Kojima Productions announced the developer’s first COVID-19 case via its official Twitter account on March 30, 2020. In addition to confirming the employee tested positive after being at home since March 20, it announced a number of safeguarding measures to protect the rest of the staff. Namely, members of the studio will all be working from home.
Working from home is one of four measures Kojima Productions is taking following the COVID-19 diagnosis. As outlined in an official press release, it felt it necessary to take additional steps even though the person hadn’t been in the office since symptoms appeared and other staff “are not considered ‘close contacts.’” Still, it has decided to offer health support for employees, to close the developer’s offices temporarily, and to completely clean the studio while it is closed to ensure everything is safe.
Here is the full Kojima Productions COVID-19 statement:
Kojima Productions has learned today that an employee working at the studio has tested positive for COVID-19. The employee has been at home from March 20th and as such has not entered the office since then. During that time, the employee underwent a PCR test, which returned a positive result today.
We are working closely with public health authorities and they have informed us that since this employee was not in the office at the time of symptoms onset, all other Kojima Productions employees are not considered “close contacts”, meaning that it is not mandatory to close the office.
However, we at Kojima Productions have independently decided to enact the following precautions to safeguard the health and well-being of all our employees as well as the broader community.
- Temporarily close the office floor
- Sanitize all office facilities
- All working staff will now work remotely
- Supervise and support for the health condition of all staff
Kojima Productions will continue working closely with our public health authorities and enact additional precautions as necessary to prevent further spread in any way possible.
At the moment, Kojima Productions has been working on the Death Stranding PC version, which will launch on June 2, 2020, and on bringing a Photo Mode to the PlayStation 4 version of the game.
