Hideo Kojima wants to work on smaller, episodic games

Kojima Productions reportedly has multiple projects planned for the future, but Hideo Kojima is interested in pursuing a smaller, episodic game series.

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It feels like every game with the Hideo Kojima brand on it has been a sprawling world or a grand cinematic experience. It will likely continue to be that way too. After all, Kojima has a serious love of cinema and it comes through in all of his games. However, that doesn’t bar him from wanting to try new things. According to a recent issue of Famitsu, Hideo Kojima wants to try his hand at smaller, episodic games.

Kojima expressed his desires in a January 23, 2020 issue of Famitsu Magazine, as reported by Dualshockers. Kojima and fellow Kojima Productions Lead Yoji Shinkawa spoke to Famitsu in a lengthy interview feature in which they shared a number of thoughts on what comes next for the studio. While the two shared that another big game like Death Stranding is in their future game plan, Kojima also shared that he’d like to work on something smaller scale. Apparently, he would like to explore the possibility of digital-only or episodic games.

“He’s unsure he’ll be able to manage that,” Dualshockers wrote. “But he hopes he’ll be able to develop and release smaller games while he keeps working on a bigger game project.”

There's no doubt that Kojima's grand projects like Death Stranding have done well, but we can't help but wonder what a smaller, more intimate Hideo Kojima episodic series would look like.
There's no doubt that Kojima's grand projects like Death Stranding have done well, but we can't help but wonder what a smaller, more intimate Hideo Kojima episodic series would look like.

There’s no doubt that it has to be stressful when most of a studio’s efforts goes into vast projects like Death Stranding. Kojima’s aspirations for his games always seem quite grand, and it tends to pay off. We here at Shacknews certainly enjoyed our time with Death Stranding in our review, and the legacy of the Metal Gear series speaks for itself. That said, we can’t help but wonder what a Hideo Kojima episodic game would look like. It’s been a long time since Kojima worked on a smaller scale project like Snatcher on the MSX, PC Engine, and Sega CD, but Kojima does have some experience in presenting a story that could play out in episodic fashion if he wanted to go that direction.

What do you think a Kojima episodic game would look like? Let us know in the Shacknews Chatty comment section below.

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.

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