Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear spiritual successor Physint reportedly casting for a villain with a German accent who evokes "Mads Mikkelsen in Hannibal but with flair"

Casting details for Hideo Kojima's upcoming Metal Gear Solid spiritual successor, Physint, have reportedly emerged, hinting at the game's villain.

According to MP1st, a new casting call for the project, codenamed "Shimmer," has surfaced, revealing that Mari Ueda, who founded motion capture company Pivot Motion, which worked on Death Stranding 2, will be the casting director for the game. The listing is looking for four actors, with the call looking to fill the roles of passengers on a hijacked bus and a villain (presumably responsible for hijacking the bus). We previously knew that Ma Dong-seok (also known as Don Lee), Charlee Fraser, and Minami Hamabe were also cast in undisclosed roles.

Some of the roles being cast include a mother holding a newborn, five teenagers of different ethnicities, and two additional male passengers. However, the villainous character is the most interesting one, with the role describing "Mads Mikkelsen in Hannibal but with flair," who is slim, quiet, "intense," and "confident in a psychotic way." The casting call also calls for a requirement of a German accent, which, if anything, makes it sound like they really want Christoph Waltz for the role.

Shooting for Physint is apparently scheduled to start in June of this year, but given that Kojima said last year that the game was still "another five or six years" away from being released, we probably won't be seeing too much of it for a while yet. Kojima said in August 2025 that he was working on it "all by myself" while the rest of Kojima Productions was busy with OD, so at the very least, it may mean OD will be coming in the near future.

I'm always down for any upcoming Hideo Kojima games, but as a Metal Gear Solid die-hard (and a big baby when it comes to horror), his new tactical espionage game Physint is straight at the top of my list over OD. Typically, I'm all for artists being able to branch out and create new things instead of making sequels – we wouldn't have Devil May Cry if Hideki Kamiya kept making Resident Evil, and no Okami if he kept making Devil May Cry – but selfishly I'd love a new Kojima-led Metal Gear Solid, so I'm hoping that Physint captures the magic and scratches the itch.

Hideo Kojima put Low Roar in the Death Stranding games because he thinks gamers need more culture in their lives: "I believe that is the role entertainment is meant to play."