Famed video game designer Hideo Kojima sat down with Mark Cerny to discuss 30 years of evolution in the industry and the staggering ambition behind the Metal Gear creator’s latest project, Death Stranding.
There isn’t another entertainment medium on the planet that has undergone such rapid transformation as that of the video game industry. Thanks to huge advancements in technology over the last three decades, gaming has undergone something of an evolution. In almost every area of design and execution, developers are free to create – bound only by their imaginations.
At Develop 2016, we were able to see two legends of the industry engaged in conversation. The first was the PlayStation 4’s lead architect Mark Cerny, responsible for driving technological innovation forward during his time in the industry. The other, Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima, a developer who has been key in evolving game mechanics and narrative design in the medium since the dawn of 8-bit gaming. The two have been colleagues and friends through much of their three decades in the industry, though 2016 marks the first time the pair has directly collaborated on a project – Death Stranding.
“I had many offers,” considered Kojima at Develop Conference 2016. “I was fortunate in that many people made me offers to work with them. But I decided to work with Sony because of the trust that I have in our relationship, as well as the trust that they put in me. So I thought, I’m confident that working with Sony is the best chance of making a very successful, as good of a game as people expect, in the shortest amount of time. I’m confident that working with Sony is something the fans and players will agree to.”
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone to hear Kojima speak so lovingly about his relationship with Sony. The PlayStation essentially enabled the developer to build the games that he had always imagined, starting with Metal Gear Solid back in 1998.
When it came to Death Stranding, his upcoming PlayStation 4 exclusive, it seemed like a natural fit – especially as working with Cerny, who acted as technical producer on the title’s reveal trailer, would prove himself to be the magic ingredient.
“I’ve known Mark for a long time and we have been talking about doing something together while eating and having conversations,” Kojima chuckled. “Now that we are working with Sony and PlayStation, Mark is the one that is making the PlayStation hardware… so having Mark will just boost [the game]. It will be the one element, the chemical reaction, that will make our capabilities much bigger.”
To get a sense of where Kojima is heading on his first adventure outside of Konami, you need to look to the past. Because, unless you’re a retro gaming aficionado, it’s difficult to really appreciate how hard developers had it back in the day. As Kojima will tell you, even the simple act of telling a story was limited to on-screen text and the occasional “beep” for voice acting – a world away from the huge motion-capture and recording studios now required (and in Kojima’s case, desired) to create a triple-A gaming experience.
“[Compared to 30 years ago], it has completely changed. The characters, you could only express them through thoughts – their voices were only beeps. They were very different to what they are nowadays. We had so many limitations, it was hard to tell a story [in games]. It was sort of like chess or playing cards, where you set some rules and from there you try to simulate something. 30 years later, there is so much that we can do with the characters. We can add music and movies, the world can be three-dimensional and we can even add cultural and ethnic background to the story.”
Cerny, who was leading the discussion, pitched an interesting thought. After the pair discussed how the power of PlayStation had opened up the ability to use 3D polygons in real-time, which led to the creation of Metal Gear Solid, he asked Kojima whether the constant, rapid advance in technology affected the way he approaches game design today? As Cerny put it, “I believe we put more processing power into computing one pixel today than we would an entire frame back in the day. Has the gameplay that you are able to create evolved as well?” That’s almost an impossible consideration. Of course it would alter the way a developer approaches game creation, right?
“There are certainly aspects like that, where technology has changed what I wanted to do. But when I think about a game in my head, it has so many elements. [I can] smell things, things have their own temperature, it’s quite a vast reality that I’m imagining,” says Kojima, who gives us a window into the wild ambition that drives his projects. “From there I start to figure out what I can put into a game with the current technology, what will I be able to do with the technology that’s available in a few years? That, for me, is game creation. It’s getting closer to me being able to make what I imagine. So even if things keep advancing, it’s only getting closer to what I can imagine. That’s why I could never stop making games.”
There had been some speculation, following the completion of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, that Kojima would leave gaming and build a career in cinema. He has never kept his love and admiration of film a secret, nor his desire as a young creator to get involved in that particular industry. But for Kojima, gaming has evolved to the point where he can realise all of his ambitions. He has no desire to leave because the future is so rich with possibilities. “Now we can tell the same kinds of stories that you can in movies. 30 years ago it was very different, but still I’m very happy that I chose this road – everything I wanted to do in movies I can now do in games. I’m very satisfied with this choice.”
And it’s true, you only have to look towards the quality of product coming from studios like Naughty Dog – with the cinematic expertise delivered in titles such as The Last Of Us and Uncharted 4 – to see that gaming can now deliver narratives and action with the same quality as a Hollywood production. Though Kojima believes that we are only just scratching the surface, that gaming will soon be able to deliver experiences that trump that of direct interaction between humans.
“Direct contact, between one real human being to another, it’s kind of hard to convey some of those emotions [in a game],” he says, noting that the ability to deliver better facial animations through motion capture and ambition that drives his projects. “From there I start to figure out what I can put into a game with the current technology, what will I be able to do with the technology that’s available in a few years? That, for me, is game creation. It’s getting closer to me being able to make what I imagine. So even if things keep advancing, it’s only getting closer to what I can imagine. That’s why I could never stop making games.” There had been some speculation, following the completion of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, that Kojima would leave gaming and build a career in cinema. He has never kept his love and admiration of film a secret, nor his desire as a young creator to get involved in that particular industry. But for Kojima, gaming has evolved to the point where he can realise all of his ambitions. He has no desire to leave because the future is DATA STREAM THE SYSTEM SHOCK REBOOT HAS BEEN CONFIRMED FOR PS4, ARRIVING EARLY 2018 10 Discuss animation has brought a human element to games that wasn’t previously possible. “I think it will come to a point where it will be easier to reach out emotionally through games, through online, than it will be through actual interaction between human beings. We are really getting close to that point where it will be easier to convey emotions through games than actual people.”
In many respects, that’s a terrifying thought. The notion that video games may foster stronger connections between people than actual conversation. But we see where he is coming from, the interactive element of a video game – combined with the uncanny photorealism technology now possible – could indeed mean that we find it easier to connect with one another through a safe (and entertaining) virtual space in the future. The first step on the road to such a realisation, Kojima believes, is almost certainly the release of commercial virtual-reality headsets.
“I think VR has the opportunity to change, not only games, but life; entertainment, education and even restaurants. More than 100 years ago movies appeared in landscape [format] and now we’re watching them on smartphones, and yet they are still tied to this square frame. With VR we are able to get rid of that little frame and we are able to look in 360 degrees, it will make a huge difference and allow many things to change. Once these VR devices make their way into people’s homes they will stay there. People will keep thinking of new ideas using this technology and it will change so many aspects of life. Of all of these changes I expect to happen, I want to focus on the changes it can make to entertainment.” Hideo Kojima has always been a force for change. He has embraced the advancement of technology and the opportunities at hand to create new and long-lasting experiences. He’s a futurist, somebody with a hunger to constantly set the benchmark for success higher and higher. Now he is free of Konami, expect Kojima to work without restriction. Death Stranding may be shrouded in mystery, but it’s fuelled by a desire to innovate and experiment with the technology at hand. Kojima has never strived to deliver less, why would he start now?
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