Jordan Peele, Hideo Kojima's Horror Game OD is Going to Be Pure Nightmare Fuel

One of the biggest announcements at the 2023 Game Awards was the reveal of horror master Hideo Kojima's collaboration with fright genius Jordan Peele on the game OD. This is Peele and Kojima's first collaboration, and, while the brief trailer shown during the Game Awards didn't reveal much, it is pretty much guaranteed that the game will be downright terrifying. Kojima and Peele will use their previous horror experience to make OD the definition of the term "nightmare fuel."

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By  Marc Keever

Hideo Kojima Is A Master Of Multiple Forms Of Horror

Hideo Kojima is a creator who injects horror into everything he does. Even his projects that are not officially classified as part of the horror genre, such as the Metal Gear games, have a touch of frightening elements. The Metal Gear games are filled with creepy moments, ranging from the bizarre encounter with the Man On Fire in The Phantom Pain to the Colonel's fourth-wall-busting rant in Sons of Liberty. When Kojima does tackle the horror genre directly, he creates games so terrifying that they stay with the audience for years afterward.

PT Is An Exercise In Disturbing Imagery

PT, short for "Playable Teaser," unfortunately never got the chance to grow into the full-scale Silent Hill game Kojima and collaborator Guillermo del Toro had wanted to make. Despite that, the short gameplay experience is still known as one of Kojima's most frightening pieces, as players are pitted against a hostile ghost with no weapons or any means of defense except simply running away. Throughout the brief game, players are inundated with horrifying imagery including dripping blood, sinister voices on the radio, and the very space around them distorting.

Death Stranding Utilizes Multiple Horror Storytelling Strategies

Like Metal Gear, Kojima's 2019 game Death Stranding is not officially a horror game, but contains plenty of terrifying moments and thematic elements. Some of the game's most effective horror comes from the sheer isolation of the setting - Sam Porter Bridges can sometimes trek for hours without encountering another living being besides his companion BB. There are also a few jump scares, usually when Sam meets some of the frightening and aggressive creatures inhabiting the wasteland. The Director's Cut version of the game even added nightmares that Sam can have which directly reference PT - and, of course, are just as creepy as the game that inspired them.

Jordan Peele Is Horror Film's Rising Star

Initially, Jordan Peele was primarily known as a comedian, but he broke into filmmaking and quickly established himself as a master of all things spooky. Not all of Peele's films - in which he usually served as director, writer, and producer - are in the horror genre, but many are, and all of his horror content has been praised as absolutely frightening. He has won a number of awards, particularly for Get Out, which received the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Peele's current horror filmography includes:

• Get Out (2017) - Writer, producer, director
• Us (2019) - Writer, producer, director
• Candyman (2021) - Writer, producer
• Nope (2022) - Writer, producer, director
• Wendell & Wild (2022) - Writer, producer

Peele's films deal with questions of identity, the intersection of race and the horror genre, and with monsters both supernatural and all too human. Us sees a family terrorized by their own doppelgangers, while Get Out stars a man who discovers a dark secret about his girlfriend's seemingly perfect family. Candyman is a chilling remake of a horror film classic that examines the power of an urban legend brought to life. In recent years, Peele has also ventured more directly into horror comedy, as both Nope and Wendell & Wild were praised for their humorous moments as well as their terrifying ones.

Like Kojima, Jordan Peele is unafraid to experiment with many different ways of making an audience feel scared. Get Out shows how an ordinary conversation can quickly devolve into something frightening as protagonist Chris realizes what the people around him are really saying when they compliment his body and his youth. Us leaves the audience asking questions throughout the entire film, as they are never quite sure until the very end who the "real" person is and who is the doppelganger - and if it truly matters. Candyman, as a tribute to a classic series, includes several memorable kills and an implacable "slasher movie" villain who will stop at nothing to take his victims down.

OD's Content Is Unknown, But Nightmare Fuel Is Guaranteed

So far, very little is known about OD, the game on which Kojima and Peele are collaborating. The brief trailer shown off during the Game Awards consists of actors Sophia Lillis, Hunter Schafer, and Udo Kier staring directly at the camera while reciting a seemingly nonsense phrase about a "hungry purple dinosaur." In the background, various knocking and banging noises can be heard. At the end of the trailer, Lillis screams, although what she is reacting to that frightened her so badly is not shown.

In his speech at the Game Awards, Kojima promised that OD - which likely references the term "overdose," meaning to take too much of something, usually a harmful or illegal substance - will be something brand new. "It's a game, don't get me wrong," Kojima said via a translator. "But it's a movie. A new form of media." An official announcement from Kojima Productions cryptically reveals that OD will "explore[] the concept of testing your fear threshold, and what it means to OD on fear." The two masters of the horror genre will be diving deep into the concept of fear itself, exploring exactly what it is, what causes it, and how people react. Moments of nightmare fuel are certain to abound.

Kojima also indicated that he is collaborating with other people he has wanted to work with for a long time, describing the team-up as "The Avengers" of horror gaming. He did not name any names, although some fans wonder whether Guillermo del Toro, with whom he worked on PT, will be returning to help with OD. Hopefully, as more information is revealed about both the game and the team creating it, horror fans will get a better idea of what kind of nightmares OD will be leaving them with after playing.