Hideo Kojima has had a meteoric couple of years. The legendary Japanese game developer has always been well-respected for his innovative and artistic handling of the Metal Gear series, but he transcended to nerd icon status throughout his very public falling out with longtime Metal Gear publisher Konami. Kojima’s split with his once great ally captivated gaming news for months and, now that he has founded his own company in partnership with Sony, his persona is being solidified as something of a digital cowboy. Kojima is on the loose now, able to say and do just about anything he wants, and what he wants is to talk about virtual reality.
In an interview with Gamespot, the outspoken creator spoke freely on a variety of subjects including his personally most anticipated game of 2017 (Red Dead Redemption 2) and his opinion of virtual reality:
“2016 was year one for virtual reality,” he said. “Screen-viewing culture hadn’t changed for about 120 years, so I think the impact of VR will significantly change entertainment, our daily lives, education, culture, and so on. I don’t believe this to be only about games.”
Kojima has become more and more attached to the VR scene in recent months. He recently vented his frustration with current VR developers saying that, “VR can make users feel in ways that was previously not possible, this is huge, yet no one is doing this! They see VR as an extension of traditional games, but I think it is not.”
These are strong words from one of the gaming industry’s most respected personalities, but Kojima is willing to put his money where his mouth is as well. In August of this year, Kojima joined the board of Prologue Immersive in order to help create VR content.
Kojima’s current project is Death Stranding, a truly unique looking game, for lack of a better term, that I hope with all my heart never gets a VR release. The world, simply, is not ready.
