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PHYSINT is described by its creator as an action-espionage game. That phrase is the only genre label with a first-party source behind it, and it has been used consistently from the announcement in January 2024 through to the publishing statement in September 2026. Everything else written about the game's genre and lineage is either a descriptive classification or commentary, and this page marks which is which, because the commentary around PHYSINT runs far ahead of what has actually been disclosed.

Action-espionage: the first-party term

Kojima used the phrase in the announcement itself, calling PHYSINT "a next-generation action espionage game". Two and a half years later the studio used it again in writing, describing PHYSINT as "our genre-defining action-espionage title" and committing to "redefining the action-espionage genre for players around the world". It is the label the developer applies to its own work, and it is the safest one to use.

Stealth: a description applied from outside

PHYSINT is commonly classified as a stealth game. That is a description applied from outside rather than a term the studio has used, though it is consistent with the only gameplay shape Kojima has ever sketched aloud, in an interview published in December 2025.

As for Physint, because it's an espionage game, I could practically make it in my sleep. For example, you have a soldier who infiltrates, gets stopped by the enemy, gets attacked, and sneaks around to take them out one by one. No matter how that plays out, it's fun and easy to make. But that's also what we're trying to fight against.

The second half of that passage matters as much as the first. He describes the infiltration loop as the version he could make without effort, and then says the project is fighting against it. In the same interview he said the game introduces new gimmicks, without naming one. So the stealth label is a reasonable description of the territory and is not a confirmed account of PHYSINT's systems. As of 2026-09-12, no mechanic, verb, weapon, system or interface element has been disclosed for this game.

Single-player has never been stated by anyone. There is no first-party statement about player count, multiplayer, co-operative play or online components in either direction, and this wiki does not assert one.

Film and games: the stated ambition

The one design ambition Kojima has repeated across the project's whole public life is the collapsing of the gap between film and games. In January 2024 he said that PHYSINT is "an interactive game, but it is also a movie at the same time, in terms of look, story, theme, cast, acting, fashion, and sound", and that "we hope to transcend the barriers between film and video games". In February 2024 he gave the same idea a domestic test: if your mother walked in while you were playing, she should think you were watching a movie. In December 2025 he extended it from casting to crew, saying he was thinking of working not just with film actors but with film staff on the production side.

This is the only influence on PHYSINT that is stated repeatedly, in first-party statements, across more than two years. It is also visible in what the project has actually spent its announcements on: three screen actors and a character scan, rather than a mechanic or a trailer. The three announced performers are listed on Cast.

The spiritual successor framing, and what it does not mean

Since January 2024, commentary has near-universally described PHYSINT as a spiritual successor to Metal Gear Solid, the stealth series Kojima directed earlier in his career. Kojima's own account supports the narrow version of that reading and nothing wider. He has said that for eight years users around the world asked him daily to make another one, that after falling ill in 2020 he had thought he could not go back to making games, and that the volume of those requests made him change his priorities and decide to make an action espionage game.

That is a statement about a career and about what an audience asked for. It is not a statement about this game's contents, and the difference is the single most important editorial line on this wiki. The following are all true as of 2026-09-12:

• PHYSINT is a brand new original IP. Kojima said so in the announcement, in those words. It is not a sequel, a remake, a reboot or a licensed property.

• No continuity, character, faction, organisation, location, timeline, device or mechanic from Metal Gear Solid or any other earlier series has been announced as appearing in PHYSINT. Nothing of the kind has been announced at all, because no premise, setting, character or mechanic of any kind has been disclosed for this game.

• The Metal Gear series is owned by Konami, which has no involvement in PHYSINT. Kojima Productions is an independent studio and the announcement page for the current publishing arrangement carries the studio's own copyright over the project.

• Sharing a genre is not sharing content. Two espionage games can occupy the same territory and have nothing else in common, and until PHYSINT discloses something, similarity is an expectation rather than an observation.

Accordingly, no character, mechanic, plot point or piece of lore from Metal Gear Solid is documented anywhere on this wiki as PHYSINT content, and none should be added on the strength of the successor framing. The framing explains why the game exists. It says nothing about what is in it.

Two projects that are not influences

Two other Kojima Productions projects appear constantly alongside PHYSINT and neither one tells a reader anything about it.

• OD is a separate Kojima Productions game, a horror project published by Xbox Game Studios, revealed at the same anniversary event at which the PHYSINT poster appeared. The September 2026 publishing announcement for PHYSINT explicitly describes itself as expanding the studio's Xbox relationship beyond OD, which is the clearest first-party statement that the two are distinct projects. Statements Kojima has made about OD's design are about OD.

• Death Stranding and Death Stranding 2: On the Beach are a different series again. Their only bearing on PHYSINT is scheduling: Kojima said in January 2024 that PHYSINT production would begin in earnest after Death Stranding 2. Nothing about their setting, systems or reception transfers, including their platform arrangements.

The title

As of 2026-09-12, neither Kojima nor the studio has ever explained the title. An expansion to "physical intelligence" circulates widely in commentary and fan reference material, but no first-party statement supports it. It is recorded here as unverified, and it should not be written as an etymology anywhere on this wiki.

The title is also still provisional. Japanese-language copy has rendered it as PHYSINT（仮）, where the trailing character means provisional, and it has been described as a working title rather than a final one. English first-party copy stylises it in full capitals as PHYSINT.

Genre labels in use

The consolidated list of what is and is not established sits on What We Know and What We Don't, and the statements this page draws on are collected in full on Hideo Kojima on PHYSINT.