, we found in XBOX a partner with whom we share a common vision for the future, and we have decided to team up with them once again. Please rest assured that development of PHYSINT, our genre-defining action-espionage title, is ongoing and will continue moving forward.

This provides us with a timeline: Sony told Kojima and his team that they were dropping the project in mid-June. Then, at some point, Xbox entered the picture. On the Xbox Wire blog, CEO Asha Sharma said in a statement:

Creators have choices about where and how they bring their ideas to life. We’re honored that Kojima-san has chosen XBOX to work with KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS on PHYSINT. His ambition to challenge conventions reflects the kind of creativity we want to support at XBOX.

There’s also another brief message from the creator here:

This expands our relationship with XBOX beyond OD. As we move forward with the development of PHYSINT, we remain committed to redefining the action-espionage genre for players around the world.

Indeed, this will be the second project Kojima’s studio works on alongside Xbox. OD is supposed to be Kojima Productions’ next game, though it’s going to be quite different, with the revered game designer noting that it will be an innovative experience that pushes the horror genre to its limits. PHYSINT, on the other hand, has been described from the start as a more traditional action-espionage game, and Kojima even admitted a while ago that it exists because fans kept asking him to do something like Metal Gear once again.

By the way, don’t expect to play it any time soon: in May 2025, the creative said it would be another 5 to 6 years before completion. In other words, we’re talking 2030-plus. Still, the switch from PlayStation to Xbox is notable for someone whose work has long been associated with Sony. There’s still Death Stranding, an IP Sony and Kojima have long partnered on, but it remains to be seen whether that will continue in the future.

About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief.

In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech’s gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews.

Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications.

His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.

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