From Hyoryu, Kojima concluded that the human body needs work and…

Kojima distinguished in Hyoryu between passive survival and regaining a human goal: returning home. He was struck that the shipwrecked men combined physical strength, artisan memory, and cooperation to make, from driftwood and remnants, things as basic as a reservoir and ultimately a ship, and that when they left they left tools and instructions for future castaways. He saw in that two meanings of survival—enduring adversity and making it back alive—and the passing on of something human beyond mere genes.

“In Death Stranding, there is a beach where the time axis runs differently from the rest of the world. I feel like I'm living there.”

From The Woman in the Dunes, Kojima held that in life there are pits imposed on us and others we build ourselves, and that leaving one may simply lead to another. He proposed seeking a purpose within the current pit: there is freedom to leave, to stay, and to choose to live there, so the definition of freedom changes with one's thinking and point of view.

“human beings, we all carry the burden of our humanity on our shoulders as we go through this life. Game characters haven't really had that much depth though, have they? They're always perfect angels, heroic types. Drama built around such characters rings a bit false to me.”

Kojima said he continued to pursue dreams and roman —aspirations for heroism, adventure and lofty ideals— even though they are not attainable objects, because the goal keeps a person alive. When he was about to lose them or give up, he would sing the verse about the scarlet scarf from Yamato’s ending song; then he imagined the ship sailing into the black sea of space and regained courage.