Hideo Kojima is ready for a major transmedia push

Gamers have known Hideo Kojima for years as the driving creative force behind Konami Metal gears games and more recently Death Stranding. He’s built up a lot of goodwill and his profile has only grown, and now it seems like he’s willing to cash in on everything so Kojima Productions has free rein to do whatever it wants and go beyond the games.

In a recent Variety interview, Kojima spoke about his future career plans and revealed some interesting details. What he wants to achieve consists of three phases: Phase one was to establish something Death Stranding as a large estate, whatever happened. The 2019 game was a critical and commercial success and a sequel is currently in production, scheduled for 2025. He is currently in phase two, where he is expanding his properties “in all possible directions,” namely other media such as anime and films. We already know Death Stranding has a film in the works at A24, but that’s not the only thing in the works: “Several” adaptation projects for the game are in the works, he said. The film is the focus right now because he has another story in his head that he naturally wasn’t aware of.

What Kojima did betrayed about the Death Stranding film is that he won’t be directing it, and neither will Jordan Peele, his collaborator on the star-studded, mysterious Xbox project O.D. Peele is currently busy doing his own thing, but Kojima noted that he has several other Hollywood friends who could be up to the task: Guillermo del Toro, Nicolas Winding Refn and George Miller were all mentioned by name, and he recounted Variety that they “always talk about it.” do something together.” (del Toro and Refn appeared in the first game, while Miller’s likeness is used for a character in Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.)

And phase three? Kojima wants to work with “talented people from around the world” to create something completely new and digitally focused. “It could be a movie, a game, or something completely different,” he told Variety. He thinks about it Death film and its upcoming spy game Physint as a gateway to what the third part of his master plan will look like. He has already said that he is making contacts in the film and non-game industries to make this a reality, which may also include another film adaptation. Either way, he says the resources for this endeavor will be digital and could, in theory, be used for any path he chooses.

Honestly, the only thing stopping him is time. Between the three games, the Death Stranding For films and other projects, the 61-year-old designer said he just wants to be able to “do everything I want to do in the rest of my life without wasting time.” And more than that, he feels like he owes it in a way to the people who reached out to him to tell him how much his work resonated with them. Those moments “make me want to spend the rest of my life doing things for people like that,” he said. “I’m not a politician or someone who can change things, but I want to support people with my work. Anything I can do for these people, I want to do.”

Variety’s full interview with Hideo Kojima can be read here.

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