Kojima Productions’ ‘Beyond the Strand’ Exhibition Opens October 31

Kojima Productions opens its 10th-anniversary exhibition, ‘Beyond the Strand: The Odyssey of Creation and Endeavor,’ at Tokyo’s Azabudai Hills Gallery on Saturday, October 31, 2026, running through Sunday, December 20. Announced today on the studio’s official site and X account, the exhibition traces the studio’s decade from its December 16, 2015 founding through Death Stranding 2: On the Beach and toward the still-in-development OD and PHYSINT projects. The run joins a notable run of Japanese publishers turning major anniversaries into public showcases. Compare Konami’s second and third waves of new Silent Hill games, or Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii’s recent Komiya in the Interrogation Room AI detective build.

The headline exhibit is footage from Death Stranding’s earliest prototype, shown publicly for the first time alongside Hideo Kojima’s high-school book report. Yoji Shinkawa is the studio’s longtime character and mechanical designer, and original Shinkawa concept artwork will also go on display. The studio’s COVID-era ‘MADO’ telepresence system is a network of screens Kojima Productions used during pandemic-era production to keep staff connected across remote offices. MADO stays live throughout the exhibition, linking the gallery to the Kojima Productions office around the clock. Early ending concepts and location-scouting materials sit alongside the prototype footage.

A full-scale recreation of the red door from the OD-KNOCK teaser trailer gives visitors a peek at the studio’s Xbox Game Studios collaboration. Three statues created for the exhibition debut inside. A 360-degree Death Stranding video plays on a 6-meter screen. Ludens is the studio’s astronaut mascot, and a life-size ’10th Anniversary Ludens’ greets visitors at the entrance. Shinkawa opens his first solo exhibition at the on-site books Ogaki pop-up, with free entry.

Tickets are on sale via Lawson Ticket, Klook, and Trip.com. A four-day preview window runs October 31 through November 3. A tote-bag ticket is ¥5,000 (about $33). A limited-reissue goods-set ticket is ¥18,000 (about $120). Standard advance tickets run ¥2,600 ($17). Same-day tickets are ¥2,800 ($19) from November 4 onward. Two Lawson-exclusive tickets are priced at ¥57,600 (about $385) each. They come with either a Yoji Shinkawa-signed reproduction Ludens artwork or the Kojima Productions × SEIKO collaboration watch. Both bundles are limited to 300 units each.

The exhibition runs noon to 8 PM weekdays and 10 AM to 8 PM on weekends. Last entry is 30 minutes before close. It is Japan-only with no announced traveling dates. International Kojima fans will need a Tokyo trip to see Death Stranding’s prototype footage for themselves. They can also catch pre-launch OD-KNOCK material in person and the Beyond the Strand retrospective run.

Not yet announced: whether the prototype footage will be released online after the exhibition closes.

For Kojima Productions fans, ‘Beyond the Strand’ lands at a moment of unusual openness from the studio. The 51-day Tokyo run fits a wider pattern in 2026 of Japanese creators opening their process to the public. Compare, for example, Black Myth: Zhong Kui‘s public no-AI pledge over development, or the steady stream of MADO-style process reveals for in-development titles. The MADO live link is the most unusual piece: it lets Tokyo visitors see the studio’s actual working space, the same way the pandemic forced the team to see each other. Pair that with the OD-KNOCK red door, and ‘Beyond the Strand’ starts to feel like a physical announcement trailer as much as a retrospective. Officially, the studio has already announced an animated Death Stranding film, an A24 live-action film, an OD collaboration with Xbox Game Studios, and PHYSINT with Sony. Now the public gets a walk through ten years of private archives.

Edited by Kerwin Stewart, Editor-in-Chief · How we report