Back on December 23rd, 2019, Hideo Kojima teased that he was working on the next Kojima Productions’ concept at the main office. Well, it looks like the next game after Death Stranding might face some troubles in that one of the many devs at Kojima Productions has been diagnosed with COVID-19 or the coronavirus.
Because of this event, Kojima Productions has temporarily shut down the main office to prevent further problems. This information comes from kojimaproductions.jp, which details the following information:
“TOKYO, JAPAN–30th March, 2020–KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS’ has learned today that an employee working at the studio has tested positive for COVID-19.
The employee has been at home from March 20th and as such has not entered the office since then. During that time, the employee underwent a PCR test, which returned a positive result today.
We are working closely with public health authorities and they have informed us that since this employee was not in the office at the time of symptoms onset, all other KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS employees are not considered “close contacts,” meaning that it is not mandatory to close the office.
However, we at KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS have independently decided to enact the following precautions to safeguard the health and well-being of all our employees as well as the broader community:
- Temporarily close the office floor
- Sanitize all office facilities
- All working staff will now work remotely
- Superviseand support for the health condition of all staff
KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS will continue working closely with our public health authorities and enact additional precautions as necessary to prevent further spread in any way possible.”
No word on if this measure to prevent further infections will impact whatever this new concept is, but according to the above letter, devs at Kojima Productions will operate from home from here on out.
Moreover, back on January 24th, 2020, Kojima notes in an interview that fans can expect “a big game” from Kojima Productions to come out in the next three or four years, but while that “blockbuster” takes shape, Kojima hopes the team can churn out digital-only and smaller episodic titles in between.
Aside from video games, Kojima Productions plans on making movies too. However, it’s unclear how all of the above will pan out since a staff member is diagnosed with the coronavirus, which has the main office shut down for the time being.
Lastly, 505 Games and Kojima Productions have released a Photo Mode for the PS4 timed exclusive that is Death Stranding, while the PC version (using Denuvo) will release on June 2nd, 2020, across Steam and the Epic Games Store.
