Hideo Kojima has talked a bit about episodic gaming in the past and while you don’t necessarily need to press the panic button when it comes to his next game Death Stranding, he is upbeat for what the future holds.
Speaking to GameSpot following the Develop 2016 keynote, Kojima noted that making Death Stranding a triple A title was to prove that one could achieve such a project without “being part of a big company.”
Kojima was then asked if episodic releases appeal to him. “For [Death Stranding] I can’t tell. I’m not sure. But in the future I think this is a change that will definitely take place and I’d be interested. I don’t think movies in the future will last two hours, especially when people are already demanding more speedy experiences and delivery.
“So taking shorter time spans to develop, putting it out, integrating user feedback quickly, and having that freedom in game-making, I think it will apply to movies and TV too. Right now we have two-hour-long movies and TV episodes are roughly 40 minutes, but in Japan you have morning shows that last 15 minutes. That’s where I think things are headed, having five or 15-minute episodes. For games, having massive, long games will become a thing of the past.”
Episodic games are fairly popular – titles like Life is Strange, Hitman, Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead and Tales From the Borderlands, Resident Evil Revelations 2 and so on have seen a good to great amount of success. We’ll see if Death Stranding goes in that direction or not.