work

“The reason why we're going to the trouble of actually modeling them this way, is that the 3D model reveals things to you that are hard to see in 2D. [...] we're building the structures with blocks and then using a CCD (a tiny camera) to peer inside them.”

“Even though we're behind schedule, everyone at KCE Japan has been obsessed with Mario Kart 64. On break everyone rushes over to snatch up a controller, and the people waiting grab a Sega Saturn 3D control pad and do "image training", mimicking the movements while they watch and wait their turn.”

“I've probably looked at 10,000 candidates myself at this point, and I've never seen anyone who I immediately wanted to give an S until Shinkawa. He's the only one, and it was an instant hanamaru (the Japanese equivalent of a "gold star").”

“Up to now—in Policenauts, for example, I used to give the designers very specific instructions [...] but this game was different.”

“We went to go buy dry ice but they didn't have any, so with no other options, even though I don't smoke I lit some cigarettes and blew smoke everywhere. (laughs)”

“These games had their own worlds and stories. I felt a certain authorial quality in them.”

“So I went around to different game companies, and partly because I was living in Hyogo prefecture at the time, but I thought I'd check out Konami.”

“When I told the senior devs on the team about my idea, they were very dismissive: 'There's no games like that.'”

“Metal Gear Solid sells more in Europe and America than Japan. I was unapologetic about making something Japanese in taste, but amazingly it was received with more passion and enthusiasm by people overseas.”

“I'm afraid I'm too clumsy to juggle multiple projects at once.”

“I added a camera mode like that in Metal Gear, but all the developers hated it. The programmers, the designers too.”

“There was a sort of legend at Konami, that if you got involved in this project, you'd up demoted or transferred. (laughs) [...] once we got a working build running, and they saw that exclamation mark pop up when the enemy gets surprised, that sold them on the concept.”

“not being able to program, I had a very hard time making Metal Gear. As a planner you write what you want in the planning documents, and convey your image as best you can, but ultimately it comes down to the programmers' sensibilities.”

“after Policenauts I came to the conclusion that controlling everything myself wasn't necessarily a good thing. Because if everything has to ultimately pass through me, then my abilities—and limitations—become a bottleneck.”

“When Kojima first announces something, everyone thinks he's joking. But then he starts making it just as he said and we realize after the fact, "oh, he was serious." (laughs) [...] If you leave him to his devices though he'll actually do the crazy stuff he says.”

“This has been important to me, because Konami has often told me my ideas are too crazy, and there's been dark times where the warm letters I receive from fans were all that sustained me.”

“There was a period, before my Father died, where I thought I'd become an artist, but my Father died very suddenly when I was 13. My family was full of artists, you see, and they hadn't been able to make a living off of it.”

“Ultimately, I feel the game design part of the development should be done by the game designers. If I start tinkering with the work they've done it would be weird. [...] it would be like punching holes in the foundation of a building. "This column looks funky—take it out!" And then the whole thing collapses.”

“If I direct the same team, it will only lead to the same game being made.”

After Publish or Perish, Kojima began slipping away alone to the bookstore opposite the tutoring school and felt that spending time among the books meant he had entered the adult world. He awaited each monthly Columbo novelization and went to the bookstore weekly even when no new book had come out, to the point of wondering whether he was really attending the tutoring school or the shop. There he discovered Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen, which opened the way to mysteries, science fiction, adventure, and his future profession.

Since 2005 Kojima presented his own program on the official Kojima Productions blog, "HIDECHAN! ラジオ", which was published in numbered installments; on July 3, 2007 it was at episode 148, and the blog’s archived version in July 2011 shows episode 296 and a monthly archive beginning in September 2005. Kojima is credited as responsible for the program’s script and structure alongside Takaaki Kitamura.

The official biographical profile Konami published on its blog presented Kojima, besides as creator of Metal Gear, Snatcher, Policenauts and Metal Gear Solid, as one of the video game industry’s leading film buffs and noted that he also worked as a commentator and wrote film reviews.

In 2001 Kojima went on a whim with his young son to see Crayon Shin-Chan: The Fierceness That Invites the Storm! The Adult Empire Strikes Back and became hooked on the Nohara family from Shin Chan, whose ability to band together in a crisis struck him as a new model of Japanese family. After the birth of his second son his own family grew from three to four, but he admitted he was still not the ideal father: he might have reached the level of the workaholic Hiroshi, while Charles Ingalls remained beyond his reach; he wanted his children to be inspired by their real-life family rather than by television idols.

After entering the video game industry and moving to Okamoto to live alone, Kojima brought only his bed, stereo, and bicycle from home; he did not yet have a TV or air conditioning, ate all his meals outside, and on hot, lonely nights took walks to bookstores that stayed open late. In one of those stores he discovered Yukinobu Hoshino’s 2001 Nights; its art and mature science-fiction content rekindled his passion for the genre and led him to hunt through used bookstores and otaku shops for all of Hoshino’s work.

Kojima admired that Yukinobu Hoshino continued to produce ambitious, art- and philosophy-driven serialized stories even after moving from a mass-circulation weekly magazine to a small monthly one. He saw himself in Hoshino because, at that time and in the shadow of the Famicom boom, Kojima was also making video games for a minor platform. Years later he continued to question whether Japanese-made games could stop placing market priority first and make the same cultural leap that manga had achieved.

For Blade Runner’s 25th anniversary, Kojima made a personal festival: he bought the five‑DVD set, a three‑CD anniversary soundtrack, a making‑of book, and reread the novel. Although immersed in Metal Gear Solid 4, he made time to see the Final Cut; he asked for one ticket for “BlaRun” and the ticket seller did not understand the nickname. After an unusually silent exit from the screening, he found other viewers gathered in the lobby before the display photos, talking enthusiastically; sharing the film in a theater with strangers who loved it was, for him, the true Final Cut.

Kojima always answered Joy Division when asked his favorite band and Closer when asked which album was most important. He listened to the band when life or work got him down, but also on sunny days—not to cheer up or relieve stress, but to enter their melancholy, reaffirm his place in the face of loneliness and death, and return to an inner, tranquil space he considered his bedrock.

The premiere of Control turned the city, for Kojima, into a Joy Division festival. He bought the soundtrack and Paul Smith T-shirts, several photobooks, remastered reissues, compilations and rarities; thanks to contacts at Konami’s London branch he also secured two UK-exclusive editions. Seeing posters, shops and cinemas full of the lost band felt like a day he had never imagined, and he expressed the desire to visit Ian Curtis’s grave someday.

“So I deliberately kind of matched myself and Old Snake. This is not just the message to the users, but also a message to the internal development staff as well; we've all been working for quite a long time, and I wanted to show that Hideo Kojima, at 45, still working in the spotlight - I wanted to show that to the staff!”

“when I say as a creator, "I want to create this new game", it's still the same as twenty years ago! People still ask, "will that sell, will that be good?" Nobody really understands whether it would be an instant hit or whatever - I'm not just talking about the top executives, but even the development staff!”

“And if I get more 'boos' about it - if they say, "no - we don't know what you're talking about!" then this is actually the fun part.”

“But it's like when Hayao Miyazaki says he is not going to do more, and then always ends up doing it. I think I am kind of in a similar situation; I have ideas other than Metal Gear, and I want to go on to make other new games, but for political, business or technology reasons, there is always a time when I have to return.”

“But I have to say, my feeling hasn't changed; I would like to pass on the Metal Gear series to younger staff members, and then go on to produce the title, and not be so attached to it.”

“I always want to be in a creative position, where I can concentrate and grow as a creator. I feel if I don't do that, I might as well not be in the industry.”

“And in my spare time I want to establish a new game, which I have been wanting to do for a long time. I do have strong urges to create a new title other than the Metal Gear series.”

Kojima described his father as a chemist involved in the development of new medicines who, within the corporate structure, was nevertheless a salaryman enduring crowded trains, conflicts with coworkers and persistent fatigue while continuing to work, and who finally managed to buy a house in a Kansai suburb. In that newly created town with no shared past, families and children measured one another by academic background and job title as if playing a card game; Kojima rebelled by choosing the then-young video game industry, where he believed titles weren’t necessary and only a person’s ability mattered.

In 1993, seven years after joining Konami and at age thirty, Kojima was made associate general manager of Development Group 5, a team of fewer than ten people with few sales. In addition to game design he now handled personnel, administration and budgeting—tasks he was doing for the first time. When he came across Section Chief Kosaku Shima again in a bookstore, Kojima saw in that character a secret support for worries he did not want to show and for the loneliness of being caught between the organization and his work.

In 2008 Kojima’s business card listed “Creative Officer, Konami Digital Entertainment” and “Director, Kojima Productions.” He argued that job titles don’t hire people, don’t make anything, don’t create profits and do not endure, and that he wanted to be remembered for his deeds and his name rather than any position; he intended to spend the rest of his life on his personal mission, not a title. When exchanging business cards he introduced himself simply as Hideo Kojima, a game designer.

“I will not retire. I will continue to create games as long as I live.”

“There were a lot of surprises - the way the Western developers do things are so different! What I'm thinking now is, OK, we need to be a global studio.”

“You know, we've been asked this a lot - how do you guys know this? Even my wife didn't know!”

“I wouldn't dictate to them - "you should do things this way, use this color, change this..." - I'd have to really try to help them do what they do best as production studios. That's how I plan to do it in the future, and to give them freedom.”

“I think in the near future, it will be increasingly like the Hollywood model - there might be a person who will fund, and a person who is the creator.”

“Not really! Recently, Kojima Productions was involved in the creation of a foreign currency trading game - so I guess that kind of counts!”

“There's kind of a unique system where we learn many different parts of economics, marketing, or other things... English too, or even a third language - I studied Spanish.”

“I had the idea of bringing the game to the iPhone originally, but I wasn't the designer of the game. I was more of a producer, guiding the team members.”

“Personally, though, I would like to do smaller projects, but when I think of the time I have left living on this earth, I would rather spend that on bigger things!”

“Sure, there is definitely pressure. We don't belong wholly to Konami, so that pressure might be lighter, but since Kojima Productions is a part of Konami and Konami does the business side of things, yeah, I feel pressure there, that there's a need for it to be a successful, ongoing series.”

“I won't make games with senseless violence. There has to be a reason for it, such as war.”

In 2009 Kojima wrote that if he could have only one wish it would be to go into space before he dies. He said a brief orbit just beyond Earth’s atmosphere would be enough, and that to make it happen he would give up even his position as a game designer, his family, or his own life.

Kojima’s aspiration to become an astronaut turned him into an obsessive science enthusiast: he spent his meager allowance on Newton and the Japanese edition of Omni, watched Carl Sagan’s Cosmos and live broadcasts of space missions—which he prioritized even above his favorite movies—and studied biology, chemistry, and geology to prepare. He said he was hopeless at math and that those magazines and TV shows excited him more than Playboy or the late-night program 11PM.

Kojima abandoned the idea of becoming a professional astronaut almost upon entering senior high: Japan’s space agency had no astronauts, becoming a cosmonaut on the other side of the Iron Curtain seemed impossible, and NASA required U.S. citizenship which he was not going to change. He later judged those to be simplistic excuses to force himself to grow up; he did not abandon the desire to travel to space and, as a college student, carried Takashi Tachibana’s Return from Space in his pocket.

When journalist Toyohiro Akiyama traveled to space in 1990 with funding from TBS and Soviet technology, Kojima realized a civilian route existed and reacted with frustration and jealousy for not having imagined it. This made him understand that he did not simply want to reach space but to train and go as an astronaut; for that reason he did not feel the same envy when game designer Richard Garriott paid about $30 million to travel to the International Space Station in 2008.

“It took me a year and a half to get half of Snatcher done; I had six chapters planned out and they told me to cut it down to two!”

“Ourselves, we're like the people who made their own films before making it big in Hollywood. I think we've got the skills we need to make anything we want, anywhere we want, on any budget we want. That's where my pride, or my confidence, comes from.”

“This point isn't limited to the game business, but if we don't have an environment where developers can make what they want and find an audience for it, then I think it's all going to come crashing down.”

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.

During the 2010 world tour for Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Kojima was trapped with twelve other people (thirteen total) in a freight elevator at Uniqlo Soho in New York City. They managed to open the elevator doors with their bare hands and found only the metal wall of the shaft because the car had stopped between floors; as people began pounding on the cabin the smell of panic spread and there was fear of running out of oxygen, and Kojima found himself thinking of elevator movies. An hour later a rescue team evacuated them by ladder through the top of the elevator car, and they escaped without injury.

During a December lunch break Kojima opened Tout Seul in a Roppongi bookstore and immediately recognized his own Tower of Solitude. He hurried it back to work, locked himself in with a “no entry” placard, finished the first reading, waited exactly until the end of the workday to reread it alone in a planning suite, read it a third time to reflect, and then cried when he realized another creator had imagined a solitude very similar to the novel he had kept for nearly thirty years.

In February 2011, Kojima detoured from a business trip to visit his father’s grave near his old house and rode the Hankyu Railway for the first time in a year. He did not know anyone on the train; the view outside had changed greatly since he had lived there and the train car’s interior had been modernized, but the cozy, cradle-like sway felt nostalgic. He described the Hankyu not merely as transportation but as a time machine to his hometown and his memories.

When Kojima reread Shibumi in 2006 as part of his research for Metal Gear Solid 4, he was startled by parallels with ideas he had already used: a combat discipline similar to CQC, the heightened threat perception he learned in scout/tracking training, and the merciful murder of a parental figure, which he related to Big Boss and The Boss. His reappraisal led him to recommend the novel to the development team.

After the Tohoku earthquake, fans and associates from around the world advised Kojima to leave Japan and use his life and resources to create elsewhere rather than spend them rebuilding the past. Kojima did not leave: he realized he could not separate his own purpose from Japan’s reconstruction and that, despite considering himself cosmopolitan, his substance was innately Japanese. Satori helped him out of the standstill with a further conclusion: he should not confine himself to Eastern, Western, or national labels, but create and share his own world—the world of Hideo Kojima.

Kojima recommended Darkness, Take My Hand as his choice among the six Kenzie & Gennaro novels and regarded it as a work of exceptional caliber. He said that after reading it for the first time he investigated buying the rights to adapt it into a film himself, and that in his view none of the subsequent installments surpassed Darkness.

In a September 2011 essay, Kojima wrote that each time a new Metal Gear came out he declared to the press that it would be the last he would make. He explained that all stories and all creators have an end, and that he wanted to bring his own story to its conclusion before he reached his.

Kojima explained in 2011 that he kept continuing Metal Gear because, while fans fervently wanted more, he felt the story could not end and a creator could not turn his back on them. At the same time he recognized that neither creators nor their series are eternal, a contradiction he described as a spiral in which they became trapped.

Kojima channeled his youthful destructive impulse into his work and his children, believing the era of Rock had ended. Thirty years after his first reading of Coin Locker Babies he realized the DATURA he had sought was in his own hands: he interpreted the games he released into the world as bombs loaded with memes capable of giving birth to another world and another self, and concluded the era of Rock was still alive.

“to surprise my professor, and he was very surprised, but it didn't help my grade much”

“true game design”

“First, come up with something you like, and then show it to as many people as you can. Tweak it, and get their opinions.”

In 2011 Kojima described his week as sleeping only four hours a night and spending the rest of each day working or in meetings; he said he himself regrets being away from his family so much, but tries to keep weekends free to spend with them.

“plays with Legos all day”

From Hyoryu, Kojima concluded that the human body needs work and movement: the castaway who balances his diet, exposes himself to the sun, and keeps active survives where others fall ill after long periods of immobility. He thought this lesson also applied to modern urban life and that an idle, purposeless existence guided only by desire is not sustainable.

When he began receiving requests to write cover blurbs and obi, Kojima concluded that a recommendation capable of luring someone toward a book also transmits memes, even if it lacks the prestige of creating the work. He stated that his own series of recommendation essays in Da Vinci would not have been possible without his prior encounters with King’s name on those obi.

Kojima recalled that twenty-five years earlier he had incorporated a story and a message into video games when both were regarded as unnecessary. With the rise of mobile games used to kill time, he saw Minagawa’s literary activity at age eighty-two as the baton to receive. He promised to continue as he is even after turning eighty and to instill his memes into video games.

“When she defeated The End she called me up and said: 'It is finished'.”

“I walked in and the shopkeepers knew about me. I couldn't believe it. It was the most surprising moment in my life.”

“Lost World was the first project I was assigned to and the game was cancelled after six months.”

“Every week they paid for us to visit a forest in the mountains nearby. We would dress up in military uniform and play games there. It was a good time.”

Kojima began by identifying with the climber Joji Habu, who selects dangerous, untried routes and turns into reality what no one else has done. However, the cameraman Makoto Fukamachi’s monologue shook him: Kojima recognized that his older self was no longer the pioneering leader but the one who follows behind, returns alive, and goes back to the mountain again and again because it is all he can do.

Kojima said that making video games was his mountain: it pulled him away from his previous path and saved him. He noted that the medium was changing form, yet he resolved to keep climbing even if he had to abandon everything else—not because the mountain was already there, but precisely because it was not yet there.

In 2012, while preparing to open Kojima Productions Los Angeles, Kojima envisioned the Tokyo and LA teams not as two separate sides but as a studio located in a third space between the two cities. He wanted a global goal to render location irrelevant and for the outcome to be not merely a patchwork of Japanese memes with something American, but a creation global in the truest sense.

“He tried to explain the meaning over and over again via the phone, but was frustrated with his inability to get through.”

“In the past I've mentioned Silent Hill in interviews, and as a result of that the president of Konami rung me up and said he'd like me to make the next Silent Hill.”

“For example, if at some point if we decided to bring out a JRPG with Snake in his teens, I don't think that's something I could do. I'd have to leave that with the younger staff.”

According to the book’s capsule, Project Itoh was hospitalized immediately after the meeting to plan the Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots novelization and wrote the entire manuscript from his hospital bed. He identified with Otacon and Raiden, chose Otacon as the narrator to project himself into the novel, and built the rest of the work from that decision.

As he approached fifty, Kojima acknowledged that studio work was already physically fatiguing and that he should be preparing a successor and retirement, but the person to whom he had handed the baton had died before him. He said he could only pick up Itoh’s last wishes and continue telling stories; he also began the series My Lovable Memes after Itoh’s death to search for new receivers.

“Originally I wanted to hand the series off to younger staff and let them carry on with it. And so we did, and that resulted in the game Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. But after Rising, we found that for my younger staff, the numbered games were just too heavy for them. So that's why I decided to come back and work on them myself.”

“Every game I make, I create thinking it's really, really going to be the last game I create. So I put as much as I can in and make sure I have no regrets.”

“In the beginning, I would say the answer to that is yes. I had very specific people in mind when I created a game, and I had a message that I wanted to pass along. But now my thought process is changing.”

Kojima spent almost three decades at Konami, beginning in 1986. In 2015, amid a bitter split, Konami removed Kojima's name from Metal Gear Solid V marketing; at The Game Awards in December 2015 the game won awards but Kojima did not attend, reportedly barred from attending by Konami. That same month Kojima re-established Kojima Productions as an independent studio partnered with Sony. Silent Hills had been cancelled in April 2015.

Since Kojima Productions was founded in 2015, its motto has been "From Sapiens to Ludens": the idea of humanity evolving from Homo Sapiens (the one who thinks) to Homo Ludens (the one who plays and creates). Its mascot, Ludens — designed with Yoji Shinkawa — is a spacesuit-clad figure carrying a flag, a symbol of arrival and exploration rather than conquest.

“If I'm going through a difficult patch, and I watch a great movie, it reminds me that there are so many creative people out there all over the world pushing hard to accomplish great things. That really motivates me to keep going. So I guess these are the two reasons why I make sure I watch movies every day.”

“Last year, I thought I lost everything. But I didn't.”

“I think what happened to Hideo Kojima last year was a tragedy, but he never complained. He just sat in an isolated room for months, looked inside himself and focused on his art.”

“couldn't even talk to them – he had to talk through someone else. That's how that game was finished.”

“It's very intricate. I mean, you know (Kojima). He's a very brilliant man. I mean… the stuff he told me? I only understood some of it.”

“I’m back”

“Hideo Kojima's lifetime achievement award from @BrasilGameShow just arrived. Obrigado Brasil, it's already in display in our entrance!”

Kojima linked the speed and quality of his work to teams small enough to let him walk through the studio, spot problems where they arise, and give directions directly. He compared that method to visiting bookstores: solutions do not come from an automatic search, but from his own judgment, which he must keep refining with his eyes, head, and body.

Kojima admitted that analyzing past successes can produce a sellable, low-risk product, but he rejected that method because tomorrow always arrives and what was accepted yesterday does not remain the same. He held that past experiences are necessary not to imitate but to connect differently; therefore he reads, watches movies, listens to music, visits museums, and meets people as a practice to learn from history and create the future.

Before becoming a designer, Kojima turned to stories as a compass when he doubted his future: experiencing unfamiliar times and places expanded his world and refined his outlook. When he was able to make a living from creating, he changed his relationship with stories and began thinking about how to connect his works with players and the world; he said he wanted to push those who were standing still, help them move forward, and make the world better.

During his creative work, Kojima said he sometimes suffers intense feelings of isolation, stress, and doubt. He is saved by knowing that writers, directors, artists, or other people committed to creating connections exist; their struggles become stories that relieve his loneliness. Likewise, an extraordinary work produced in a faraway country shows him that he can still keep trying.

Kojima says one must live with one’s receptive antennae out and scanning in all directions, an exhausting attention to diverse stimuli. His process is to hold onto what sparks interest, turn it over in the mind, shape it, and bring it out into the world; the same material absorbed can reappear as an essay, lyrics, sound, performance, or a video game depending on the medium and the creator’s technique.

Kojima stated that creating the new company was more difficult than developing Death Stranding: upon becoming independent he had to recover credibility, financing, people and a place to work. Fans of his earlier games helped him in unforeseen ways, and he was able to deal directly with Hollywood actors who appreciated Metal Gear and wanted to participate out of mutual affinity.

When testing Metal Gear’s initial concept—hiding and escaping from enemies—Kojima considered it essential to distinguish two failures: that the idea wasn’t properly realized in the game, or that the idea itself wasn’t fun. In the second case he would have canceled the game; handing that decision over to marketing would have removed his ability to turn back and resulted in a typical video game.

Kojima explained an optional encounter in Death Stranding in which Sam periodically delivers medicine to a man who has no direct importance to the main plot. If the player forgets to continue bringing the medicine, the man will die. With that mechanic Kojima wanted players to experience that forming a connection also means taking on responsibility, and that their actions can both build and break that connection.

“Even when I went to the bank, I couldn't borrow money. They said, 'We know you're renowned, but you don't have any actual results.'”

“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.'”

In November 2019, during the promotion of Death Stranding, Kojima received two Guinness World Records for being the game director with the most followers on both Twitter and Instagram.

“In the future, Kojima Productions will start making films. If you can do one thing well, then you can do everything well.”

“I thought, I'll tell her once I've become a little successful. I didn't want her to worry.”

At the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, Kojima suggested that prospective game developers watch two films a day.

According to Vulture, Kojima edits his own trailers for his games, a task typically handled by ad agencies.

“Me as an old man going to the theater by myself on this day? I changed my plan to stay in my office working on my next concept.”

“It's OK; everyone can evaluate what they want. In three to five years, we will see what people will say.”

To launch Kojima Productions after going independent in December 2015, Kojima rented an office of under nine square meters and conducted an international search for staff, software tools, and engines while the studio began production on a new game.

Kojima says that going to a bookstore was a daily routine he did not abandon even during the frenetic start of his studio. There he takes books in his hands, buys the ones that call to him, and loses himself reading them; on business trips he is not at ease unless he has several books in his bag, and he considers choosing and reading books to be part of who he is.

Kojima explains that always following the same fixed route through a bookstore is efficient but causes him to stop seeing what lies outside it. Visiting a new or less familiar bookstore disorients him and disrupts his ossified patterns of thought; even the same books can show a different side depending on the store’s size, environment, and arrangement.

VIZ's biographical note places Kojima's birth in Tokyo in 1963, his directorial debut with Metal Gear in 1987, the establishment of his independent studio Kojima Productions at the end of 2015, and the release of Death Stranding in 2019.

“I received the 72nd Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts from the Agency of Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan. Thank you very much. I have been creating games for 36 years.”

“I am very happy that the immature medium of games has been highly evaluated as a cultural art form of "expression". I will continue to devote myself to the creation of digital entertainment.”

“I have been knowing Mr. Oshii for 26 years now. It’s been a really long time since I’ve seen him, partly because of the pandemic, so I really enjoyed today’s recording. This will be broadcasted on the Spotify program “Hideo Kojima presents Brain Structure”. Please look forward to it. So tonight, I re-watch “PATLABOR THE MOVIE” for the first time in 33 years.”

“I was already involved in the game industry, but at the beginning, I was staying in a boarding house and was watching VHS tapes. That's when I first encountered Mr. Oshii's mystery article file, 538. I was really surprised.”

“It's a difficult line to toe. You can't end up in the red, but don't want to be too far in the black and lose your freedom.”

“They can't break free, they can't quit, they can't lose. It felt like that when Metal Gear started gaining fans and I started getting fan letters.”

“I can't just be like, whoops, sorry about last year. That's the scariest part of it all.”

“They won't tell me the budget and release dates get announced out of the blue. Or they would suddenly spill the contents of a project during promos. Once they totally gave away spoilers in a magazine interview.”

“I've been wanting to make one, but I don't have any time. I might be able to do just a screenplay.”

“I really wanted to do it all myself, seriously. If I could just make clones of myself, I would.”

“But humans are imaginative, and since I'm also a creator, I don't want to hurt other creators' feelings, even if their work isn't entirely good.”

“Way back in 2005, I did my own podcast, Hidechan! Radio, for a long time. I grew up in the generation of radio and after I became a creator, I wanted to give something back to the medium that was there for me when I was a lonely kid.”

“Making games can be hard, and there's a lot that leaves me scratching my head, but your movie gave me energy. It motivated me to work a little harder.”

“I try not to feel the pressure too much when I'm creating, but I use that pressure and the hurdles to my advantage in order to aim higher. Thanks to that pressure, I can get better. It's really a blessing as a creator.”

“When I'm creating something, I kind of have two personalities, like a left-brain person and a right-brain person.”

“Just like Tom Cruise said in Maverick, I could never work this hard if it was a job. It's more like a mission. I'm dedicating my life not to myself but to someone else. I'm creating for those who are waiting for me.”

“I get sent tons of books from publishers a week before they're released to the public. I'm able to read books that nobody has read before.”

“When I became independent, I got rid of over 20,000 books.”

“I don't read the ones that end up at the bottom of the stack, so every week I turn them over and change the order.”

“It goes on the back, behind the author, and for example, if it's for a series, and I have to write a review for the fourth book, I re-read from the first one.”

“These book fairs and awards create an opportunity for the bookstore to re-display some featured books.”

“That's why I choose my words carefully and make sure I don't use difficult words, so people who don't often read books can understand too.”

“There are a lot of authors overseas who are like former Special Forces members, which you don't really see in Japan. Or doctors who write medical dramas. Lawyers who write courtroom dramas and whatnot.”

“Yes, I do get offers, and I would like to, but I just don't have the time. Say I spend one year doing a movie. What would my staff do for a year? But I am seeking ways to try to make it work.”

“Nowadays, I tweet something, then the media will take that tweet and paste it somewhere and call it news. That's not how it should work. It's just a tweet. It's not meant to be news.”

“I've never once said anything to Phil about wanting to create a Death Stranding sequel. I don't know who pulled this kind of information from where.”

“It was 100% out of my pocket. No funding from anyone whatsoever. So we're independent.”

“Some of those offers are ridiculously high prices, but it's not that I want money. I want to make what I want to make. That's why I created this studio. So as long as I'm alive, I don't think I will ever accept those offers.”

“At this stage, nothing costs any money and since it can be done mentally, it's the most fun part for me.”

“People think that its purpose is to present the game to everyone around the world, but actually, it's not. It's to show the staff.”

“The hard parts are kind of like drugs. You begin to feel like you can't live without them.”

“But I can also do things I dislike so that I can continue doing the things I love. If you only do the things you love, you won't grow.”

“Yes, the process of going to the restroom. I don't really need to use the bathroom.”

“It's the making of Death Stranding, but it's also a bit like a documentary about me. I'll announce it when we're ready to announce it, so yeah.”

“Then, I'll play a soundtrack that matches that, and the writing just happens naturally. It's like I'm not myself almost.”

“I think there will come a time when I develop a game with just myself and AI, not the staff. It can be cumbersome to work with staff.”

“People saying things like, I think Kojima has about three more games left in him. And I'm like, no, don't say that.”

“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.”

“I usually have 20 or 30 world stories and game systems running around in my head. They go through a selection process and eventually the one that's left is the best one.”

“You end up constantly doing this, so it becomes difficult to draw the line and say, stop.”

“I think that creating things is a means to say goodbye to your past self, so I think what you're saying is exactly right.”

“Should We Have Connected?”

Kojima Productions’ Tokyo headquarters has a pure white lobby where a life‑size statue of Ludens, the studio’s mascot, greets visitors; inside the studio there is a movie theatre and a gallery space where Kojima’s body of work is presented like a museum exhibit.

“Originally, I was writing Hideo's Mysteries as a joke on Twitter.”

“I started panicking and read a bunch right before the deadline. You definitely shouldn't do that. It's like I'm reading them just so I can make my selection.”

“I don't want to rank them, so I'm going to be announcing them in the order that I read them or the order that they went on sale.”

“With Horowitz and Hawthorne, nothing happens until halfway through the book. Usually, you have a dead body in the mix, but instead, you're made to read the development and relationship of these two characters for the longest time. That's the strength of a series.”

“Well-established literary authors will need to step it up. Let's stop there. I'm going to offend some of the people I know.”

“I wrote those comments because I want people to read the books. But also, after you read the books, you can look back at those comments and understand the meaning behind them. They serve a double purpose.”

“Of course, the reading part is fun too, but picking out the books, therein lies the fun.”

“The only things I had were four staff members, my computer, and my iPhone.”

“There was one incident that was really tough. The 2016 SAG strike. I thought it would end in two or three months, but it went on for a year.”

“There needs to be trust between myself and the actors in order to see it through, because it can get pretty tough.”

“Sony has this new technology system called the Mado. It means window in Japanese. […] It feels like an illusion almost. Like the person on the screen is right there.”

“People may not use them, but I want them to feel cared for when they're here.”

“So I feel like my life is following a similar path to Morricone's, especially after having watched the documentary. It made me cry.”

“You're just watching my face though. What's the fun in that? I'm not an idol or anything. […] But when I checked the footage, all I saw was my belly and stuff like that.”

“Um, on another note, with the current technology, we can't shoot hair. So all we can do is take reference shots, and we later punch in one hair at a time.”

“We do it once like an air hug, where you hug from a distance. And then we do it again without the helmet.”

“Well, compared to like Clint Eastwood, I might be more stubborn. There are some people who will do 30 takes. James Cameron does over 30. […] Well, I think the first two or three takes are the best ones.”

“In my case, I think about the world setting, then create the story. The character settings are pretty vague at first. The details aren't refined yet.”

“You can also see the background and where the enemy is located. It doesn't exist in the studio, but it appears on the screen.”

“I need to check whether I can love this person or not, whether or not I can work together with them.”

“At the end, when we wrap up all the shooting, we'll do the usual celebrations with bouquet and stuff and everyone is all happy. But then it's hell from there. It'll take another two more years after that.”

“I make the games as I film the cutscenes, and the staff and I give each other feedback to make sure we keep consistency throughout the game.”

“In MGS5, Snake isn't really Snake, and Ocelot becomes kind of like the storyteller. And this was really difficult and playing the part of Ocelot was risky, but Troy did an amazing job, so I'm really grateful.”

“So, we could put audio on there, and now games could talk. No one had made anything with CD-ROMs yet.”

“I was basically scammed. I didn't know anything. I didn't even know how recording worked.”

“And I would ask them to do another take, but they would say, there wasn't anything wrong with that take and everyone would kinda agree, but Kikuko, you would stand up for me.”

“Personally, I thought that Snatcher was not a success.”

“Yeah, well, Kayumi-san is like a god to me.”

“I realized you had to do it directly, which is my current style. If the actual person says they can't do it, then I will give it up.”

“You decided to become freelance at the height of your popularity. That's so risky, yet so bold.”

“We used like 500 or 600 eggs, but we couldn't throw them out, so the staff was going to eat them.”

“We made the CG based off of Otsuka-san and Ginga-san's voices.”

“I didn't expect Metal Gear Solid 2 to sell very well, so I did a lot of crazy things in that game. Following Metal Gear Solid 2, though, a lot of pressure was on my shoulders. I couldn't be quite as free after that.”

“In 2021, my staff was still working from home because of the pandemic, so I was the only one coming to the office. I would listen to that album while working.”

“Okay, now you cry [...] I have to get in the mood but in the whole suit.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“I had the story written before the pandemic, but after experiencing the pandemic I just rewrote the whole story from scratch. I also didn't want to predict any more future, so I rewrote it.”

“Every time I say something about that game [Death Stranding] on the internet or a talk show or whatever and Hideo hasn't said it first, he calls and he yells at me. So I'm not saying anything. He's yelled at me several times.”

“When I had just started my own studio and had nothing, I pitched the DS project to Norman at a sushi restaurant and asked him if he would like to do it with me. He instantly said yes even though I didn't even have a script.”

Kojima wrote that shaving every morning upon waking was a pleasant way to start the day, and that although he now wears a neat three-day stubble he still keeps that morning ritual of tidying it immediately after getting up.

Around March 2025, around his appearance at SXSW, Kojima announced that Death Stranding had surpassed 20 million players across all platforms; he said that people still playing it makes him the happiest.

“I don't want them to just manage our existing IP”

“I gave a USB stick with all my ideas on it to my personal assistant, kind of like a will.”

“I gave a USB stick with all my ideas on it to my personal assistant, kind of like a will. [...] Perhaps I have ten years?”

“I am not going to pass the baton to anyone. I will rather crush the baton [...] I don't need to give 'Hideo Kojima' to anyone.”

“If everyone likes it, it means it's mainstream. It means it's conventional. It means it's already pre-digested for people to like it.”

“I want people to end up liking things they didn't like when they first encountered it, because that's where you really end up loving something.”

“There's a key moment where we had a discussion, probably halfway [through] when we were doing the game, where he came to me and he said, "We have a problem."”

“We met before the pandemic, and he used some of my songs in the first episode [Death Stranding], but it was songs from my previous records. He used "Goliath" and "Pale Yellow" in the gameplay.”

“You have no idea how much he doesn't give a shit about this. He really doesn't. He doesn't compromise; he does what he wants.”

“People sometimes have the fake impression that Hideo is very egotistical, [but] he's someone that changes his mind very intelligently based on what people bring him.”

“I put all of these things in. Even if I said to the staff, 'Please put them in!', they would just say, 'Huh?' and pretend not to know (laughs).”

“When I see movies and get ideas, usually just talking to people, eating or walking, or maybe I'm in a bath, I come up with these ideas. So it's almost like a disease, I call it. Even when I'm talking with my family, in my head, I'm in a totally different world.”

“Hideo kept pushing me to make something even more deconstructed and crazy and industrial and radical and I went way further than I thought I would be able to do in my music and still recognize my music.”

“It's almost like a disease. I'm imagining things all the time. Even when I'm talking to my family, in my head I'm in a totally different world.”

While in middle school, Kojima's father suddenly collapsed and died in front of him. For economic reasons he gave up his dream of becoming a novelist or film director, and after graduating from university in 1986 he joined Konami.

Kojima says he has a much more sensitive sense of smell than other people, to the point of sometimes feeling unwell from odors, and that when he rides his company's elevator he can sometimes identify who rode before him from the lingering scent.

“The book includes a selection from "70% of My Body Is Made of Movies," which was published years ago by Sony Magazines, film critiques I wrote for Bunshun Online after becoming independent, novel afterwords and contributions, a collection of comments from 'Hideo's Mysteries,' travel essays serialized in the Nikkei Sunday edition newspaper, and essays about Kōbō Abe, among others.”

Kojima's debut as a voice actor — his first time voicing a character in an animated film — was in the Japanese dub of Zootopia 2 (Zootrópolis 2), in which he voices Paul Molebrandt, nicknamed the Mole, a minor IT department employee at the Zootopia Police Department; the Japanese release was 5 December 2025. Recalling his participation in Zootopia 2 on KOJI10, Kojima said he was not told which character he would voice until he arrived for the recording.

“I keep my ears open for music for my games and then reach out to musicians. If we click, then we work together.”

“I even used to grind the beans myself, but recently, I just use Nespresso. ... I drink about maybe 7 cups a day? ... for the last 30 years, I take it black. I used to live in Kobe. They have the best coffee.”

“The game industry took a toll on my eyes. I started wearing glasses when I was about 30.”

“Unlike last year, like I was traveling all over the world, this year will be about staying grounded and laying solid foundations. [...] This year also marks my 40th anniversary in the game industry from 1986 and began my journey in game creation.”

In 2026 Kojima was scheduled to give a talk at the Game Developers Conference about his fateful decision a decade ago to go independent after a messy breakup with Konami, but he withdrew without offering an explanation; Kojima Productions announced he would not attend and said that some members of the studio would still present at the event.

“This is the PC Launch Trailer for "DEATH STRANDING 2 ON THE BEACH." Once again, I did the structure, editing, sound design, and mix myself. It features a track by WOODKID.”

In 2026, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach won the Artistic Achievement award at the BAFTA Games Awards.

“I pitched to many people, to the big companies, and also to the up-and-coming companies. All of them said the same thing... They said that I'm crazy, and that they really don't understand the concept — that they will not be able to do it.”

In mid-June 2026, PlayStation Studios notified Kojima and KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS that it would cancel PHYSINT. The project was important both to Kojima and to his studio. After three months of searching for a new partner, Kojima and his team found a shared vision with XBOX and decided to work together again. Development of PHYSINT continues.

KOJI10 is tentatively coming back with a special one-off podcast that, in VIVANT style, they are calling Episode 36. Kojima and Yanpi had been working on a comeback plan for some time and are rebooting KOJI10 with this standalone episode for now.

Kojima created both the new key visual for PHYSINT and its copy. The tagline is “The Next Cold War Begins.”

“We sign contracts according to projects, and that's how we survive one by one as an indie. So I need to find a new project before the previous project ends, and that's how we stay alive.”

“But the number one priority is my staff. We have about 200 people, and I expanded because we had Physint. […] I didn't want to do the same thing we did for P.T.”

“True story: after the meeting, the first thing I did was, I came back to my desk, and I started to write and add a little bit more to the concept for Physint.”

“But if Kojima Productions collapses, that doesn’t follow this trend at all. It’s a step backwards for indies. So I needed to stand firm and continue this project.”

“I predicted that people might leave, but no one did.”

“So the work didn’t stop. […] I have to change the story depending on how the game experiment works.”

“They haven't contacted me ever since. But I'm not fighting with Sony. We're not in a dispute. […] So if this was the conclusion, I would've wanted to hear it a little earlier.”

In a statement supplied to IGN after the interview, Kojima Productions urged scepticism toward unofficial explanations for Physint’s change of partner. The studio said it was healthy and profitable, that development was continuing with Xbox and that its relationship with PlayStation remained strong.

Kojima found in his storage the booklet included with the MGS2 limited edition, the MGS3 pamphlet he and his team handed out at E3, and the booklet included with the ANUBIS limited edition. He recalled that they used to make everything in-house at the time. The early visual concept for MGS3 was designed by Kyle. Harry was born in 1961, Kyle in 1962, and Kojima in 1963; MGS3 is set in 1964.

“People are still playing it. I get the numbers every day. Very few players drop off. The people who love it keep playing.”

“I want to keep quiet and release it. That's unusual for me, isn't it?”

“He keeps asking me for the script. […] I have the plot ready. But he wants to know the lines and how his character speaks. […] He asks me to write it but I'm like, "Hold on!"”

“I pitch the projects myself, too.”

“We've finally started. We've been shooting since June and will continue through the end of the year.”

“You enter through Phase One. […] It starts with our independence, in a small four-and-a-half-tatami room.”

“From the first “DEATH STRANDING”... […] we have work we made before we even had an engine. […] There were only five or six of us.”

Kojima and his team released a limited-edition merchandise set when they became independent. At the time, they only had the KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS logo; they had the design for Ludens, but the CG model had not yet been created.

Kojima picked up a copy of anan at a bookstore. Kojima said he has an ongoing essay series in anan and that episode 43 is about suitcases.

Kojima is a video game designer, writer, director, and producer, best known for the Metal Gear franchise and for Death Stranding; he heads his own independent studio, Kojima Productions.

The Metal Gear Solid saga, which Kojima directed, produced, designed and wrote, runs from Metal Gear Solid (1998, PlayStation) — the jump to 3D that established him — through Metal Gear Solid 2 (2001), Metal Gear Solid 3 (2004), Metal Gear Solid 4 (2008), and Peace Walker (2010), to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015). He announced that The Phantom Pain would be his final Metal Gear project.

Besides Metal Gear, at Konami Kojima produced or supervised other games: he was producer of Zone of the Enders (2001) and of Boktai (2003), executive producer of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (2010) and supervising director of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (2013).

Kojima created and directed the video games Metal Gear (1987), Snatcher (1988), Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (1990), Policenauts (1994), Metal Gear Solid (1998), Metal Gear Solid 2 (2001), Metal Gear Solid 3 (2004), Metal Gear Solid 4 (2008), Peace Walker (2010), Metal Gear Solid V (2014–2015), P.T. (2014), Death Stranding (2019) and Death Stranding 2 (2025); he has OD and Physint in development. He has also produced or supervised other video games such as Zone of the Enders, the Boktai series, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow and Metal Gear Rising.

Kojima uses as the biography on his Instagram and X profiles the line Game Creator: 70% of my body is made of movies. On Instagram he presents it in English and in Japanese (ゲームデザイナー：僕の体の70%は映画でできている).

In a text written for Konami's website, Kojima described Policenauts as his most difficult birth: it took four years from planning to the first commercialization and six years in total including later conversions. During that time his department changed three times, and the organization, his position and his work environment changed repeatedly, while the world moved — the Berlin Wall disappeared and the Cold War structure collapsed — and they were also struck by a large, unexpected earthquake.

Kojima wrote that during those six turbulent years he kept creating Policenauts as if possessed, and that although the project many times came close to running aground, curiously he never gave up even once; he added that even today he does not really understand how he could concentrate for so long on a single imaginary world.

Kojima wrote that at that time he devoted himself solely to finishing the work, living each day dreaming only of completing Policenauts, and that it was a luxurious period spent purely as a creator; he added that later, once in his role as an executive and producer, his possibilities to create expanded, but he would never again be able to immerse himself for years in a single work as he did then, and that Policenauts can be considered the last work in which he was able to continue producing while looking only at the act of creating.

Kojima wrote that on Policenauts he did almost everything himself — game design, a massive amount of dialogue, the adventure scripts written in simplified language, the storyboards, hit detection, flag management and even the image and sound calls — and that if Metal Gear Solid, made by a team of 100 people, is a Hollywood commercial film, Policenauts is closer to an independent film: in every sense his own colour shows.

Kojima wrote that Policenauts was also a meeting place: thanks to that magnetic field he met Shinkawa and the rest of the core staff of what would later become his studio, and many people inside and outside the company who still support him; he concluded it is a road that connects to the present and a past he can no longer return to, but that work still shines with a strong light.

“Metal Gear was the first game that was released. There was this other game that I developed that never made it to the market--Lost World. The title was world but with war like a cross between war and world. It was a Mario-esque action game with a story.”

“I really don't like saying this, but it really wasn't up to my standards. The care that I put in the original wasn't there.”

“It was my first game that made it to release, so I have a lot of memories. It's my cute boy in that sense.”

“By the way, I'm developing this game called Snake's Revenge, but I know it's not the authentic Snake, so please create a new Snake game of your own.”