Highlights
- OD may be a multiplayer horror game, as suggested by Kojima Productions' new trademarks for "Social Stealth" and "Social Scream System."
- The latter could be tangentially related to the Social Strand System from Death Stranding.
- The trademarks and the game's first trailer both indicate that OD will focus on "screamers" and hence possibly cater to streamers.
Kojima Productions' OD might be a multiplayer survival horror game, as suggested by some newly emerged intellectual property filings. Hideo Kojima's latest title was announced at The Game Awards 2023 with a brief teaser that revealed more questions than answers about the Xbox console exclusive.
Speaking on stage following the December 7 reveal, Kojima described OD as a new type of medium that's meant to blend film and gaming. The project itself was originally confirmed during the June 2022 Xbox Games Showcase, which saw Kojima reveal that the then-unnamed title would make use of Microsoft's cloud gaming technology. Although many took this to mean that the game would have multiplayer capabilities, nothing of the sort has been officially confirmed to date.
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OD Will Feature 'Social Stealth' and 'Social Scream System'
Shortly following the OD announcement, Kojima Productions filed for several trademarks that appear to substantiate the notion that the upcoming title will have multiplayer elements, or even be a full-fledged multiplayer experience. Specifically, the studio submitted applications to trademark the terms "Social Stealth" and "Social Scream System," the latter of which even has an SSS logo that can also be seen at the very end of the OD reveal trailer.
The term "social stealth" is not necessarily indicative of multiplayer features, as underlined by the fact that many Assassin's Creed titles have implemented social stealth as a decisively single-player mechanic over the years. But Kojima's growing interest in experimental multiplayer experiences like the Metal Gear Solid 5 FOB mode and Death Stranding's Social Strand System indicates these trademarks might indeed be hinting at something more along those lines. Even the very name of the Social Scream System sounds similar to what Kojima Productions called the asynchronous multiplayer features of Death Stranding.
Another connection between these newly emerged trademarks and the game's first teaser is that they both appear to suggest OD will focus on screaming, thus possibly catering to streamers. Namely, the mighty strange OD trailer included a message saying that this is a game "for all players and screamers." And though it remains to be seen what its Social Scream System will actually entail, it's possible that the mechanic will make use of microphones in order to listen to players.
Warning! Minor gameplay spoiler for P.T. ahead.Kojima's P.T. demo for the canceled Silent Hills game already did something similar back in 2014, as several of the most straightforward solutions for its final loop required the player to make sounds while using a headset. However, the demo was also beatable without a microphone, so even should OD feature a similar mechanic, that doesn't guarantee the game will insist on what some might feel are gimmicky controls.
