Kojima horror game evidence grows, as manga artist claims he could collaborate

A renowned Japanese manga artist has claimed he’s been approached to collaborate on a horror game with Death Stranding director Hideo Kojima.

Junji Ito, the award-winning mangaka of many horror-based stories, told Comicbook.com that he had been invited to work with Kojima, but used wording that was non-committal as to the status of the project.

“I do know director Kojima and we have been in conversation that he may have a horror-based game that he may be doing, and so he has invited me to work on that, but there are no details on it yet,” Ito reportedly said via a translator.

Hideo Kojima has explicitly stated his intention to work on a horror game in the future, following the cancellation of his former Konami project Silent Hills, aka P.T., a title Ito was originally claimed to be collaborating on.

In November 2019 Kojima suggested he was watching horror movies in preparation for a future project and in an April 2020 interview with BAFTA he openly discussed his genre ambitions.

“P.T. ended as just an experiment, but I would like to make another horror game someday. Something that uses a revolutionary method to create terror, that doesn’t just make you pee your pants, but crap them. I already have ideas in mind.”

Kojima added: “I’m easily frightened myself, so I have confidence that I could create something more terrifying than perhaps others could.”

Kojima more recently teased his next game on Twitter, with images that suggested it could be Death Stranding 2.

However, the designer has stated his intention to work on a number of smaller games, such as episodic and digital-only titles, alongside the studio’s next major release.

Earlier this year, a Konami representative shot down claims that Sony was attempting to convince Kojima Productions to resurrect Silent Hills.