Death Stranding – Hideo Kojima Had to Abandon Another Idea to Make the Game

You’d think that after having to work on the same franchise for two decades and having to make multiple sequels that he didn’t really want to make, Hideo Kojima would move on to an idea that had been percolating in his head for years as soon as he had the freedom to do so. And while one might assume that that’s what the upcoming Death Stranding is, it does’t seem like that’s the case after all.

Speaking in an interview with with Julien Chièze (translated over at Reddit), Kojima spoke about how, after his split with Konami, he and his newly formed independent studio started brainstorming ideas for what they’d work on next, and how Death Stranding was literally the last idea he had before they began working on it. In fact, Kojima says he had to abandon an idea for a different project so that he could work on Death Stranding- and that project is one he’s probably never going to go back to.

“In 2016 we were a handful of people in a tiny office, and in June of the same year we started game design, casting without even knowing the whole game,” said Kojima. “It’s like a marathon, where the middle is the hardest part. The start is easy, everyone is full of energy, then in the middle you cannot see the end, and it feels like there is no end, and it’s a terribly draining. But honestly, the closer we get to the end, the more we see that arrival, which gives us extra strength. I had many ideas and concepts, but to be honest Death Stranding was not the first idea, it was literally the last. There was another game that I had to abandon and I will probably never come back to it. So that is how Death Stranding was born.”

It’s remarkable too, because we also know that the entire game came together in a surprisingly short period of time, especially when you consider the fact that Kojima has historically always liked to take his time with development of his games. That said, one can easily see Kojima pulling in older ideas from his previous works into Death Stranding– the most obvious connection would be the cancelled Silent Hills.

Death Stranding is out on November 8 for the PS4. In this same interview, Kojima also spoke about the game’s multiplayer elements. Read more on that through here.