“The only things I had were four staff members, my computer, and my iPhone.”
Kojima said the turning point for Death Stranding came when he went independent on December 16, 2015 without a studio; at that time he only had four staff members, his computer and his iPhone, and from there a new game had to be created. Friends and users expected a AAA as before but with gameplay, look and world completely new, and Kojima insisted it had to be a Hideo Kojima game with a theme, a message and a story. Of the ideas he had, Death Stranding best matched his style; he decided it should be open world, looked for a game engine and found Guerrilla’s Decima engine, which Guerrilla kindly allowed him to use. The theme had been chosen before the pandemic — isolation and the fragmentation of the world — expressed through his stick-and-rope analogy: whereas stick games are for fighting, he wanted his to embody the concept of the rope that connects and brings people together.
“Well, I went independent on December 16, 2015. I didn't have a studio. […] They said it had to be a Hideo Kojima game, meaning it had to have a theme, a message, and a story. […] That's when I found Guerrilla's Decima engine […] There are stick games where people fight, but I wanted mine to encompass the concept of a rope used to connect and bring people together.”