Rumor: Google Apparently Canceled Hideo Kojima Stadia Exclusive Game Because It Was Single-Player

gamerant.com:

A new report claims that Google previously cancelled a collaboration with Hideo Kojima on a Stadia-exclusive Death Stranding follow-up due to the game being single-player. Since his debut with Konami in the mid-1980s, Kojima has become one of the most prolific creators in the gaming industry. The man heralded for his work in creating the Metal Gear franchise would later go on to found his own studio, Kojima Productions, which has established itself for its narrative-driven games. Now, recent reports have confirmed Kojima was once set to work with Google on a major Stadia game.

A report from Google news outlet 9to5Google claims that Hideo Kojima had been working with Google on a Death Stranding game. The game was reportedly set to be an exclusively single-player experience for the Stadia, seeing a departure from Death Stranding's asynchronous multiplayer elements. According to the report, Stadia doubted the viability of single-player games moving forward and shelved the project after seeing early mockups in 2020. Kojima was reportedly excited to work with «the potential of the cloud» on the Death Stranding follow-up.

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Google canceling a Stadia-exclusive project would seemingly confirm rumors from last year that the company had passed on a collaboration with Kojima. The mystery project was reportedly set to be an episodic horror game from Kojima Productions and was supposedly blocked by Stadia general manager Phil Harrison. Google would later deny these reports alongside reports that it had also passed on a proposal for a Stadia game from prolific Sega veteran and Ys Net founder Yu Suzuki. Similar to recent developments, rumors had swirled back then about the