Hideo Kojima: Connecting Worlds

“I first met Hideo when Guillermo del Toro called me and said, 'Hey, there's a guy who's going to call you and wants to do a video game with you. Just say yes.' I said, 'Who is he?' And he said, 'Trust me, just say yes.'”

“If it says "A Hideo Kojima Game", it means that from start to finish, I'm involved in everything, that's the declaration. "A Hideo Kojima Game" means we cannot cut corners.”

“I work as closely as possible to my staff and make detailed adjustments every day. ... But I don't think this way of working is common these days.”

“It's limitless and you never get bored of it. It's irresistible fun.”

“They were the kind of people that I wanted to work with. ... I wanted to do something with them that probed slightly deeper.”

“I was pleased to receive messages from people who felt the game saved them because the game indirectly connected them to others. That was my motivation for creating things in the first place.”

“I wanted to offer another way, which is why I made Death Stranding.”

“When I first explained this to my staff, I got a largely negative response. They said, "But no one does that..."”

“The player is the only one making the connections, so the sense of loneliness is torturous at the start.”

“but I do it on my own, so I do them all in parallel. ... This is probably only possible within my own studio.”

“I have on average 200 problems at once to do with details of the game, and it's up to me to make decisions on all of them. ... Sometimes I do bug checks in my dreams.”

“For me, films are the sun. It's like plant photosynthesis with sunbeams.”

“I was having so much fun that I hardly slept at all.”

“But now it's my own company... so if I mess up, there won't be a next project.”

“It was like I saw the future. ... Technology would connect the world.”

“We've taken a first step, a giant leap in the entertainment industry.”

“Making war games felt uncomfortable as my parents had experienced war. ... so that's why I tried putting in the anti-war, anti-nuclear themes into my games.”

“But when I was alone, I would hold my knees and listen to music and cry.”

“Most games look so similar, you can't even tell their title from looking at a scene. The newer it is, the more they fear it.”

“It became a habit which I still have. ... I'd think up stories because I had so much time alone.”

“Things that leave a deep impression on me, like Kubrick, are innovative or new things. They can split opinion. But ultimately, it's precisely these things that stay with you.”

“If I confess, at that point, my thoughts have already turned to the next idea.”

“Every time our eyes met, I thought I had to buy something, and that, for me, was a science fiction book.”

“When you are creating things, you need references from other genres.”

“I like film directors such as David Lynch and Cronenberg. Keeping things edgy, but still appealing to mass audiences. They're the games I want to create.”

“My mother was the only one who didn't object for some reason. "If you want to pursue it, that's fine."”

“My home was close to the sea, and it left a very strong impression on me.”

“In my previous company, I was free to do what I wanted, but it wasn't my own brand. ... The only way is to produce it yourself.”

“But one thing that troubles me is that I turn 59 this year. I'm wondering how many I'll have time to make. ... That sense of fear has come over me just recently, I haven't had it before.”

“I believe there's a moment of awakening that we get from any good work,”

“The truth is that because my dad died, I was able to get into the game industry. ... If my dad was alive, he'd have been opposed. He was a very scary man.”

“But if you say, "It's visually different from anything that exists", they can't visualize it.”

“As I reflect on that time, maybe it was my escape from reality.”

“And Sony, as far as I know, basically said, "We're going to bet on you, Hideo Kojima, as a creator." We don't even need to know what the game is. We're just in.”