Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga director and series creator George Miller has caused a stir by negatively reflecting on 2015’s Mad Max video game from Avalanche Studios and Warner Bros. and saying that he’d like Hideo Kojima to make a Mad Max game.
“We did have a video game made when we did Fury Road … it wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be,” Miller told GAMINGbible on Furiosa’s red carpet. “It wasn’t in our hands, we gave all our material to a company to do it. But you know, I’m one of those people that I would rather not do something unless you can do it at the highest level, or at least try to make it a higher level.”
Miller went on to say that he’d like Hideo Kojima “or someone like that” to make a Max Max game, although he also admitted that he’d never ask Kojima specifically because “he’s got so much fantastic stuff in his own head.”
George Miller revealed he wants @HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN to make a Mad Max game🤯@Kojima_Hideo pic.twitter.com/o8mDdSAkFs
— GAMINGbible (@gamingbible) May 20, 2024
Having played a little bit of Avalanche Studios’ Mad Max myself in the lead-up to Furiosa, I found that it had some neat ideas with how players built up their “magnum opus” vehicle and how it emphasized car combat, but it does feel a bit rushed and oddly restrictive at times. Responding to Miller’s comments on X (formerly Twitter), Avalanche Studios founder Christofer Sundberg offered more insight into the game’s tumultuous development and why the game likely didn’t live up to Miller’s expectations.
“They did everything they could to make this a complete linear game after having signed up with a developer of open-world games,” Sundberg explained. “I’m sure Hideo Kojima would make an awesome Mad Max game, but it would be a completely different experience. After the first year of development, they realized that they had forced us to make a linear experience rather than the open-world game we pitched. We threw away a year of work and got to hear that ‘players wants autonomy in this day and age.’ Well, no shit …”
Right now, it appears no Mad Max video games are in development, but Miller’s comments are certainly getting people to reflect on a forgotten licensed game and wonder what Kojima’s take on Mad Max would look like.
