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Development Status
September 12, 2026 at 02:31 PM
Initial version (2026-09-12)
PHYSINT has been in some form of development since before its January 2024 announcement and is still pre-production by every public description. There is no build, no gameplay footage, and no announced schedule. What exists is a handful of dated statements about how far along the project is, and they are collected here.
Date | Stated status |
|---|---|
31 January 2024 | Preparations underway. Full production to begin after Death Stranding 2: On the Beach |
23 September 2025 | Described as still early. Casting still in progress |
Mid-June 2026 | Cancellation notice received from PlayStation Studios |
June to September 2026 | No publishing partner. Three-month search |
10 September 2026 | Described as ongoing and continuing, under Xbox |
At the announcement on 31 January 2024 Kojima said preparations were underway but that full production would begin later:
"It will be a brand new, original IP, a next-generation action espionage game. Preparations are underway, but production will begin in earnest at Kojima Productions after Death Stranding 2."
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is a separate Kojima Productions game and is named here only because it set the schedule for PHYSINT. The same message stated an intent to "bring together cutting-edge technology and talent from around the world", without naming any of it. See Announcement and Reveal History.
An interview published in May 2025 carried the only public estimate of remaining work:
"Besides Death Stranding 2, there is Physint in development. That will take me another five or six years. Maybe after that, I could finally decide to tackle a film."
Three things about this remark matter, and they are the reason it is not a release window.
It describes remaining development time, not a ship date. Kojima was answering about what was still ahead of him, not announcing when a game would be finished or released.
It was made in May 2025. More than a year has passed since, so arithmetic performed on it today starts from a stale figure.
It predates the June 2026 cancellation and the three-month gap that followed. Both happened after the estimate was given, and neither has been factored into any public revision of it.
No release date, year or window has ever been announced for PHYSINT by any party, and as of 2026-09-12 that remains true. This remark is not one, and years derived from it are not a release window.
At the studio 10th anniversary event on 23 September 2025, Kojima described development as still early and said he was still casting actors. The same presentation showed a 3D-scanned model of Minami Hamabe, output in a game engine, and the model was described as still in development and not yet complete.
The engine has never been revealed. Kojima's own framing was that the scan was output from an engine that had yet to be shown, and as of 2026-09-12 no engine has been named by the studio or by either publisher. Named engines do circulate in commentary; all of them are inference. See Beyond The Strand Reveal.
In mid-June 2026 PlayStation Studios notified Kojima Productions that it would cancel PHYSINT. The studio spent the following three months looking for a new publishing partner, and announced Xbox in that role on 9 and 10 September 2026. Hideo Kojima, in his statement of 10 September 2026:
"Determined to keep the project alive, we have spent the last three months searching tirelessly for a new partner."
"Please rest assured that development of PHYSINT, our genre-defining action-espionage title, is ongoing and will continue moving forward."
What effect the three-month interruption had on the project has not been stated by anyone. No revised estimate, no restart, no change of scope and no change of staffing has been announced. The full statements from all parties are on Publisher History.
Hideo Kojima is the only person publicly credited on PHYSINT as of 2026-09-12. No composer, no writer other than Kojima, and no other production credit has been announced. Three actors have been announced, with no roles attached: see Cast.
In the interview published in December 2025 Kojima said he was considering working not only with film actors but with film production staff, without naming anyone or confirming any hire. His statements about the project are collected on Hideo Kojima on PHYSINT.
As of 2026-09-12: no engine, no target platform, no release date or window, no build shown to the public, no playtest, no closed test, no vertical slice, and no production milestone of any kind announced. First-party silence on each of these is silence, not a denial. The running account is on What We Know and What We Don't.
