Hideo Kojima wants to "create a game that changes in real-time"

Death Stranding Director's Cut — (Image credit: Kojima Productions)

After Death Stranding, Hideo Kojima hopes to continue connecting people and games with a title that "changes in real-time" based on the player's location and perspective.

In an interview with Japanese outlet Anan (translated by Siliconera), Kojima discussed his ambitions to create such a dynamic game. "Even though there are people of different ages and trades playing the same game, they are playing it in the same way," he says of conventional games. "Instead, I want the game to change based on where that person lives, and that person’s unique perspective … Because you would defeat vampires using the light from the sun, [Boktai] would change based on where and when you played the game. That kind of feature connects man-made systems to real-life."

Boktai is an old isometric action RPG for the Game Boy Advance which Kojima contributed to during his early days at Konami. Its standout feature, which Kojima references here, was an in-game sunlight monitor which used your time zone to approximate the sun's position. The main character's weapon is solar-powered, you see, and Boktai would adjust its power level based on the position of the sun relative to the player, making it stronger during the day and weaker at night. In-game environments would also update to mimic the sunrise and sunset. This is a relatively simple integration of the location-based changes Kojima describes, but it was pretty innovative back in the early 2000s, and it's fun to consider how modern games – especially Kojima games – might expand on it.

Kojima also loves the newly released Twelve Minutes, and said it "kinda makes me want to create another adventure game."

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.