Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Legendary video game designer Hideo Kojima is done with big studios

By

1154832 autosave v1 kojima
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Few figures in gaming have made a more sensationalized break from the mainstream industry than Japanese auteur Hideo Kojima. Best known for his long-running Metal Gear Solid series of action/stealth games, Kojima’s contentious departure from franchise publisher Konami at the end of Metal Gear Solid V‘s development was one of the most widely covered bits of industry gossip in the medium’s history. It should come as little surprise then that Kojima’s opinion of big studios has soured somewhat, and in a recent roundtable discussion with Gamereactor, he made clear his intention to keep his new independent studio to a more manageable size.

“I’m aiming to keep the staff less than 100 people,” Kojima explained. In contrast, his team for MGSV numbered significantly more than 200. His stated reason for wanting to limit the studio’s size is communication. He alluded to huge, Hollywood productions where more than 1,000 people can work on the same film, which can end up muddling the final product because not everyone is able to be on the same page. With a team of 100, Kojima can have direct lines of communication with everyone working under him and maintain a coherent vision for the project, which is particularly important for an auteur designer such as himself.

Recommended Videos

During the discussion, he mentioned that as he is assembling developers and technology, he is also touring other studios around the world “to get inspiration about what kind of studio [he wants] to make/create.” He quipped about a visit to Swedish Battlefield series developer Dice: “I’ve found that at any studio the kitchen is very important… I saw at Dice in Stockholm they had 40 microwaves, and also there’s so many coffee makers, and I understood that that is very important.”

Related

As for what that new studio will be making, we don’t currently have much to go on. Soon after formally announcing his departure from Konami, he announced that his new studio, Kojima Productions — not to be confused with his defunct Konami-owned studio, also called Kojima Productions — had lined up an exclusive agreement with Sony to launch a brand new franchise on the PlayStation 4. PlayStation consoles were home to the Metal Gear Solid games for a long time, so Sony was no doubt eager to stake a claim to whatever Kojima did as soon as it was contractually feasible.

Despite a fraught development process and what felt like an unfinished second act, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain was a stunning testament to Kojima’s decades as a designer, and easily one of the best games of 2015. We therefore can’t wait to learn more about what he has in store for us next.

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Will Fulton
Will Fulton
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…
Hideo Kojima’s next game is a creepy collaboration with Jordan Peele
A woman's face looking concerned.

Legendary Japanese game developer Hideo Kojima has teased his next project, titled OD, and it's going to be horrifying. A collaboration with film director Jordan Peele — the creator of critically acclaimed films Get Out, Us, and Nope —  the project aims to be a hybrid video game and film project. It will feature actors Sophia Lillis, Hunter Schafer, and Udo Kier.

Onstage at the 2023 Game Awards, Kojima described the project as a "new form of media."

Read more
One of Game Pass’ best titles leaves PC on August 15 and you don’t want to miss it
Sam Porter Bridges and Fragile holding their foreheads together.

While Xbox Game Pass frequently adds new games to its library, some titles do leave the service every fifteen days. Sometimes, those games are fantastic and PC Game Pass will lose a heavy hitter on August 15: Death Stranding. If you aren't familiar with this game, it, ironically, is a PlayStation console exclusive that's part of Microsoft's subscription service only on PC. Death Stranding first released on PS4 in November 2019 and tells a story about a man who is trying to reconnect a post-apocalyptic while dealing with lots of supernatural threats along the way.

It didn't come to PC until July 2020, before that was followed by Death Stranding: Director's Cut for PC and PS5 in the following years. The version of the game that's available through Xbox Game Pass is based on the July 2020 PC release, although it only came to PC Game Pass in August 2022. After a year on Microsoft's subscription service, the deal is up, and it's going to leave on August 15. Death Stranding is a game with a very compelling and socially relevant story and gameplay not quite like anything out there, so Game Pass subscribers who haven't tried this game yet need to before it leaves the service soon. 
It's all connected
Death Stranding follows the journey of Sam Porter Bridges, the adopted son of the President of the United Cities of America, as he attempts to reconnect what's left of America with a Chiral Network and save his sister. Of course, this game has Kojima's signature eccentricity, as Sam also carries around and starts forming a deeper connection with a baby in a pod (called a BB) that helps him avoid deadly creatures called BTs and gives him visions of a mysterious figure played by Mads Mikkelsen. On that note, Death Stranding has a stacked Hollywood cast as it stars people like Norman Reedus, Lea Seydoux, and Margaret Qualley and features characters modeled after Lindsay Wagner, Guillermo del Toro, Nicolas Winding Refn, and more. 
I'm not a huge fan of this game's melodramatic dialogue exchanges and arduous pacing that leaves a lot of the most interesting reveals for the end. Still, it undeniably has some prescient themes about how important connection is, something that became even more apparent and relevant in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Few video game writers can craft narratives that are as engaging and memorable as the ones in Hideo Kojima's games. Though what I like most about Death Stranding is its gameplay, which isn't quite like anything that came out before or since. 
For the most part, Death Stranding is a game about delivering packages. It initially seemed like a shocking change in style for the man behind the Metal Gear Solid series, but the connections become a bit clearer to me as I had to stealthily avoid BTs and saw the Metal Gear Solid V-level of freedom the game gives players in making deliveries. To maximize profits from deliveries, I have to balance all of the packages in Sam's possession, keeping a close eye on the terrain, and finding the best ways to get Sam to his destination without damaging much of the goods he's carrying.

Read more
Apple made it clear: The Vision Pro isn’t the next big video game platform
A man wears Apple Vision Pro.

The cat's finally out of the bag: Apple is entering the AR/VR world in a big way. Revealed during the company's annual WWDC stream, the Apple Vision Pro is an impressive XR headset that can be used for anything from writing emails to watching movies. Apple calls the device the "most advanced personal electronics device ever," and that might be true -- though the jury's out on whether or not it's worth the jaw-dropping $3,500 price tag.

Heading into the long-rumored reveal, there was one use case I was most curious to see: gaming. Video games have long been a crucial selling point for VR headsets, showing off the power and potential of any given device. Just last week, we got our first glimpse at the Meta Quest 3, which was revealed hours before a dedicated Meta Gaming Showcase. Considering how much Apple has been investing in gaming over the past year, I figured we'd get a dedicated block during the Vision Pro reveal that would similarly emphasize the platform as a gaming device.

Read more