Despite what some people say Hideo Kojima has not wasted his career – Reader’s Feature

A reader argues against the suggestion the idea that Metal Gear and Death Stranding creator Hideo Kojima has spent too much of his career in the same franchises and game genres.

I really don’t agree with this notion that Hideo Kojima’s credentials are lacking in variety and that he’d wasted his talents working on the same properties for much of his career. Snatcher/Policenauts, Metal Gear, Boktai, Death Stranding, and Zone Of The Enders – which he was a producer on – played nothing like each other. Furthermore, even within the Metal Gear universe there was plenty of creativity and variety that kept the formula fresh with each entry.

Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Ac!d, Snake Eater, Guns Of The Patriots, and Ground Zero/Phantom Pain, for instance, were very different experiences to one another in terms of the settings and mechanics. Kojima also worked as an advisor on Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow, so there’s that too.

Then we have P.T. I don’t understand why anyone that’d experienced that groundbreaking demo would have any reservations about Kojima working on a possibly fully realised version of the sadly truncated P.T.?

Irrespective of its tentative association with Silent Hill, P.T. was a huge deal that (un)quietly revolutionised the horror genre with its liminal dread, cryptic puzzles, and looping, gnawing psychological leanings. It went on to birth a whole subgenre of indie gems like Visage, Madison, and Luto, to name probably my favourite examples, which were inspired by its forward-thinking, frightening framework.

And if we’re honest, P.T. most likely played a significant part in shaping how Capcom restructured its flagship horror in Resident Evil 7. Producer Masachika Kawata was a big fan of P.T. after all. So for that reason OD is probably the horror game I’m looking forward to the most in the coming years, considering its phenomenal pedigree. Can Kojima catch lighting in a bottle again? I sure hope so.

As for Death Stranding, finishing that game a few months before the advent of the pandemic certainly amplified its seemingly prescient themes of isolation and human connection, but I really came to appreciate and become absorbed in the minutiae of its traversal, logistics and stealth mechanics. Even if the story and lore seemed impenetrable at times.

I thought the sequel was a little too iterative in some aspects, but undoubtedly still a wild ride and, barring its precursor, unlike anything I’d ever experienced and just very thought provoking and engrossing to play. So I can certainly forgive that they’re very similar.

Death Stranding 2 also features what must be the greatest arch villain end monologue scenes and possibly best closing parts in any game. Troy Baker’s performance was simply staggeringly good, I definitely felt like he should’ve won the award for best voice actor last year.

Therefore, it stands for good reason that I feel like the risk-taking and inventiveness in Kojima’s softography, and the games he had a hand in developing, is abundantly clear and speaks for itself. I expect big things from his other upcoming project, Physint. The triple-A stealth genre has become very stagnant in the modern era, so I strongly suspect Physint might breathe new life into it. So, I’ll always take notice of what this illustrious, idiosyncratic talent announces next.

By reader GG

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