Hideo Kojima sees Death Stranding 2 as a cautionary tale

For once, the imperturbable Hideo Kojima has been overwhelmed. Even almost four decades of gaming experience has not prepared it for its greatest tribulation so far: develop Death Stranding 2: On the beach During the cocovio-9 pandemic.

“I thought I couldn’t succeed. [I can’t] Meet people or scan people, or shoot with people. I almost abandoned. And also the staff were all distant, and I also fell ill. I thought it was only the end of the world, “he said through an interpreter as part of a group interview in Sydney.” I created games throughout my career, but Death Stranding 2 was the most difficult challenge.

Even his initial scouting of Australia, where Death Stranding 2 is mainly settled, had to be carried out remotely via Zoom, Kojima carefully leading local contact to document the landscape on his behalf. “Watching it from a camera and being there is completely different, so it’s disappointing.”

For Kojima, these experiences led to a different approach for the future. His own feeling of isolation that has come to develop Death Stranding 2 With a distant team saw her reconsidered his story – but it was also this isolation that led Kojima to achieve the dangers of digital connectivity.

Kojima’s curiosity around Australia was finally satisfied. As part of a promotional world tour for Death Stranding 2He went to Australia to discuss the game with the director and his personal hero, George Miller, at Sydney Film Festival. The drawing is therefore Kojima with local views that the reputable film buff says that he did not catch any film at the festival. Instead, he spent the day at the zoo.

Kojima’s heritage as a game designer is anything but typical, from his first days as the creative force behind the very acclaimed Metal Gear Series at his departure less than a gap of Konami. And like Metal Gearnarrative anti-war, tumultuous global events have shaped the Death of death The series, the first game being conceptualized in the middle of a politically loaded climate in 2016. He underlines key events such as Brexit and the first administration of Donald Trump, with thoughts to create a game focused on the gathering of people.

“”[Back then] There was no theme in the games on connections, ”he explains. And a few months later Death of death was launched, the trigger of Covid soon upset daily life, including that of Kojima. The isolation he almost reflected the feeling of loneliness which is so widespread in the first Death of death. But at the same time, he seemed to be wary of the digital overload that came to stay online – to connect between them – during the pandemic.

“We had the internet when we had this pandemic. It was not like during the Spanish flu, ”he says. “We could order things online, we could work online, we could connect via Zoom, or you could go to concerts; They make live concerts on the internet. Thus, the company has changed to be very digital. ” This digital dependence considered it “not always very healthy”, which is aggravated by the prevalence of surveillance technology, such as facial recognition, during the pandemic. The sum of these experiences inspired him to rewrite Death Stranding 2 As an edifying tale.

The contrast between the messages of the two titles lies in their logos. Kojima notes that there is a marked difference between the original Death of deathThe logo and the suite. Unlike the original, the Vrilles – or the “strands”, as it refers to these lines – does not come out of the title, but rather maintain the name in the logo of the suite. “You see the strands coming to the logo. It’s almost like [The] Godfather“He said, referring to the 1972 criminal film.

Sitting at the front of a small conference room in the PlayStation office in Sydney, Kojima, 61, seems more reluctant since the previous one Death of death World tour – perhaps a sign of weariness and prudence in the consequences of the pandemic. When I attended the Singapore leg of the tour in 2020, Kojima shaken the hand of journalists and carried out individual interviews, while the fans who attended the event were invited to take photos with him. “It was an indirect connection with the game,” he said in an interview. The promotional event was in a way an extension of Death of deathConnectivity themes.

But for the second World Tour, at least in Sydney, journalists were invited to a group interview, and there was no interaction of fans beyond his appearance at the Sydney Film Festival when he made a sign of eager fans who hoped to have an overview of the game designer before the event. I was informed by the PlayStation team for Kojima did not want to risk becoming sick for the rest of the Death Stranding 2 Global tour. It seems understandable; Sydney is, after all, the only second stop, and perhaps his illness during the pandemic was alarming enough to prefers a physical distance between him and the public.

Nevertheless, he is still in a good mood during the group interview, at some point, even exclaimed that he is probably speaking too much. “This is another reason for which I do this world tour. I could not go out, travel and meet people in the past five years, so I thought it was time.”

However, at the heart of Kojima’s introspection is always a desire to connect with people, especially his fans. Part of the reason for which he works Physiint is due to their desire to see another action spying game in the vein of Metal Gear. Death Stranding 2As for him, has a greater concentration on the fight than the first, a characteristic to which Kojima also partially attributed to Metal Gearpopularity. With more familiar players with Death of deathIdiosyncrasies as a “delivery game”, it is ready to make the follow -up more accessible. In a way, it is his way of gathering more people through the Death of death series, which he calls “a game of connections”.

“I think we are a little stronger,” says Kojima about the world after pandemic locking. “If you could use this experience [of connecting with one another] From the game, I may want you to use this experience in real life. Not just in your Death of death World, but after getting out, you feel something in your real world every day, and I want you to connect what you also feel the game. “