HIDEO KOJIMA
Hideo Kojima is a popular Japanese video game designer originally employed at Konami. Nowadays is the head of Kojima production. He left Konami in October 2015. Hideo Kojima is the creator and director of some succesful games, including Metal Gear Series, Snatcher and Policenauts.
Fans and industry experts named Hideo Kojima as one of the most influential and innovative video game directors and writers of all time.
One of his most iconic videogame series is Metal Gear, where Kojima often breaks the fourth wall. He is also well known for his long cinematics and his frequently disarming and powerful plot twists.
Videogames Development Career
Early Age
Hideo Kojima was born in Setagaya, Tokyo, but moved to Osaka where he spent most of his childhood. Kojima was exposed to films at a very early age. His family watch movies every night and he wasn’t allowed to sleep until the movie was finished.
Unfortunately, tragedy banged when he was 13 years old. Kojima's father had passed away, leaving his family with financial issues. Nobody takes care of Kojima during his school years. This feeling of solitude played an important part of his view on life.
At University, Kojima started writing short stories but all got rejected because there were too long. Eventually, he joined his friends to shoot films with an 8mm camera. Someday, Kojima revealed that he would be joining the video game industry. He persevered with his idea, despite concerns from his friends.
Snakes & Konami
Kojima joined Konami as a designer and planner in 1986 with lots of difficulties. With no prior knowledge of programming, he found himself being looked down on. The first game he worked on was a sequel to Penguin Adventure, Antarctic Adventure, that notably improve the action, added RPG elements and multiple endings. Finally, a senior associate assigned him a little game called Metal Gear.
Kojima wasn't happy because the technology limited the game's combat severely, so he put an emphasis on stealth - something not unheard of in entertainment, but never taken to greater lengths in game either. Metal Gear released in 1987 for the MSX2 in Japan and parts of Europe. His next game, the graphic adventure Snatcher, was critically acclaimed for its focus on storytelling, mature content, and cinematic cutscenes that would come to define one of Kojima's key styles.
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, the sequel of Metal Gear, was developed in 1990 by Kojima and his team. Here is where the stealth genre refined the formula and it made an essential mechanic in gaming forever.
In 1994, Kojima worked on a sci-fi-themed adventure game called Policenauts, though mostly fell under the radar until it received more attention with its PlayStation port in 1996.
Metal Gear Solid
Kojima gained celebrity status with the debut of Metal Gear Solid on PSX on 1998. The game, which is now universally viewed as one of the greatest of all time, transformed videogame storytelling by focusing on cutscenes, revolutionary gameplay mechanics, and 3D graphics that pushed the console's potential.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was critically acclaimed after being released on the PlayStation 2 in 2001. It was the first of its kind to use a bait and switch protagonist. Solid Snake was abruptly "disposed of" in the first mission, leaving players to assume the role of Raiden.
Kojima refined stealth and espionage even further with Snake Eater, published in 2004. Unlike its predecessors, Snake Eater put players in a Soviet jungle during the Cold War, emphasizing on survival mechanics and more in-depth storytelling. It went on to become one of the best video games of all time playing out like a well-crafted James Bond film rather than a standard gaming experience.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots was co-directed by Kojima and Shuyo Murata in 2008. Though Kojima's team were initially unwilling to work on a fourth game, they got several death threats, pushing Kojima to join the projects as a co-director.
Kojima vs Konami
PT, a weird game demo, appeared on the PlayStation Store in 2014. After completing the horrific experience, fans were thrilled to discover that it was actually a teaser for Silent Hills, a collaborative effort between Kojima, filmmaker Guillermo del Toro and renowned Japanese horror artist Junji Ito. At the same time, Kojima was hard working at what he confirmed that would be his final work on Metal Gear Solid series, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, a prequel.
Tensions between Kojima and Konami began to rise in 2015. Konami feared Kojima was exceeding expectations with The Phantom Pain, leading to a lot more resources being invested into the project than usual. Kojima left Konami in October 2015. As a result, The Phantom Pain's last act remained unfinished, and all work on Silent Hills was cancelled. Kojima was infamously not allowed to attend The Game Awards in 2015 as Konami's lawyers forbid him from accepting the The Phantom Pain's Best Action Game award.
The Comeback
Kojima Productions was re-established as an independent studio in December 2015 result of a partnership with Sony. At E3 2016, Kojima announced officially Death Stranding, a new project featuring Guillermo del Toro and actor Norman Reedus.
Hideo Kojima has become one of the most well-known and influential figures in the game industry, despite turning controversial at times. However, there's no doubting that his games have had a massive impact on the video games as a whole. The cinematic quality of his games has been compared on multiple occasions to that of genuine films, with excellent voice acting and motion capture contributing to sell the illusion. Apart from the cinematic achievements, he also pioneered the stealth genre as we know it today by bringing fresh, ground-breaking ideas and mechanics to gaming.
