The latest project from celebrity video game director Hideo Kojima, PHYSINT, has been dumped by Sony just two and a half years after it was first announced. Since cutting ties with Kojima Productions on the project, Sony has been dragged through the mud by industry journalists and PlayStation fans alike. Given that PHYSINT was presented as the culmination of Kojima’s work, it seemed senseless to many fans that PlayStation would distance itself from video games’ most eminent auteur. Kojima Productions announced it was partnering with Xbox on the project, and unveiled that Bill Skarsgård will play the lead role. Across social media, the picture now being painted is that Xbox and PlayStation are going in completely different directions, and that this could be the very manoeuvre to bring about the resurgence Xbox has been searching for.
PlayStation’s willingness to walk away, knowing the backlash it would inevitably face, should at least make Sony’s critics wonder whether this really was such a reckless decision. Kojima’s previous two games, Death Stranding and Death Stranding 2, failed to meet PlayStation’s revenue expectations. Alinea Analytics’ Rhys Elliott suggests the franchise has only slightly exceeded its financial break-even point since the first game’s 2019 release.
With Kojima’s previous franchise underperforming, it’s no surprise that PHYSINT’s production thus far raised some eyebrows at Sony. Missed deadlines, a budget far exceeding the intended trajectory, and the likelihood that release would remain years away gave PlayStation legitimate financial concerns. With such an enormous investment on the horizon, the fact that Kojima Productions owns the IP and it may not remain a PlayStation exclusive left very little upside.
Few within gaming’s echo chamber have acknowledged Kojima’s underwhelming sales, and even fewer have questioned why. Hideo Kojima has always been an eccentric character. His trademark lengthy cutscenes and Tarantino-adjacent dialogue were a welcome change of pace in the nineties. However, today these ideas and techniques fail to do one thing a game must: respect a player’s time. His work also repeatedly mistakes complexity of presentation for complexity of thought. Together, these faults ask players to commit fifty hours to what is effectively a walking simulator in Death Stranding.
This particular case of Death Stranding is reminiscent of when streetwear clothing brands would take great pride in selling their customers anything – because they could. A famous example is when Supreme sold a red clay brick with its logo printed on it. Is that artistic? And is it artistic to sell your customers a £54.99 experience of playing as a glorified postman? Perhaps crawling to the finish line of this never-ending experience would be worth it if there were a grand story, an intriguing plot twist, or a new perspective that might influence our own. Unfortunately, Kojima’s recent stories embody the epitome of modern art – where he frequently attempts to bring the mundane up into the realm of the divine. To him, walking for fifty hours in a video game can tell us something about the human experience; it can provide insight into how we must act in the world and with those around us. But repetition does not create profundity. Walking remains walking, no matter how much philosophical weight Kojima asks it to carry.
Large parts of the gaming industry still tolerate these faults. Kojima has developed a cult of personality. Once that reputation exists, the weirdness itself becomes evidence of brilliance: confusing = deep, excessive = ambitious, unconventional = visionary. Some of this could also be manufactured by Kojima himself. His name is everywhere: ‘A Hideo Kojima Game’, ‘Written by Hideo Kojima’, ‘Directed by Hideo Kojima’, ‘Produced by Hideo Kojima’ … His name has effectively become a trademark in itself. He also has a habit of putting himself into his own games and, at this point, the self-mythologising has become a little too on-the-nose. Consider the Supreme example once more: put the logo on an ordinary brick and suddenly it has cultural value; put Kojima’s name on something mundane or bizarre, and people approach it expecting artistic significance.
What can’t be disputed is that his artistic projects have attracted many high-profile stars into the world of video games. Kojima has long been drawn to Hollywood talent, with Norman Reedus, Mads Mikkelsen, Léa Seydoux, Margaret Qualley and Elle Fanning all appearing in his games, alongside filmmakers such as Guillermo del Toro. Undoubtedly, there are positives to this. But recognisable actors come at a cost, and what’s more telling is how increasingly dependent Kojima’s projects have become on big-name stars. Bill Skarsgård’s unveiling as the face of PHYSINT suggests the expensive formula that accompanies Kojima’s name is not likely to change anytime soon.
In recent years, Xbox has increasingly embraced PlayStation, bringing several previously Xbox-exclusive games to its competitor’s platform. Its swoop for PHYSINT is therefore a little jarring, as it seemed it had given up on competing with PlayStation head-to-head. Kojima Productions and Xbox are already in collaboration on the upcoming game OD. Perhaps the relationship they have developed has given Xbox the confidence to roll the dice where PlayStation was no longer willing to. Today, in the gaming sphere, this is seen as a big win for Microsoft and, perhaps, a sign of Sony’s lack of ambition.
It’s fair to imagine that a company in Xbox’s position, out of caution, would wonder whether PlayStation knows something it doesn’t. But that’s not what we’ve seen. It has jumped aboard Kojima’s ship, apparently unconcerned by the holes that convinced Sony to abandon it. Xbox thinks it has picked PlayStation’s pocket. It may have picked up its bill instead.
