Hideo Kojima and Jordan Peele's OD is apparently hiding a reference to Silent Hill, if you're willing to believe some speculation.
Below, the Twitter user claims that five letters can very faintly be seen in the mouth of German actor Udo Kier in the recent trailer for OD, but only if you whack the brightness right up. The five letters, in five separate frames in Kier's section of the trailer, apparently spell out 'Atami,' which is a city located in the Japanese prefecture of Shizuoka.
Now for the speculative part. The Twitter user hypothesizes that stringing the Japanese Kanji for Atami city together will give you 静岡, which can be translated to mean 'silent,' and 'hill.' This has obviously led to rampant speculation that Kojima has hidden a teaser related to Silent Hills, his canceled game at Konami, in the trailer for his new project.
Foi descoberto que durante o trailer de OD, algumas letras aparecem durante os frames. Elas formam a palavra Atami, que é uma cidade em Shizuoka, em JP é 静岡Separando os kanjis e pegando sua tradução literal, nós temos:静: quieto, silencioso (silent, quiet)岡: colina (hill) pic.twitter.com/e47ESzlokMDecember 11, 2023
You can see the full trailer for OD, which was revealed last week at The Game Awards 2023, just below. Kier's segment of the trailer starts around the 40 second mark, and the five letters can be seen clearly if you're willing to basically increase your device's brightness settings right to the maximum.
The problem with this theory is that Japanese Kanji can change depending on their application, and their positioning in relation to other Kanji. For example, 岡 can be taken to mean 'hill' or 'mound' in some circumstances, but is also used to denote bonus points handed out at the end of a game of Mahjong.
Kanji don't just have one fixed meaning and interpretation, which is why they're so bloody difficult to learn. In fact, many young people in Japan don't know a lot of Kanji, and instead rely on Hiragana and Katakana to get them by, a far cry from older generations.
Nonetheless, this speculation over OD probably won't be hampered by this important Kanji information. Kojima and Peele have said OD is "unlike any other game," although we're really not sure what that means right now, with just the teaser above to go on.
Check out our new games 2023 guide for a look at all the titles that'll probably be here well before OD.
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