Hideo Kojima's Xbox project might be an interactive cloud film-game

Hideo Kojima is reportedly in negotiations to make a new game for Xbox, and it might help kick off Microsoft's new cloud games.

It looks like Kojima's experimental new horror game-film hybrid has found a home at Microsoft. Stadia design director Kim Swift recently joined Microsoft to help lead new cloud gaming initiatives, namely courting studios to work on titles specifically for Project xCloud. Sources tell Games Beat that Kojima is one of the various devs being courted for xCloud's new push and that Kojima had previously pitched a game to Stadia.

Kojima has expressed interest in cloud streaming for a while now and has a few ideas for his new project. After P.T., Kojima says he wants to make a new interactive horror game using the cloud as the delivery system. His comments suggest the project will be a game/film hybrid similar to something like Bandersnatch with more interactivity, possibly with AI-based randomization or procedurally-generated scenarios.

"I want to do a horror game and interactive mediums are really a good match. I think it could be much scarier than movies if it's on an interactive platform," Kojima said in a Rocket Beans interview from 2019.

"I want to create a horror game, but I don't have this good solution to [being able to look away when things get scary]. For P.T., I wanted to create something that everyone really shares. But if you're too scared you won't play, right? I want to challenge the horror genre and solve this problem."

"I really want to do something a little different. In the next five years, the platform will be streaming. I think there's something ahead, and I'm thinking about that. It's a movie, but it's a game...I'm thinking of that kind of idea and I want to do that kind of thing," Kojima said during a BAFTA panel in 2019.

More recently, Kojima says he is re-thinking his creative process after COVID-19 and gives some clues on what his next project will be like.

"I can't really say specifically [what the new project is]. It won't be like the past, it won't be one step at a time. It's a drastic change. Just like after 9/11, we have to adapt and think about new ways of creating, as entertainment can't fall behind.

"I have to think about what's going to happen in the future. If it was something like an alien coming into my game, it wouldn't matter much about the current state of the world. We could just make up any concept or idea.

"But I always want to put some societal elements as a base into the game to introduce the players to what's happening and maybe they'll think about it. Of course all the while still be entertaining.

"With this speed of change, I need to really consider which prediction I make and which way I introduce ideas to the player."