Hideo Kojima is hard at work on Death Stranding 2, but he doesn't know how much longer he can stand the grueling game development process: "It's incredibly tough"

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"At this age, I can't help but think about how much longer I'll be able to stay 'creative'"

Death Stranding 2 screenshot
(Image credit: Kojima Productions)

Death Stranding 2 seems to have entered the most widely loathed period in the game development industry – crunch, a period where designers work mercilessly long, thankless hours – and even game director Hideo Kojima is feeling the weight of it.

"Tired," Kojima recently wrote on Twitter, alongside a melancholy photo of the night sky and a very gloomy frowning emoji.

"The most demanding period of game development – both physically and mentally – commonly known as 'crunch time,'" he elaborated in another Twitter post. "On top of mixing and Japanese voice recording, there's an inevitable pile of other tasks: writing comments, explanations, essays, interviews, discussions, and non-game-related work. It's incredibly tough."

Kojima didn't publicly express any such doubts about crunch time himself, and his studio, Kojima Productions, is no stranger to it – the developer crunched to complete the first Death Stranding in time for its 2019 release.

Ashley Bardhan
Ashley Bardhan
Senior Writer

Ashley is a Senior Writer at GamesRadar+. She's been a staff writer at Kotaku and Inverse, too, and she's written freelance pieces about horror and women in games for sites like Rolling Stone, Vulture, IGN, and Polygon. When she's not covering gaming news, she's usually working on expanding her doll collection while watching Saw movies one through 11.