The Kojima Productions GDC 2020 events have been canceled due to "increasing concerns" over the coronavirus crisis. The Death Stranding developer joins the growing list of GDC 2020 cancellations.
The announcement was made via a tweet on the company's official Twitter account.
Kojima Productions has made the difficult decision to cancel our participation at the 2020 Game Developers Conference due to increasing concerns related to coronavirus. (1/2)https://t.co/K6FJtq5Tpx
— Kojima Productions (@KojiPro2015_EN) February 24, 2020
Kojima Productions is just the latest in a list of developers that have been canceling appearances at GDC 2020 and other public events.
Facebook and Sony both independently announced that they would not be attending this year's show. No Sony means no The Last of Us Part II demo, and Facebook pulling back from this year's show also means that their subsidiary Oculus won't be making a showing.
Rumors are flying around about more cancellations, but these three companies are some of the biggest confirmations thus far.
What Would We Have Seen at the Kojima Productions GDC 2020 Events?
Aside from showing off some of the latest and greatest in tech, GDC also has "sessions" where industry professionals get together to talk about various aspects of the business. Naturally, Hideo Kojima's company wasn't going to go all the way to GDC without participating in some of these.
The Kojima Productions GDC 2020 cancellation means that these events are no longer happening. Here is an archive of the description for the now-canceled Hideo Kojima session:
DEATH STRANDING's Design Philosophy
Starting over from scratch with the new studio, KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS, and creating an entirely original AAA title in such a short amount of time is no small feat, even for world-renown game creator Hideo Kojima. Just how has Hideo Kojima continued to remain this consistent and focused on implementing novel ideas…ones that demonstrate a strong understanding of the essence of worldwide issues…so masterfully into his games? Joined by the creator himself, we would like to unravel this process through an analysis of DEATH STRANDING’s concept, theme, storytelling, game mechanics, and development utilizing the overarching keyword of “Connection” as a framework.
And here's the archive for the canceled Eric Johnson event on artificial intelligence:
AI Summit: 'Death Stranding': An AI Postmortem
This session explores the unique AI challenges faced during the development of Kojima Productions’ debut title, Death Stranding. Set in an Iceland-inspired, post-apocalyptic United States, a core focus of AI development was simply finding a way to support agents that could reliably and believably traverse the game’s unapologetically unforgiving landscape. Learn about the strategies used to coax natural movement out of a brutal, fragmented navmesh, techniques to improve tactical positioning across extreme terrain, the hybrid pathfinding approach used to provide long-range navigation through the game’s winding crevasses, terraces and ravines, support for traversal across dynamic, player-placed structures such as bridges and ladders, and more.
This may be a disappointment to some, but the Kojima Productions GDC 2020 cancellation is probably a good idea considering that we still don't yet have a handle on the coronavirus problem. Hopefully, we'll be able to hear more about these topics at a later date.
What do you think of Kojima Productions canceling their appearance at GDC 2020? Do you think other game developers will follow suit? Let us know in the comments below!
