Hideo Kojima Reveals Game Ideas Where Characters Age, Forget Moves, or Grow Beards in Real Time

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Summary

  • Hideo Kojima has shared some unused game ideas that involve using the passage of time to influence gameplay events.
  • Ideas Kojima didn’t use include characters aging in real time or forgetting gameplay mechanics if players take extended breaks.
  • Kojima’s game concepts often reflect on the human condition and play with themes like war and connection.

Hideo Kojima, renowned for crafting series such as Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding 2, has been discussing some fascinating game concepts centered around time recently. With a career spanning nearly four decades, Kojima has earned a reputation for creating compelling characters, narratives, and mechanics that occasionally challenge the boundary between video games and our world. His upcoming title, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, is scheduled to launch on June 24.

As the excitement mounts for the release of Death Stranding 2, creator Hideo Kojima has been sharing intriguing behind-the-scenes details about his iconic gaming projects through his podcast. In his latest episode, he highlighted that some of his most captivating gameplay concepts have revolved around manipulating the game’s internal clock to affect game events, such as in Metal Gear Solid 3, where the adversary sniper The End could succumb to old age and die during a battle with Snake if the player advanced the clock by a week.

During his latest KOJI10 radio podcast (as reported by IGN), Hideo Kojima disclosed some time-related concepts he decided not to incorporate in the recent episode. One such concept involved Sam Porter Bridges’ beard growing naturally in Death Stranding 2, necessitating occasional shaving from the player. However, this feature was abandoned due to concerns over Norman Reedus losing his cool look with an unkempt beard. Yet, Kojima left open the possibility of revisiting this idea in a future project.

Hideo Kojima Shares Time-Based Game Ideas

Kojima unveiled additional intriguing time-based gaming ideas as well. Firstly, there’s a concept for a game where your character grows older in real life, gradually losing strength over time. Secondly, it includes crafting items like wine or cheese that require patience to fully ripen. Lastly, he proposed a “forgetting game,” where if the player takes too long, their character might forget important details and skills, eventually becoming immobile altogether.

Just as players of a game like The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered may find themselves struggling to remember the controls after a long break, so too can Hideo Kojima’s games, which often explore deep themes about the human condition such as war in Metal Gear Solid and connection in Death Stranding, mirror real-life experiences like forgetting skills over time or losing track of how to do things as the years pass. Time, a concept that all humans are familiar with, can sometimes reflect this same phenomenon in Kojima’s gaming concepts.

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2025-05-14 20:50