Kojima Productions Drops Out of GDC Due to Coronavirus

Kojima Productions, and Hideo Kojinma himself, have become the latest Game Developers Conference dropouts because of concerns around COVID-19 (a.k.a. Coronavirus). In a short post on its English-language website, a spokesperson for the Death Stranding developer wrote: "Kojima Productions has made the difficult decision to cancel our participation at the 2020 Game Developers Conference due to increasing concerns related to novel coronavirus. Although much-anticipated, unfortunately this cancellation also includes Hideo Kojima’s session on the 19th and Eric Johnson’s session on the 16th." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/02/07/the-outer-worlds-switch-version-delayed-due-to-coronavirus"] Kojima was due to present a talk about his design philosophy for Death Stranding at the show, in which the legendary director would "unravel this process through an analysis of the game's concept, theme, storytelling, game mechanics, and development, utilizing the overarching keyword of 'connection' as a framework." It's the latest in a number of developer cancellations for upcoming public shows. PlayStation and Oculus have also pulled out of GDC, while PAX East has also been hit, with PlayStation and Square Enix among those who have changed plans around the event. The mayor of Boston has since publicly called for PlayStation to reconsider its PAX East decision, saying it contributes to harmful stereotypes. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter.