Hideo Kojima has a lot of stuff on his plate, including Death Stranding 2 and the Xbox cloud-powered horror game OD, but perhaps the most exciting project for longtime fans is Physint, a new “action espionage” game in the vein of Metal Gear Solid. Since parting ways with Konami, Kojima has seemingly avoided a return to the stealth genre, so what convinced him to return?
In his latest HideoTube video, Kojima provided a surprisingly raw answer for return to stealth – during the pandemic Kojima became sick, to the point of needing surgery and making out a will. At a certain point, he thought his ability to make games may be over, which ultimately made him reassess his priorities.
“So, why did I decide to make [Physint]? Well, first off, because I became independent I wanted to do something with my own IP. So, to challenge myself, I made [Death Stranding]. Then, to create a franchise, I made [Death Stranding 2]. And I wanted to do something even newer, so I started working on OD. And since then, there have been a lot of new ideas. But in the last eight years, every day on social media, from users all around the world, people have asked me to create another Metal Gear and stuff like that.
Then, I fell ill in 2020. It was also during the pandemic, so I was sick and isolated during all of it. I even had surgery. And I thought, ‘I can’t anymore.’ I was at my lowest and felt like I couldn’t go back to making games. I wrote a will, too. And in that moment, I realized that people die. But, I turned 60 last year. I’ll turn 70 in ten years. I hope to never retire, having said that, if the users desire it so much, I thought I should change my priorities a bit. I still want to do new things, but I decided to make an action-espionage game.”
While Kojima has a blank check to make pretty much whatever he wants, it’s nice to know that, even at his lowest moment, he’s still thinking about the fans want. Kojima also briefly touched on the intersection of video games and movies Physint will sit at. The way Kojima talks, it doesn’t sound like this is going to be a multimedia project with separate games, movies, ect, but rather a single game that just happens to be very cinematic. How that will be achieved is unclear – obviously, Kojima has gone very heavy on cutscenes at points in the past, but his more recent titles have put a heavier emphasis on actual gameplay…
“We’re going to make a new action-espionage game in cooperation with Sony. It will be a game and a movie at the same time. Of course, it will be a game, however, if your mother walks in and sees you playing the game she’ll think you’re watching a movie. I’m not sure how far we can take it yet.
I get many requests from Hollywood to make films, but I’ve refused them. Because I have my own company now, I can’t leave for one or two years to go make a movie. The company would collapse. I was in a tough spot. And I talked to Guillermo del Toro about it, and he said, ‘Hideo, what you’re making is already a movie. Keep going as you are.’ His words saved me. Though the output is a game, it won’t be too different from movies.”
There’s no word on when Physint will arrive yet, but it won’t begin production until Death Stranding 2 is wrapped up, so don’t expect it anytime too soon.
