In Hollywood, having a big-name director attached to a film can serve as a lightning rod of attention, marketing and ultimately sales to the project. There are countless examples of this over the decades; Tarantino, Spielberg, Lucas, Shyamalan, and more. The gaming community, while no longer in it’s infancy and is a cultural vehicle in it’s own right, certainly doesn’t have the century of tradition that film does. However, there is one name that stands out among the rest; and that name is Hideo Kojima.
For the uninitiated, Hideo Kojima is the creator of the incomparable Metal Gear Solid series. While he had produced the first two Metal Gear games that premiered exclusively in Japan in the 80’s, he hit critical acclaim in the U.S gaming market with his iconic English debut of the famed Metal Gear Solid in 1998. That game, for all of its flaws, was absolutely revolutionary for its time. It went on to not only to create an entire genre of games (the stealth genre, which few, if any, which can match the MGS series), it had no small part in buoying the PlayStation console-and indirectly, Sony and Konami as a whole. Finding a serious gamer that has never played any Metal Gear Solid game, much less the original, is like finding a serious film buff that has never seen Pulp Fiction or Scarface.
Kojima then continued the magic with the much-anticipated sequel Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. In both films and video games, sequels often underperform the originals, in terms of both sales and reception among critics (read: pundits, eww) and fans alike. However, much like it’s original, Metal Gear Solid 2 became a console-defining game that helped launch the PlayStation2 into the stratosphere. Refusing to rest on his laurels, Hideo Kojima improved numerous aspects from an already beloved game. Graphically, Metal Gear Solid 2 was far ahead of its time. Kojima continued this trend three years later with the release of Metal Gear Solid 3, what many consider to be his absolute masterpiece. He not only kept enough of the core features that endeared fans to him in the first place, but also continued to take creative risks and brought innovative new features to the third installment as well. Metal Gear Solid 5 is an absolute masterclass in how to create a game with nearly limitless ways to solve a problem, thanks to the numerous innovations introduced by Kojima. However, he has always balanced out the innovation and story development with an element of always wanting the player wanting more. This is why re-playing his games are so common and why his fanbase cannot throw $60 at him fast enough when he announces a new game (guilty as charged). Seriously, he made a game about delivering packages interesting!
Gushing about improved graphics (not something I particularly care about, Undertale is a fantastic game despite looking like it was made in 1987) and innovative mechanics is one thing, but it is another to marvel at the deeply thought-provoking topics his game wrestle with, topics that are often ahead of their time. The original Metal Gear Solid delved deeply into the topics of genetic engineering and cloning in 1998, two years before the completion of the human Genome Project. It also tackled nuclear proliferation, posing uncomfortable questions that most people would rather avoid. This trend continued with the sequel, probing players about the flow of digital information, censorship, algorithmic control of an entire population’s personal data, which is strikingly impressive for a game released in 2001 (pick up a copy of The Case Against Memes to learn more!). The third game discussed moral relativism as it pertains to nations; today’s friend is often tomorrow’s enemy. The fifth game discussed heavily the linguistic imperialism of the West; why English dominates whatever culture it’s introduced into, making players think deeply and feel uncomfortable while they also enjoy the game. A lower-budget spin-off game (gasp!) Kojima made, Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker wrestled with the complexities of nuclear deterrence theory-spoiler; it isn’t as foolproof as we like to think-and how the cold indifferent logic of artificial intelligence contrasts with the irrationality of humans under stress. A recent, though unrelated, game of his Death Stranding deals with the topic of isolationism and cultural division. Hideo Kojima does not make games that simply let a player turn their brains off.
The lore of his games run incredibly deep as well. The Metal Gear Solid games contain most of their dialog in optional Codec calls, radio calls or cassette tapes. These calls or tapes often contain lore that is based off of real-life phenomena, whether it is international relations of the era portrayed, the science of genetics, military tactics, mental health, and endlessly more topics. Kojima is known for bringing in experts in these topics to help him build the lore; whether that is special forces teams to build a better enemy AI, nuclear physicists to help build the lore of the game, native speakers of less-common languages such as Kikongo or Afrikaans and more. When Metal Gear Solid wants to be realistic, these games are about as realistic as one can often get (even the slang words used by enemy soldiers is realistic!). Kojima doesn’t simply make a surface-level statements in any of these games; his works are more analogous to an onion, with seemingly endless layers, each one more difficult to peel back than the last. The fact that fans and pundits alike are still finding new things to say about the first trilogy over 20 years later is nothing short of astounding. Academia has taken note of Kojima’s works as well, there are literal Masters and Doctoral dissertations based off of Hideo Kojima’s games. This is a true testament to how deep and how well thought out they are.
Kojima is also skilled enough at storytelling and plot development where he can introduce otherwise ridiculous characters and still have them mesh well with the cold realism (did anyone order a floating psychic?). Kojima is also known for making protagonists that are morally grey, instead of the traditional good-versus-evil our culture is so infatuated with. Big Boss in Peace Walker ultimately saves the world from nuclear Armageddon, however he then jumps at the opportunity to arm his own private army with nuclear missiles. Big Boss then tries to save Chico and Paz in the prequel to Metal Gear Solid 5, two of his child soldiers from the previous game, however he does it to prevent them from talking about his offshore base rather than any moral obligation to rescue his comrades. Sam Porter-Bridges from Death Stranding agrees to help rebuild America, however is far from a Patriot. Kojima excels in making protagonists that are morally dubious in both subtle and overt ways.
Kojima’s games are also known for being powerfully predictive as mentioned earlier. Aside from the uncomfortable questions posed about genetic engineering posed in 1998 or digital censorship posed in 2001, Kojima has continued to be eerily predictive in nature. Metal Gear Solid 5 was fully released in 2016 and it contains a section where an epidemic breaks out amongst the protagonist’s private army. The player is tasked with finding the symptomatic soldiers and quarantining them before the epidemic spreads to cataclysmic scales. Sound familiar? Death Stranding also shows a world in which too much isolation and dependence on technology has ruined society instead of helping mankind. While aspects of this are starting to become true, it is difficult to say whether Kojima was fully right since that game was released in 2019-though one can’t help but to shake the feeling that Kojima is trying to warn us This is our future if we continue the current trajectory.
Kojima has also used his games to ironically spread a message of relative pacifism. Starting with the sequel in 2001, his games-despite being about covert/stealthy military operations-have allowed for and incentivized non-lethal play styles. Admittedly, this message has gotten noticeably more heavy-handed over the years through lore, dialog, and sheer gameplay mechanics over the years-though this certainly is not a bad message to be blatant about. Kojima is truly a man for the people.
Kojima’s name in the industry has spiled over into Hollywood recently. Kojima managed to convince Kiefer Sutherland to voice Venom Snake from Metal Gear Solid 5. In his most recent game, he has casted Guillermo Del Toro as well as several supporting actors from recent 007 movies. Given the rise of gaming as a storytelling medium-thanks largely to Kojima and his groundbreaking work with the Metal Gear Solid series, especially the first three games-this list is likely only going to expand in the future.
One could only hope that Kojima keeps on releasing games, though not at the cost of quality. Kojima’s games nearly always have something to say (the notable exception being Metal Gear Solid 4, but that was intended to wrap the series up more than anything) and delivers his message both blatantly and subtly. His games are well-worth the cost of admission and the world is better for his production of them. Much like my article on Peter Thiel, I’d very much would like to meet Hideo Kojima one day, but for now this ode will have to do.
Home Page 