Hideo Kojima is one of the most recognizable names in gaming. For decades he was known for the legendary Metal Gear franchise, which he worked on from the late 80s until 2015 when a falling out with publisher Konami doomed the series and left him without a job. Shortly afterward the game designer formed his own studio and started work on Death Stranding, which released in 2019 to polarizing reception.
Event detractors could not deny its sheer originality and boldness, however. While these two brands overshadow most of Kojima’s other work, other titles he worked on should not be ignored. Some of the games below were also his brainchild, while others he only assisted with in some capacity.
10 Zone Of The Enders
Hideo Kojima served as producer on this science fiction mech combat game. Released on the PlayStation 2, the debut entry was notable for coming packed in with a demo for Metal Gear Solid 2, which gave gamers a taste of what would become one of the most impressive games on the console. The sequel, The 2nd Runner, was more ambitious in scope and featured a more cel shaded art style.
9 Snatcher
Cyberpunk themes are prevelent in the Metal Gear series, but Snatcher dives head first into the sub-genre as it details robots who kill and take the place of human beings. The plot deals with Cold War conspiracies, another theme the creator would dive deeper into later in his career. The gameplay is a point-and-click adventure mixed with a visual novel. The Metal Gear Mk II from Metal Gear Solid 4 originated here.
8 Policenauts
Like Snatcher, Policenauts is another graphic adventure game. This time, however, the story takes inspiration from spacefaring science fiction and buddy cop movies. Two characters even resemble Riggs and Murtaugh from Lethal Weapon. The title is an amalgam of the words “police” and “astronauts” because of the stories focus on crime in space. Meryl Silverburgh first showed up here before being repurposed for Metal Gear Solid.
7 Boktai: The Sun Is In Your Hands
Hideo Kojima is always known for including unconventional gameplay mechanics. Some of them catch on better than others, however. The action-RPG Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hands used the real world to influence gameplay. With a sensor on the Game Boy Advance cartridge, players charge their weapons by playing in sunlight. The game also mimics the real world’s day and night cycle, with the time of day influencing the types of enemies encountered.
6 Control
Remedy Games leapt onto the gaming scene with a hardboiled film-noir narrative in Max Payne, but afterward crafted more supernatural stories like Alan Wake and Control. Hideo Kojima visited the studio during the latter’s production and provided a voice cameo.
He plays the titular character in the side quest “Dr. Yoshimi Tokui’s Guided Imagery Experience,” speaking his native language while an interpreter translates into English.
5 Penguin Adventure
Looking at it today, there is nothing particularly notable about Penguin Adventure other than it being the first game Hideo Kojima worked on. However, it is still considered one of the best games to come out on the MSX home computer for its gameplay variety and impressive visuals. One certainly will not find political intrigue or cutscenes filled with philosophical rambling here; it is simply a cutesy tale of a penguin looking for a golden apple.
4 Beatmania
Guitar Hero was far from the first rhythm game on the market. In the late 90s, a whole slew of them came out, and Beatmania ruled the arcade scene. Like most popular arcade titles, home versions were inevitable. From the end of the decade and a few years into the new millennium, Kojima is credited as a producer on several home ports of Beatmania. His exact role is unknown, but it is entertaining to think the auteur designer had a hand in this series.
3 Lunar Knights
Lunar Knights is the third entry in the Boktai series but deserves special mention because of the changes enacted to the formula. Unlike the prior two, the sunlight sensor functionality is removed from this Nintendo DS game. However, players can still engage with this feature if they have either of the Game Boy Advance games and put into their DS. Without his name in the credits, one would not have suspected Hideo Kojima to have worked on this game.
2 Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow
Castlevania had been out of the limelight for years before 2010’s Castlevania: Lords of Shadows. While MercurySteam is the main developer, Kojima Productions and Kojima helped bring the title to life as well.
Particularly, he gave input on the main character and oversaw the Japanese localization. Because of this, the Japanese version features many actors from the Metal Gear series.
1 P.T.
P.T. remains one of the most important games of the decade for several reasons. Firstly, it has forever been delisted, existing only on the PS4s of those who downloaded the game before it was eliminated from the PSN store. Secondly, it was a shocking way to announce Silent Hills. While the game was sadly canceled, P.T.’s impact immediately cemented its place in pop culture. What makes the “game that never was” harder to bear was the collaboration between Kojima and famed director Guillermo del Toro.
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