Hideo Kojima's first trailer for OD might have a sneaky reference to Silent Hill
Looks like some things just can't be left alone.
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Something weird is going on with the first trailer for Hideo Kojima's OD, and some are speculating there might be a hidden Silent Hill reference.
Another year, another Game Awards where the reveals outweighed the actual awards themselves. As host Geoff Keighley often likes to do, he brought out his best friend Kojima to reveal a new game, titled OD (previous leaks suggested the Metal Gear Solid creator was working on a horror game called Overdose, which this appears to be). As Kojima typically has a penchant for, there are some familiar faces to be found, including Sophia Lillis (It, Dungeons & Dragons), Hunter Schafer (Euphoria), and German actor Udo Kier (Call of Duty: WWII).
The strange thing about the trailer was noticed by Central Xbox, specifically with Kier's section of the trailer. At certain moments, just briefly, you'll notice that letters appear in his mouth, and when they're all put together they spell out "Atami." For those that don't know, Atami is a city in Japan based in Shizuoka prefecture. Shizuoka, when written out in kanji, reads as 静岡, but when you split the kanji up, 静 can mean "quiet," or "silent", and 岡 means "hill." See where I'm going with this?
Silent Hill fans will quite easily remember that Kojima was working on a project in the classic horror series, famously teased with a demo called P.T., which upon completion revealed the full game would be called Silent Hills. It was quite the exciting project for many, as it featured The Walking Dead's Norman Reedus (who later appeared on Kojima's Death Stranding), and had the talents of both Guillermo del Toro and Junji Ito attached to it.
Interestingly, the subtle tease in the OD trailer wasn't the only Silent Hill reference of the night. Kojima's over-the-top entrance saw him appear on the stage through a wooden door with an LED light above it which, wouldn't you know, looks almost exactly like the one that appeared in P.T. Obviously these are just teases, but it certainly seems like Kojima might be hinting that he's recycling some of his ideas from the cancelled Silent Hills.
Nothing else concrete was confirmed about OD, not even that it's really a game, and there's no release date either, so currently we'll have to wait to hear more about both it and Death Stranding 2.