![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/s3.amazonaws.com\/prod-media.gameinformer.com\/styles\/body_default\/s3\/2019\/09\/15\/4eb9b0e4\/kojimaself.jpg?resize=640%2C426&ssl=1\")
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The last week has been a busy one for Hideo Kojima.\u00a0Even with Death Stranding in the final stretch approaching\u00a0release, the legendary creator took the stage at Tokyo Game Show for two<\/a> separate<\/a> live presentations showing off his unique and difficult-to-explain project. While we learned<\/a> a lot from watching those demonstrations, they also raised\u00a0many questions about how Death Stranding works and what it tries to convey. What is the goal behind the asynchronous multiplayer? What do “likes” do? How has the game changed since its inception?\u00a0To get the answers to these questions and more, we visited the\u00a0Kojima Productions studio in Tokyo for an interview with\u00a0Hideo Kojima himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n Of all the new features that you revealed at the first TGS live show, what was the one you were most excited to finally talk about?<\/b><\/p>\n Playing the game is a lonely feeling, because you play alone usually, even though you\u2019re online. A lot of people play on the couch, and perhaps they feel like, \u201cOh, I\u2019m lonely, and I\u2019m maybe strange, playing all alone.\u201d And you\u2019re doing it over and over. You\u2019re traveling with BB, and maybe you feel lonely. Norman [Reedus] actually got this point as well \u2013 you\u2019re struggling all alone. But at a certain point, you realize, \u201cThere is someone really similar to me who felt this loneliness,\u201d because\u00a0you see it when you\u2019re indirectly connecting. Like in a movie theater \u2013\u00a0there are maybe 200 or 300 people watching a movie together.<\/p>\n But today\u2019s games, you\u2019re playing by yourself in your room alone usually. Then suddenly, you open to a world like \u201cOh, I\u2019m not the only one.\u201d And I\u2019m really happy a lot of people understood that, and I think that was the most successful part. Of course, you can\u2019t see other people\u2019s faces, but you can see the tracks and traces, so you can feel or think about the other people.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Click here to watch embedded media<\/a><\/p>\n And players get some additional feedback from \u201clikes\u201d they receive. But what can they actually do with those likes?<\/b><\/p>\n I had a big argument with the staff, actually. In a game, you get more money, or you get more fame, or you get more kudos, right? That\u2019s what game systems now days are about \u2013 you want something in return if you do something. At the beginning, the Asian staff said, \u201cHey, Hideo, no one will ever understand this. Maybe the Japanese might.\u201d I said, \u201cThat\u2019s why I want people to do it in the game.\u201d So all these staff members said to me, \u201cWe have to give them kudos or points or whatever,\u201d but that would be like a normal game \u2013\u00a0any other game. So I said, \u201cGiving \u2018likes\u2019 is giving unconditional love.\u201d<\/p>\n But, of course you can see how many likes you get, so that\u2019s maybe a little reward. If you just use [something another player placed], one like will be sent automatically. But also you can send more, like a tip. I don\u2019t want to say I\u2019m brilliant for thinking of this idea, because it\u2019s really a mix of the Japanese way; we don\u2019t have tips, but you know you get really good service in Japan. Whereas in America, there\u2019s a tip system where waiters try their best because they want to be tipped. So it\u2019s a cross lateral in the game.<\/p>\n What I really wanted to do \u2013\u00a0I didn\u2019t want to give \u201cthumbs down.\u201d I didn\u2019t want to give any negative in this game; it was a positive intent where I started this idea. In current SMS and internet, there\u2019s likes and thumbs down. To me, [thumbs down] is like the stick \u2013\u00a0it\u2019s an attack. But that\u2019s why it\u2019s a positive intent in the game; if [your objects] have few likes, they might disappear, and the ones with lots of thumbs up will remain, but it isn\u2019t negative.<\/p>\n So the idea isn\u2019t to give players an incentive to \u201clike,\u201d so much as unite everyone to make the world of Death Stranding as supportive as it can be?<\/b><\/p>\n Yes, because the world setting is the dark and lowest world you can think of. Your solitude, you\u2019re alone \u2013 the storyline itself is a worst-case scenario. So why don\u2019t I put in a system where it\u2019s really more positive than negative?<\/p>\n We\u2019ve seen many cryptic trailers for Death Stranding over the years. In the final game, where does it fall on the spectrum between ambiguous storytelling \u2013 something like Twin Peaks\u00ad<\/i> \u2013 and more straightforward delivery?<\/b><\/p>\n I haven\u2019t lied at all \u2013 I just create the story as-is. In the trailers, maybe I just put out the scenes in between. But if you play from the start to the end, you will understand because it\u2019s all connected. All the side plots are kind of recovered, all the small stories and things like that. But I am a great fan of David Lynch as well, so, yeah.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Click here to watch embedded media<\/a><\/p>\n Sam has a lot to manage \u2013 his health, his equipment, etc. A lot of people turn to games to escape these kinds of responsibilities. How do you approach taking mundane maintenance tasks and putting them into a game so they don\u2019t feel like work?<\/b><\/p>\n Previously, in design, you had to create the rule because you couldn\u2019t do the realism, right? In our everyday lives, there are so many mechanisms we have to work through, as you say, and we have to take the balance of what we do, how we maintain ourselves, and how we live. So I wanted to free the game design concept that we had to live by because we didn\u2019t have the technology to do so in the past. We always created a rule, like the life bar is like this, and one hit takes away this much health. I wanted to add the real essence in Death Stranding.<\/p>\n For instance, in any game, you could carry as many items as you want \u2013 even in Metal Gear, it was unlimited. Of course, you can\u2019t do it in real life, right? You have to select one bottle when you climb a mountain. That\u2019s why I put it in; a lot of games have aborted that kind of rule. This time, if you\u2019re in the river, you can drift away \u2013 and that\u2019s in real life as well. So that\u2019s the gimmick and mechanism I kind of recreated, where other games \u2013 and even my games before \u2013 had to deform in a way.<\/p>\n But the other thing about it is that you can go anywhere in the world. It\u2019s open-world. In the past, even if games are \u201copen-world,\u201d there are limitations where you can\u2019t go further. Like, they created valleys where you can\u2019t go. But in this game, you can go anywhere. You set routes, and you want to know what goes on beyond. In this game, I think you will not understand if I just say this, but once you start playing the game, just walking in that world is really fun. What I realized is, when I monitor playtests \u2013 even the staff’s\u00a0\u2013\u00a0they don\u2019t get it at first. But when they really start playing, just walking is really fun in the space.<\/p>\n And now everyone will say, \u201cOh, it\u2019s a walking simulator!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s the same as when I first brought out a stealth game. If 100 people play it and 100 people say it\u2019s fun, it means the genre or the game already exists. But this is a new genre \u2013 same as stealth the first time, there will be people who don\u2019t get it. It will take time for the real evaluations to come in.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s say a player has finished the game and is watching the end credits. In your best-case scenario, what do you want the player to be thinking about at that point?<\/b><\/p>\n Well, I should really not say and leave it to the users. But the theme of the game is connection; you will understand the meaning of it. Like in dramas, or games, or online \u2013\u00a0everything comes together, and you see the end credits. But I just want people to finish the game.<\/p>\n Not a good example, but if you climb Mt. Fuji to see the rising of the sun \u2013 in Japan a lot of people do that \u2013 it\u2019s really tough to climb to the top. On the way, some people might abort. But once you\u2019re on the top, and you can see the mountain, people just cry. Same with our game; people who don\u2019t make it to the end won\u2019t be really moved. Of course, I left that up to the players.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Click here to watch embedded media<\/a><\/p>\n How does the\u00a0concept of the chiral network differ\u00a0from our modern-day communication?<\/b><\/p>\n It\u2019s a \u201cletter theory.\u201d It wasn\u2019t real-time before, in the past. For instance, a husband writes a letter from the battlefield a long time ago: \u201cI don\u2019t know when I\u2019m going to die.\u201d And he sends it, and it takes a couple months before it arrives, and the wife receives it and reads it. There\u2019s a time when she thinks, \u201cHe might be dead.\u201d The wife has to imagine what he was thinking at the time he was writing \u2013 and this was the communication then. Right now, it\u2019s more real-time.<\/p>\n This is about caring for people. It\u2019s not direct; I wanted to do that with the internet we have today. If someone puts a cup there in Death Stranding, you might think to yourself, \u201cDid that person deliberately\u00a0put it there? Did he just have to throw away the load? But you think about it. It\u2019s like the letter theory. In this direct communication era, I wanted to create an indirect communication using the technology of today so you feel for others more. Like you used to, back then \u2013 the 20th Century, 19th Century style \u2013 when people had to think about others in communication. But nowadays people forget about it because we\u2019re so direct. I can Face Time you any time. So, right now, if I see your cup, I can phone you and say, \u2018Hey, what\u2019s this cup for?\u201d But in Death Stranding, you can\u2019t. You have to think about it.<\/p>\n Now, when you place a cup after that experience, you have to think about, \u201cWhat would people think if I put it here?\u201d So I believe that this way, people\u2019s feeling towards each other will deepen in Death Stranding because of how it\u2019s connected.<\/p>\n And within the context of the world, when you go to a prepper, for example, and plug them into the chiral network, are you just plugging them in to a better internet connection?<\/b><\/p>\n There\u2019s actually three steps to that chiral network. For Bridges\u2019 sake, you\u2019re connecting from east to west and they want you to join the UCA \u2013 the United Cities of America. When you connect, you can use UCA services, but at the same time, they\u2019re retrieving your information 24 hours a day. It\u2019s like 1984<\/i>. Some people may not like that, and say \u201cI\u2019m not going to connect to UCA, because we\u2019re going to repeat the same thing that we did.\u201d Like Trump, or the EU, these things. It\u2019s a metaphor. However, if you get really close, they start to say, \u201cOkay, I\u2019ll connect.\u201d<\/p>\n A lot of preppers just sign a contract to be connected to Bridges. The network is there, but there\u2019s no communication or other actions \u2013 that\u2019s why they can\u2019t use the chiral printers and things like that. If they say they will join the UCA, then you can use the chiral network, the chiral printers, things like that. In the game, the mission is to really reconnect America again \u2013 but I haven\u2019t said whether that is correct or not.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Click here to watch embedded media<\/a><\/p>\n In the \u201cBriefing\u201d trailer, a lot of the language about people being divided sounds familiar to what we hear in America today. Is that intentional?<\/b><\/p>\n It\u2019s about America, but I made that map deliberately not correctly America. Maybe it looks like Japan from that angle. I want people to not think \u201cAmerica,\u201d but \u201cwhere you are.\u201d Because it depends on who is seeing it. And of course, it\u2019s in the future, and everyone\u2019s connected by internet, but everyone is fragmented. That\u2019s kind of a metaphor as well. So Sam is not hip-hip-hooray for connecting America; his motivation is to save Amelie, and a whole fleet of sensitive people will share the same attitude. They have to, because they are on a mission. They always don\u2019t want to. Sam actually moans a lot on this journey, saying \u201cWhy am I doing this?\u201d And it\u2019s actually the same position the players can be in. \u201cWhy am I doing this? It\u2019s so rough, so lonely, and so solitary!\u201d When you play, and connect, there\u2019s drama, there\u2019s preppers, there\u2019s storyline; you start to feel like connection might really feel good. But I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s positive or negative to connect. It\u2019s really up to the players to see how they feel while playing the game.<\/p>\n The game is so close to being complete. Now that you can see the near-final\u00a0product, what\u00a0is the biggest difference you notice from how you first envisioned Death Stranding?<\/b><\/p>\n The concept hasn\u2019t changed at all from the start. On the vision side, yes, I imagined I could do more \u2013 like, PlayStation 6 for the visuals. But it\u2019s not all about graphics. A lot of people were against my first concept, and I\u2019m really happy that the staff made it together with me. All the staff really liked playing the game and I really feel happy. And I just feel it\u2019s the user\u2019s turn now.<\/p>\n A new concept is really difficult to explain at the start. The stealth game, no one really got it when I first presented it. Your first enemies are always your staff, or the people working with you. \u201cYou carry things, you connect, and you only give thumbs-up \u2013 what\u2019s fun about that?\u201d was the first reaction. If I had listened, it would just be a normal game. But a lot of staff, they believed me. They said, \u201cOkay, we\u2019ll try it out.\u201d A lot of staff members, whether quickly or late, they start to get it. I can\u2019t really blame the staff, because I can\u2019t show inside of my brain. No one understood at all when I first explained. \u201cAre you insane?\u201d But they participated. Norman, Mads [Mikkelsen], same. When I asked them to join, and I explained to them, they had no idea what I was going to do.<\/p>\n Have you explained Death Stranding to anyone and had it click immediately, instead of taking a while to understand?<\/b><\/p>\n Yes, there were some people. Especially creators were quite quick to click. Like [director] George Miller, who is kind of my mentor \u2013 my god. In 2017, I went to Australia. I only had a trailer, and I also explained verbally to him. George Miller said, \u201cIn all aspects, you are correct. Mathematically, psychologically, physically, philosophically.\u201d He kind of started to draw a diagram, he has this theory, so he said, \u201cWhat you\u2019re trying to do is correct.\u201d I should have recorded that! I should have sent it to the staff! That was really a happy moment.<\/p>\n Maybe not people in the game industry, but musicians, directors, and creators. So, that\u2019s why I tend to kind of overlap with musicians and film directors more than the game industry people \u2013 because they kind of tend to synthesize with me in that way and click faster.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Death Stranding releases on November 8 for PS4.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The last week has been a busy one for Hideo Kojima. Even with Death Stranding in the final stretch approaching release, the legendary creator took the stage at Tokyo Game Show for two<\/a> separate<\/a> live presentations showing off his unique and difficult-to-explain project. While we learned<\/a> a lot from watching those demonstrations, they also raised many questions about how Death Stranding works and what it tries to convey. What is the goal behind the asynchronous multiplayer? What do “likes” do? How has the game changed since its inception? To get the answers to these questions and more, we visited the Kojima Productions studio in Tokyo for an interview with Hideo Kojima himself. <\/p>\n Of all the new features that you revealed at the first TGS live show, what was the one you were most excited to finally talk about?<\/b><\/p>\n Playing the game is a lonely feeling, because you play alone usually, even though you’re online. A lot of people play on the couch, and perhaps they feel like, “Oh, I’m lonely, and I’m maybe strange, playing all alone.” And you’re doing it over and over. You’re traveling with BB, and maybe you feel lonely. Norman [Reedus] actually got this point as well – you’re struggling all alone. But at a certain point, you realize, “There is someone really similar to me who felt this loneliness,” because you see it when you’re indirectly connecting. Like in a movie theater – there are maybe 200 or 300 people watching a movie together.<\/p>\n But today’s games, you’re playing by yourself in your room alone usually. Then suddenly, you open to a world like “Oh, I’m not the only one.” And I’m really happy a lot of people understood that, and I think that was the most successful part. Of course, you can’t see other people’s faces, but you can see the tracks and traces, so you can feel or think about the other people.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Click here to watch embedded media<\/a><\/p>\n And players get some additional feedback from “likes” they receive. But what can they actually do with those likes?<\/b><\/p>\n I had a big argument with the staff, actually. In a game, you get more money, or you get more fame, or you get more kudos, right? That’s what game systems now days are about – you want something in return if you do something. At the beginning, the Asian staff said, “Hey, Hideo, no one will ever understand this. Maybe the Japanese might.” I said, “That’s why I want people to do it in the game.” So all these staff members said to me, “We have to give them kudos or points or whatever,” but that would be like a normal game – any other game. So I said, “Giving ‘likes’ is giving unconditional love.”<\/p>\n But, of course you can see how many likes you get, so that’s maybe a little reward. If you just use [something another player placed], one like will be sent automatically. But also you can send more, like a tip. I don’t want to say I’m brilliant for thinking of this idea, because it’s really a mix of the Japanese way; we don’t have tips, but you know you get really good service in Japan. Whereas in America, there’s a tip system where waiters try their best because they want to be tipped. So it’s a cross lateral in the game.<\/p>\n What I really wanted to do – I didn’t want to give “thumbs down.” I didn’t want to give any negative in this game; it was a positive intent where I started this idea. In current SMS and internet, there’s likes and thumbs down. To me, [thumbs down] is like the stick – it’s an attack. But that’s why it’s a positive intent in the game; if [your objects] have few likes, they might disappear, and the ones with lots of thumbs up will remain, but it isn’t negative.<\/p>\n So the idea isn’t to give players an incentive to “like,” so much as unite everyone to make the world of Death Stranding as supportive as it can be?<\/b><\/p>\n Yes, because the world setting is the dark and lowest world you can think of. Your solitude, you’re alone – the storyline itself is a worst-case scenario. So why don’t I put in a system where it’s really more positive than negative?<\/p>\n We’ve seen many cryptic trailers for Death Stranding over the years. In the final game, where does it fall on the spectrum between ambiguous storytelling – something like Twin Peaks<\/i> – and more straightforward delivery?<\/b><\/p>\n I haven’t lied at all – I just create the story as-is. In the trailers, maybe I just put out the scenes in between. But if you play from the start to the end, you will understand because it’s all connected. All the side plots are kind of recovered, all the small stories and things like that. But I am a great fan of David Lynch as well, so, yeah.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Click here to watch embedded media<\/a><\/p>\n Sam has a lot to manage – his health, his equipment, etc. A lot of people turn to games to escape these kinds of responsibilities. How do you approach taking mundane maintenance tasks and putting them into a game so they don’t feel like work?<\/b><\/p>\n Previously, in design, you had to create the rule because you couldn’t do the realism, right? In our everyday lives, there are so many mechanisms we have to work through, as you say, and we have to take the balance of what we do, how we maintain ourselves, and how we live. So I wanted to free the game design concept that we had to live by because we didn’t have the technology to do so in the past. We always created a rule, like the life bar is like this, and one hit takes away this much health. I wanted to add the real essence in Death Stranding.<\/p>\n For instance, in any game, you could carry as many items as you want – even in Metal Gear, it was unlimited. Of course, you can’t do it in real life, right? You have to select one bottle when you climb a mountain. That’s why I put it in; a lot of games have aborted that kind of rule. This time, if you’re in the river, you can drift away – and that’s in real life as well. So that’s the gimmick and mechanism I kind of recreated, where other games – and even my games before – had to deform in a way.<\/p>\n But the other thing about it is that you can go anywhere in the world. It’s open-world. In the past, even if games are “open-world,” there are limitations where you can’t go further. Like, they created valleys where you can’t go. But in this game, you can go anywhere. You set routes, and you want to know what goes on beyond. In this game, I think you will not understand if I just say this, but once you start playing the game, just walking in that world is really fun. What I realized is, when I monitor playtests – even the staff’s – they don’t get it at first. But when they really start playing, just walking is really fun in the space.<\/p>\n And now everyone will say, “Oh, it’s a walking simulator!” <\/p>\n It’s the same as when I first brought out a stealth game. If 100 people play it and 100 people say it’s fun, it means the genre or the game already exists. But this is a new genre – same as stealth the first time, there will be people who don’t get it. It will take time for the real evaluations to come in.<\/p>\n Let’s say a player has finished the game and is watching the end credits. In your best-case scenario, what do you want the player to be thinking about at that point?<\/b><\/p>\n Well, I should really not say and leave it to the users. But the theme of the game is connection; you will understand the meaning of it. Like in dramas, or games, or online – everything comes together, and you see the end credits. But I just want people to finish the game.<\/p>\n Not a good example, but if you climb Mt. Fuji to see the rising of the sun – in Japan a lot of people do that – it’s really tough to climb to the top. On the way, some people might abort. But once you’re on the top, and you can see the mountain, people just cry. Same with our game; people who don’t make it to the end won’t be really moved. Of course, I left that up to the players.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Click here to watch embedded media<\/a><\/p>\n How does the concept of the chiral network differ from our modern-day communication?<\/b><\/p>\n It’s a “letter theory.” It wasn’t real-time before, in the past. For instance, a husband writes a letter from the battlefield a long time ago: “I don’t know when I’m going to die.” And he sends it, and it takes a couple months before it arrives, and the wife receives it and reads it. There’s a time when she thinks, “He might be dead.” The wife has to imagine what he was thinking at the time he was writing – and this was the communication then. Right now, it’s more real-time.<\/p>\n This is about caring for people. It’s not direct; I wanted to do that with the internet we have today. If someone puts a cup there in Death Stranding, you might think to yourself, “Did that person deliberately put it there? Did he just have to throw away the load? But you think about it. It’s like the letter theory. In this direct communication era, I wanted to create an indirect communication using the technology of today so you feel for others more. Like you used to, back then – the 20th Century, 19th Century style – when people had to think about others in communication. But nowadays people forget about it because we’re so direct. I can Face Time you any time. So, right now, if I see your cup, I can phone you and say, ‘Hey, what’s this cup for?” But in Death Stranding, you can’t. You have to think about it.<\/p>\n Now, when you place a cup after that experience, you have to think about, “What would people think if I put it here?” So I believe that this way, people’s feeling towards each other will deepen in Death Stranding because of how it’s connected.<\/p>\n And within the context of the world, when you go to a prepper, for example, and plug them into the chiral network, are you just plugging them in to a better internet connection?<\/b><\/p>\n There’s actually three steps to that chiral network. For Bridges’ sake, you’re connecting from east to west and they want you to join the UCA – the United Cities of America. When you connect, you can use UCA services, but at the same time, they’re retrieving your information 24 hours a day. It’s like 1984<\/i>. Some people may not like that, and say “I’m not going to connect to UCA, because we’re going to repeat the same thing that we did.” Like Trump, or the EU, these things. It’s a metaphor. However, if you get really close, they start to say, “Okay, I’ll connect.”<\/p>\n A lot of preppers just sign a contract to be connected to Bridges. The network is there, but there’s no communication or other actions – that’s why they can’t use the chiral printers and things like that. If they say they will join the UCA, then you can use the chiral network, the chiral printers, things like that. In the game, the mission is to really reconnect America again – but I haven’t said whether that is correct or not.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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