Bill Skarsgård Cast As The Lead In Physint, Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid Spiritual Successor

Physint, an upcoming game from Kojima Productions, just found its star. The game is set to be a spiritual successor to Metal Gear Solid, a game series Hideo Kojima famously led for many years before parting ways with Konami, which holds the rights to the IP to this day. In 2015, Kojima founded Kojima Productions to make games on his own terms, and Physint is one of those projects. It's still in the early stages, so we don't know much, but today the studio revealed it's got a big name attached to the project; Bill Skarsgård will play the game's lead. You can take a look at the actor being photographed for a teaser photoshoot below. Bill Skarsgård is best known for his role as Pennywise the clown in the most recent duology of It movies, but also appeared as Count Orlok in 2024's Nosferatu and the scheming Marquis Vincent de Gramont in John Wick 4. Kojima is quoted in a press release published alongside the news. “I'm delighted to confirm the lead role for PHYSINT will be Bill Skarsgård,” said Hideo Kojima. “We are both long-time fans of each other’s work, and we've decided to embark on this new adventure together. The costume fittings, scans, and camera tests we conducted with Bill and Charlee earlier this year gave me tremendous confidence in the direction of the project.”The "Charlee" that Kojima references is Charlee Fraser (Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Anyone But You),  who was confirmed for the game alongside actors Ma Dong-seok AKA Don Lee (Train to Busan, Eternals), and Minami Hamabe (Godzilla Minus One) last September. Physint was originally revealed as a PlayStation-published game, but in a dramatic turn of events, PlayStation recently dropped out of the project.  A report from Bloomberg claims that Kojima Productions had missed key deadlines and was on track to be "well over budget," and that sales for the Death Stranding series hadn't met PlayStation's revenue expectations. That same day, Xbox was revealed as the game's new publisher, hence Kojima's appearance in the video above, which closed out Xbox's Tokyo Game Show presentation.Xbox and Kojima Productions were already partnered to release OD – Knock, a game starring Sophia Lillis and Hunter Shafer. Kojima's Physint update above is preceded by some new behind-the-scenes footage of recent OD – Knock performance capture sessions.