Hideo Kojima, the designer behind video game series like Death Stranding and Metal Gear, mused about becoming an AI in the future to continue working on new games.
During an interview with IGN, Kojima was asked what "philosophies or feelings" he wanted to leave behind at his company, Kojima Productions, 50-100 years in the future once he's gone. Kojima loved the question, but mused that he may not actually be gone. "I'll keep leading so long as I'm around, and all that matters to me is that our roots when it comes to creation are kept intact," Kojima said. "But you know, I'll probably become an AI and stick around. You need to be stimulated in lots of different ways if you want to keep creating new things, so I imagine I'll keep collaborating with others and taking in new things even if I'm an AI."
The answer is reflective of both his work ethic and the eccentric style he puts into his games. Kojima Studios' most recent project is Death Stranding in 2019, a surreal, cinematic action game for Playstation and PC. The game features a complex setting where the afterlife has partly merged with the world of the living, leading to otherworldly beings called BTs invading and destroying the United States. The player controls porter Sam Bridges (voiced and mo-capped by Norman Reedus), and spends much of the game traversing a post-apocalyptic landscape while delivering cargo to surviving cities and evading BTs and bandits.
What's in Store for Kojima Studios?
A Death Stranding sequel was recently announced during the 2022 Game Awards, with a teaser showing the return of Sam Bridges and Fragile (Léa Seydoux) from the first game. Alongside the new game, Kojima is also heavily involved with a Death Stranding movie, which will focus on different characters and different aspects of the setting than the games.
Kojima is perhaps most well known for directing the Metal Gear franchise at Konami, a stealth-action series which dates back to 1987. The games, particularly the Metal Gear Solid games, also tend to feature surreal, cinematic storytelling. The player usually controls Solid Snake (although some games have different protagonists), a special-ops soldier trained in espionage who frequently ends up on missions dealing with giant machines called Metal Gears.
Kojima's most recent Metal Gear game was Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, which he directed in 2015 before a dispute with Konami. Following that, Kojima Studios split off and became an independent studio, and has mostly worked on Death Stranding and some other unrevealed projects.
Source: IGN