Today, the inimitable Hideo Kojima turns 55. Best known for his work on the Metal Gear franchise, Kojima is now working in collaboration with SCE on his much-anticipated upcoming project, Death Stranding. To celebrate the birthday of one of the pioneers of contemporary game design, let’s examine exactly how Kojima has continuously pushed the boundaries of video game storytelling in order to positively influence the ways in which games are directed.
Born in 1963, Kojima was the youngest of three children. His family watched movies every single day, which he commented on in a 2014 interview with The Guardian, stating that he “wasn’t allowed to go to bed till the film had finished.” Now, on top of directing video games, Kojima regularly writes about film for Rolling Stone; however, that’s not what we’re going to talk about here. It is the influence that film, and other kinds of creative media, have had on Kojima in relation to how he has approached games development that has made him an iconic auteur in the games industry. Hideo Kojima has been working in the games industry for over thirty years now, and he has not ceased to invent and innovate yet. Widely accredited as the father of the stealth genre, Kojima’s first Metal Gear game didn’t only help to create a genre?it helped to create an entire new range of mechanics. Almost every single action game released nowadays features stealth as a means of avoiding unwanted comb...