Update February 13, 2017: The BBC have released the full Hideo Kojima interview and studio visit, which you can watch above.
In the interview, Kojima talks candidly about his aspirations for Death Stranding. In short, he wants to replicate what he did with the original Metal Gear Solid. At the time of its release, games were pretty much about shooting people. Stealth games were mostly unheard of, so it was something completely fresh. After years of reimagining that series, he now wants to go back to that place and offer something completely new.
No need for Kojima’s crystal ball to know what to look forward to this year – just our list of upcoming PC games.
“We really want this game to be something that people can get into very easily but, after they play for about an hour or two, they start to notice something a little different,” says Kojima. “It’s something that they haven’t played before.
“Whenever you create something new, some people like it and some people don’t. For example, when I first created a stealth game some people really wanted to fight instead, so they didn’t like that. I want to make some kind of experience that has that effect on people.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Kojima also talks about the negative feedback to his portrayal of women in recent games. Quiet from Metal Gear Solid V in particular. He says he was aiming to create a character that was different to how they seemed on the surface. In future, though, he says the team will have a completely different approach.
It’s an interesting video, so give it a watch. It also gives us a good look at Kojima Productions, which just looks incredible. It’s a step up from the tiny office he started in when he left Konami, which also features, along with the coffee shop in which interviews were conducted.
Original Story January 26, 2017: Hideo Kojima has done a bit of futuregazing on our hobby, predicting a future in which games fuse with other written and visual media because people are too busy to consume them all separately. He also talks a little about virtual reality and Death Stranding, his next project.
Kojima was speaking with the BBC’s Newsbeat show, and you can watch a video of the interview above.
“In life people are very busy doing lots of things,” he explains to BBC reporter Steffan Powell, via a translator. “The time you have to choose what media or entertainment you experience is dwindling. More and more people are looking at types of media that combine elements together.
“If we just make a game people are less likely to choose that as something to do. They would rather engage in something that combines different forms of entertainment together. That’s where we need to focus our efforts, on this convergence.”
Kojima says his new studio, Kojima Productions, is planning for that future, but his immediate priority is his next project. Titled Death Stranding, we’ve only seen a couple of enigmatic trailers so far, so no-one really understands what it’s about (including some of the star-studded cast).
Powell isn’t able to get much more out of him on this, but he does say “we want this game to be something that people can get into easily but after an hour or two they’ll start to notice something a little different. It’s not like anything they’ve played before.”
Kojima Productions was founded after an acrimonious split with Kojima’s former publishers and employers, Konami.
“I have more freedom now because the final decision comes down to me. This company is not listed on the stock exchange so we don’t need to worry about pleasing investors. We can just concentrate on making good games.”
The interview wraps up with Kojima’s take on VR – he thinks no-one has yet realised its potential to make people feel new emotions – and on character design in Death Stranding, following the controversy around scantily-clad sniper Quiet in Metal Gear Solid V. Kojima defended his design, but says “going to have a different approach” in his next project.
Check out the interview in full on BBC Newsbeat.