Hideo Kojima Mysteriously Pulls Out Of His Big GDC 2026 Speech

Why is Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima pulling out of his big speech at GDC? What are the automatons planning for Super Earth? And will Ubisoft ever figure out how to make Assassin’s Creed into a live service? It’s another edition of Morning Checkpoint, Kotaku‘s daily roundup of gaming news, rumors, and culture.

Square Enix is sweetening the deal on Switch 2 copies of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth with an exclusive Magic: The Gathering card of Zack Fair illustrated by famed Square Enix developer Tetsuya Nomura. That’s one way to get hardcore fans to stomach buying a game key card.

Kojima mysteriously bows out of his GDC 2026 Keynote speech

Dear Porters and GDC Attendees

We regret to inform you that Hideo Kojima will no longer be able to attend this year’s GDC Festival of Gaming.
We understand that this will be disappointing for fans and attendees who were looking forward to hearing him speak, and we want to offer…

— KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS (Eng) (@KojiPro2015_EN) February 6, 2026

The Death Stranding 2 director was set to present at the Game Developer’s Conference, or as it’s now being called, the “GDC Festival of Gaming,” to talk about his fateful decision a decade ago to go independent after a messy breakup with Konami. Now his company, Kojima Productions, is saying he won’t be able to attend, but not giving the reason why.

“We regret to inform you that Hideo Kojima will no longer be able to attend this year’s GDC Festival of Gaming,” it announced on February 6. “We understand that this will be disappointing for fans and attendees who were looking forward to hearing him speak, and we want to offer our deepest apologies. While Hideo Kojima is unable to attend in person, KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS is still excited to be part of this year’s festival, with members of the team presenting during the week. We wish everyone at the GDC Festival of Gaming a fantastic event. We hope to reconnect with you all soon.”

Is the sudden last minute pull-out related to a dispute with the venue, concerns about the political climate in the U.S. and traveling here as a foreigner, or a surprise, last-minute scheduling conflict? Kojima recently tweeted that he’s back in the editing bay, suggesting an announcement for something new in the near future. An update on OD? Something about Physint? Hopefully, it’s not a sign of anything more serious like potential health complications.

Ubisoft reportedly canceled an unannounced multiplayer Assassin’s Creed game

That’s according to French site Origami which claims the project was codenamed League. It was reportedly a cooperative game set in the world of Assassin’s Creed Shadows that was in development at Annecy under a team of nearly 85 people. The studio was also reportedly working on an Assassin’s Creed MMO at one point called Echoes that also didn’t come together.

MachineGames boss says game prices can’t keep going up

While companies push $80 games and fans worry about Grand Theft Auto 6 costing $100, Wolfenstein studio director Jerk Gustafsson thinks companies need to focus more on smarter game development. “What can you do in terms of being more efficient?” he told GamesIndustry.biz. “What can we do to continue to promote our products? What can we do with our back catalogue to make sure that our older games can bring new life into those new platforms?” He also all but confirmed a third game is happening, as Kotaku previously reported.

Players are in a propaganda war with Helldivers 2‘s robots

The game has been parodying the brutality of Super Earth’s soldiers from the point of view of enemies like the Automatons to great effect. It all seems like it’s leading up to something potentially big, including the return of Cyborgs and another invasion of Super Earth. Arrowhead Game Studios CEO Shams Jorjani is having fun and spamming the Discord channel with messages in binary that read “you’re going to shit your pants.”