Hideo Kojima has made it clear that Death Stranding is about himself as much as its about anything else. But I have to wonder:
how deep will this metanarrative go?
Connect The Dots
Category Archives: New Kojima Productions
UPDATED: Death Stranding tries (and fails) to shrug off labels
Hideo Kojima has once again taken to Twitter to defend Death Stranding as a new genre of game, impossible to categorize into existing terms. This hasn’t gone very smoothly.
Continue readingDeath Stranding: As it Stands
So we’ve got more Death Stranding information huh! I guess we better analyze it and see what it all means…
Death Stranding and 2nd draft
Hi everyone, I’ve decided to start a blog for Death Stranding called “I’ll Keep Coming”. You can visit illkeepcoming.com to check it out, and if you use Tumblr you can follow updates easily, ask questions, and even submit information. I’m calling it an “infosource” because right now I’m mostly interested in keeping track of as much information as possible about it. Interview clippings, twitter mentions, website updates, trailer footage, screenshots, and everything else related to the game.
As I have been writing my book, I realized how much precious information was lost about old Metal Gear games. It was very hard to research details along the way, and even though we live in the age of Wiki’s and YouTube, it’s amazing how much information gets lost or distorted along the way. Just look at the fact that GameTrailers.com shut down. Who would’ve guessed that? By collecting information on illkeepcoming.com, I’ll have a copy of everything on my own computer too without needing to specially back up the html files or anything.
Speaking of the book, I’m now working on the 2nd draft. A couple sections of the book need work, and I’m going to do my best to make everything top-notch for you guys who are looking forward to it. Thank you very much for your encouraging emails and sorry if I haven’t replied to them all. The process is not as quick as I’d hoped, but I am always impatient about projects!
Small hints about Kojima’s next game: Uncharted fans will like it
Thanks to The Snake Soup for noticing what DualShockers translated from Weekly Famitsu via Hachima Kikou!
What we have now is a promise that Kojima’s upcoming game will appeal to fans who like Uncharted and The Division. This means it must involve gunfights, 3rd-person camera, storylines and characters, and rather linear gameplay, I would guess. You have to wonder why he wouldn’t compare it to Metal Gear Solid 4, since that’s basically the same genre. Maybe he doesn’t want to give the impression it will involve stealth. He specifically said he wouldn’t call it “open world” and also gave a disclaimer that people won’t think it’s “edgy” at first:
Last, but not least, he also mentioned that when the game will be announced, some will think that it’s not as edgy as they expected, but they will understand once they get to play it.
So we’ll get to enjoy secret edginess?
I’m not surprised Kojima is starting to tease his new game already, since it’s a very low-cost way of building anticipation and staying in the spotlight to say such things during interviews. Honestly, at this point his YouTube channel is producing more content than his game production studio, so fans of his are getting impatient to know what he’s really up to. There are still a million ways that his next game can do something unique within the traditional genre of the “action-adventure” game, so it’s too early to speculate. Those hoping for a “P.T.” or “Silent Hills” type of game will probably be disappointed already, though.
Watch Guillermo del Toro and Hideo Kojima at DICE
Their discussion is the last one in the conference. I might add some commentary later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKw2JpLAHdw
Konami finally makes it official, and Kojima does too!
Hideo Kojima is creating a new independent studio named “KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS” and has already made a deal with PlayStation for a “collaboration” on a new project. This confirms reports from just a few hours ago, and means a new era of Kojima works are on the way. We can assume that his old team is joining him, which means we should expect extremely high quality and solid development times; especially since Konami was pretty notorious for having an awful work environment for creators to begin with, and that is no longer a problem.
Of course, this is the best possible news in the wake of the Konami fiasco. They are undoubtedly very jealous of this, and were acting out of spite against him until now — using all of their legal power to hold him down until the very last second. I have to admit, I can still hardly believe how absurd they behaved, even for as cynical as I am. Then again, I also never thought that his departure from Konami would be a bad thing, because — as we can clearly see today — he is perfectly fine without them. In fact, he leveled up in the process, judging by that sweet beard.
Will the next title be anywhere near as fascinating as a new Metal Gear? Not from a “meta” angle, I’m sure. But I’m a fan of Kojima’s work in general, so I am very excited to see what he comes up with. Personally, I hope he builds a new fictional universe that’s filled with social commentary and philosophy, and grounded in solid action/adventure genre that his team knows best, not some risky attempt to be a futurist. Kojima might have so many pent up gimmicks in his brain that he won’t be able to resist making some PlayStation VR technology showcase requiring 3 peripherals to even experience properly. (According to the new badass logo, he might want to pursue stuff you wear on your head. That is supposed to be a robotic knight’s helmet right?)
Right now I’m focused on my book about Kojima and the Metal Gear series (although it also includes Snatcher, Policenauts, and spinoff games!) so if you want to truly appreciate his life and legacy until today, you have something amazing to look forward to still. Not bad timing, I must say! My deep interpretation of the series has only been reinforced by evidence over the years, and the book pushes everything to a new level. I’m very excited to share it with you, as I stay tuned what comes next.
Let’s also have a moment of silence for the great, fun, and promising ruse theories, which spoke to so many people’s imaginations as well as their high regard for Kojima’s trickster legacy. He was in a league of his own, and if there was ever a creator who could have somehow pulled a ruse on that scale it would have been him! Since I no longer have any choice but to believe all of the negative reports and rumors in the past, I have to wonder even more what was truly behind the conflict and toxicity. Maybe it will come out in the wash.