A Kojima Special: To understand the Kojima hype, we need to look back at his Metal Gear Solid series

Kojima's Legacy

Death Stranding's launched a week ago, putting an end to the speculation, hype, and confusion that has fascinated onlookers since E3 2016. Well, to some extent, anyway.

The reviews paint what is business-as-usual for Hideo Kojima: Death Stranding is an impressive, extensive, and divisive game. Some found magic in its gameplay, cinematography, and themes, whereas some struggled through and others outright loathed it.

I started on Friday like everyone else, but I would like to provide some context behind the events that led us here. How did Death Stranding generate so much hype? And why does Kojima command so much attention, anyway?

To begin, we need to recognize what made him a legend in the eyes of many: 1998’s Metal Gear Solid for PlayStation. Released in a golden age, the “Tactical Espionage Action” game helped birth the stealth genre and incentivized pacificism and puzzle-solving over heroic feats of running-and-gunning. Its impact and influence are so well-recognized that, for better or worse, it’s become a blueprint of sorts for Kojima’s future games.

Cinematic cutscenes

What is a modern Hideo Kojima game without cutscenes? The man has a meme-able reputation for them, though his affinity for filmmaking precedes even MGS — look at Snatcher and Policenauts for how he frames his shots.

However, it was only through MGS and the shift to CD-ROMs and 3D graphics that he could take things further. Kojima filled his spy action-thriller with voice acting and elaborate cutscenes to heighten its immersive appeal. Other games had cutscenes too, but they didn’t adopt film’s language as enthusiastically as this one did. This was a hard-boiled military movie you could play.

While it had its share of explosive set-pieces and expository dumps, the game’s most effective moments were the narrative development of its characters. Kojima understood the need for drama and tragedy, even if his execution was not always elegant. Thanks to those early efforts, we now see more developers emulating movie techniques and processes to push game storytelling forward.

Tech showcases

Going back to the cutscenes, another factor in their favor was how complex they were for something rendered in-engine. Compare that to the simpler camera work of its late ‘90s peers, or to the FMVs (full motion videos) and pre-rendered offerings that sacrificed visual consistency.

Kojima’s obsession for detail reflects in MGS’ game world as well. Footsteps sounded different on metal grates, puddles, and snow, with the latter two leaving footprints for guards to follow. Cigarette smoke revealed infrared sensors. Glass partitions could shatter. Desks were individually designed. You could catch a cold. It was a peek at the new potential of games.

This studio practice carried over into the sequels and prequels. MGS2 played on light and shadow, had physics before middleware existed, and used some lovely water effects. MGS3 had a deep camouflage and survival system, and location-based damage so precise you could shoot handheld radios. By MGSV, they ended up building their own highly optimized engine for multi-platform development.

Gameplay innovations

It’s hard to deny that MGS housed plenty of innovative ideas on top of introducing stealth to the masses. Its two prime examples are Meryl Silverburgh’s CODEC frequency and the iconic Psycho Mantis boss fight.

We’re merely told that Meryl’s contact was “written on the back of the CD case” and then left to figure it out (they meant it literally). Mantis had us switching controller ports, or we’d never hit him. Both moments forced players to stop and consider the world outside of their TV to progress, breaking the fourth wall for something other than comedic effect.

Kojima’s fascination with reframing how we play games has persisted ever since, though he’s also made a point of reinventing core systems. For example, sneaking evolved from knocking on walls and navigating vision cones, to crawling in the brush and managing camouflage ratings. It then rounded back to a more refined sight-and-sound model. It made every sequel a fresh experience from the ground-up.

Metaphors and messages

Metal Gear Solid wasn’t afraid of making a statement. The obvious one is its anti-war and anti-nuclear stance, though it has a few things to say about genetic legacy and identity too. It espouses these in a bewildering, layered mix of CODEC conversations, in-game monologues over real-world footage, and the gameplay itself.

It’s where the fourth wall breaks become so effective, as the game’s message isn’t directed merely at Snake but at the player, too. We started the game, prompting a loud gunshot to reverberate as the title menu faded to black. We continued the mission, despite our hero’s clear reluctance whenever he spoke.

Players expected to be a super-agent defeating bad guys and saving the day, yet what they really got was running, hiding, betrayal, and a straight-up accusation that they “enjoy all the killing.” And MGS2 is considerably more resonant today for its prediction of how the internet can end up harmful.

So how does all this relate to the Death Stranding hype?

The success of Metal Gear Solid has been a double-edged sword for Hideo Kojima. While we won’t get into the achievements and failures of the subsequent games, what’s important to note is that we’ve seen him express a desire to move on right after MGS1’s release—MGS2 was supposed to be the final entry.

We saw glimpses of that creative genius in Zone of the Enders in 2001 and Boktai in 2003. Yet fan and business demand saw him returning to Metal Gear again and again. Nonetheless, he always delivered something mechanically new and eventually, in 2015, brought the timeline to an end.

With Death Stranding, Kojima is free of the universe he was stuck in for nearly 30 years. His exodus from long-time employer Konami also signified greater creative freedom, especially after the alleged controversies surrounding MGSV and a canned Silent Hills reboot. What then could one of gaming’s biggest auteurs (another controversial topic of its own) bring to the table?

The news of PlayStation’s involvement — seen as a benevolent patron lending vast first-party resources and support — and the game’s intriguing E3 2016 debut trailer was all the coal needed to set this hype train going.

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