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Kojima’s new studio is modeled on Media Molecule and won’t go over 100 employees

Kojima Productions

The Hideo Kojima saga of 2015 was one of the year’s weirdest stories, as one of the largest games publishing companies in the world tried to quietly rid themselves of their most popular creator. Now the creator of Metal Gear Solid is building the new Kojima Productions and, having mostly finished his world tour of game studios with Playstation exec Mark Cerny, he’s come to some conclusions of how he wants it to be. He plans to structure it on British developers Media Molecule, of Little Big Planet and Tearaway fame, but considering 100 employees a hard limit.

Do you think Kojima will continue to contribute to the genre of sandbox games?

Speaking at a roundtable documented by Gamereactor.eu, Kojima said “we aim to make a kind of small, intimate type of studio, and I felt like Media Molecule in London is quite similar to what I’m trying to make,” he explained. “At Media Molecule… it looks like the kitchen is the most important part.”

His fascination with kitchens continued, saying that “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.

“I’m aiming to keep the staff less than 100 people. I am searching for technology and at the same time hiring new people, and visiting [studios] to get inspiration about what kind of studio I want to make/create.”

Eating the most important studio function? Not too many people? Sign me up, Kojima, I’m yours. Jokes aside, these are significant departures from the conditions in which he’s made games before. It takes a lot more than 100 people to make a game the scale, ambition and pure size of Metal Gear Solid V. It could indicate that what we’ll get next won’t be a classic Kojima game – or that it will take even longer to come out.

Thanks, Gamereactor.