Less than a day after the statement went out, the reporter who broke the story shot back with a single line that pushed the whole controversy right back to square one. On September 20, 2026, Kojima Productions posted a rare statement via its official X account addressing the wave of speculation surrounding PlayStation's decision to pull funding from 'Physint.' Reporter Jason Schreier responded almost immediately on Bluesky: "I saw Kojima Productions' statement, and it doesn't dispute anything in our reporting, so I don't have anything to add."
The whole thing kicked off earlier this month. PlayStation announced it was ending funding for 'Physint,' the action-espionage project led by Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding creator Hideo Kojima, first revealed back in 2024 with a targeted 2030 release. No official reason was given for pulling the plug, but Schreier got ahead of it in a video, claiming PlayStation walked away because 'Death Stranding 2' underperformed the company's expectations commercially, while Kojima's side had blown through the 'Physint' budget and missed multiple deadlines.
Kojima Productions' statement was unusually blunt in tone, calling the "baseless online speculation" about the studio's relationship with PlayStation, the commercial performance of the 'Death Stranding' series, and the production planning and investment behind 'Physint' damaging to fans, creative partners, and colleagues of thirty years. The statement stressed that "none of these claims come from an official or identifiable source" and urged people to remain skeptical. The catch: it never actually denied a single specific detail Schreier laid out — no denial that the budget was blown, no denial that deadlines slipped, no denial that 'Death Stranding 2' fell short of expectations. That's exactly why Schreier's response landed with such ease.
Kojima himself struck a different tone in an interview with IGN. He described being "shocked" by PlayStation's decision to pull funding and admitted he'd worried about Kojima Productions' future, but insisted he holds "no bad feelings toward PlayStation, because I know the game industry is going through a tough time right now." He revealed that work on 'Physint's' world-building, gameplay systems, script, visuals, design, and cast modeling is still ongoing — though the studio hasn't even settled on which game engine to use. The project has since found new funding from Xbox.
Ahead of 'Physint,' Kojima Productions is set to release the anthology horror title 'OD.' Speaking about the game recently, Kojima said: "It's a single-player game, and I want to push horror to its absolute limit — I want to go beyond whatever 'scary' has meant in games before." Unlike the turmoil surrounding 'Physint,' 'OD' is at least one project that's confirmed to actually ship.
