Death Stranding's Hideo Kojima wants to "pioneer a new genre," not "focus much on existing ones," but he'd still like to make a Western or space game

Death Stranding and former Metal Gear Solid director Hideo Kojima is known for pushing boundaries and toying with ideas you don't often see in multi-million dollar blockbusters. But it's a conscious effort as the famed director has now said he's not really interested in working within existing genres.

When asked what genres he'd like to tackle next, in an interview with Wired Japan, Kojima said, "I want to pioneer a new genre, so I don't focus much on existing ones."

Before the first Death Stranding game released, Kojima was pretty insistent that he had finally pulled it off and created a sort of new game style. "Death Stranding is not a stealth game," he tweeted prior to launch. "It is brand new action game with the concept of connection (strand). I call it Social Strand System, or simply Strand Game." The strand-type kinda genre even influenced at least one other game, so... mission success?

Regardless, the iconic developer still has a lot to check off of his bucket list. "World-wise, maybe hard sci-fi," Kojima added. "I love space settings, so I'd like to try that. I'm also a fan of Westerns, so maybe that. Or a period piece, but those exist already. So I'm thinking about what to do."

For now, there's a good number of upcoming Hideo Kojima games to look forward to. He's currently working on an odd horror game called OD, and even Kojima doesn't know how the Xbox-published, Hollywood-fronted experiment will turn out. Then, after that, he seems to be going back to the genre that put him on the map in the first place with Physint, an action-espionage game.

Death Stranding and Metal Gear Solid mastermind Hideo Kojima says "things that are too comfortable won't stay inside the player," so he likes to "leave a bit of discomfort or friction"