Video game designer Hideo Kojima has created many iconic video games throughout his career but fans will never forget 2015’s Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain for being one of the best stealth games of all time and for being Kojima’s last Metal Gear game. After serving as Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain‘s director, producer, writer, and designer, he left Konami and split his company Kojima Productions from Konami, becoming an independent studio.
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain certainly had some minor issues but Kojima’s vision about the game makes it special. While working on the game, Kojima planned to make the game much bigger than just an entertainment medium.
Hideo Kojima wanted Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain to be more than just an entertainment medium
In 2014, Hideo Kojima appeared for an interview with Time to talk about Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. During the conversation, Kojima was asked to share his opinions on the game exploring political themes,
“My experience with movies has gone beyond that. It’s brought to me things I wasn’t interested in or aware of – I don’t think you see many games that have this same message, one that goes beyond just being an entertainment medium. I think that’s part of my role, part of my duty, to put in my games what I experience through movies, to explore this philosophy that movies gave me. I want to provide something similar to people through the games I create.”
What Kojima tried to create with Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is a video game that explores political themes to introduce players to things that they weren’t aware of, adding that not many games are designed in this manner.
Hideo Kojima wanted fans to question the game
As for the violence in the game, Kojima wanted the fans to focus on what was causing the violence in the game rather than the violence itself. He said,
“I’m not trying to portray violence. I’m trying to portray what is violence itself – I’m just trying to pose the question to the player through an interactive medium, ‘What is violence?’ – There are so many games where you fight aliens or zombies, and they have very high-fidelity graphics, but they don’t ask the question of why the events are happening. In Metal Gear, I’m trying to get at why all these violent things happened in the first place. My intention is to get the player to question why these things are happening.”
Kojima has made it clear that all the violent sequences in the game can only be triggered if the player opts for the violent approach. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain was released for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on September 1, 2015. Upon release, the game was well-received by the fans but there was some criticism regarding the repeated missions and the game’s ending.
Konami has decided to take the next step as the next game in the franchise, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, is currently under production. While this news is exciting, some fans think that the franchise won’t be the same anymore without Kojima.
