After Death Stranding 2, I'm more convinced than ever that we should absolutely not let Hideo Kojima go to space

Update: I first wrote this story in 2023, but in the wake of Hideo Kojima once again saying that he wants to go to space, it's become relevant again. Frankly, I'm still shocked by some of my prescience about rich people going to space, but also the fact that since his original comments, Kojima has literally made his own face into a constellation and personally put it in one of his games because he thought his staff wouldn't want to. Does that sound like the work of a man who could handle seeing our planet in all of its cosmic irrelevance and return home unscathed? No, it does not.

Original story: Hideo Kojima says he wants to go to space, and I'm here to say that no-one should allow that to happen.

Speaking at the New York premiere of the documentary about his life and work, Connected Worlds, Kojima was asked what he wants to achieve in the future. In response, he said that "I want to go to outer space. I want to go to outer space and create a game you can play in space. So please someone send me up to space."

Ignoring the garishness of the recent trend of extremely rich people taking their slightly-less-rich friends to space, I strongly believe that letting Kojima go to space would be more than his auteur-shaped brain could handle. I'm reminded, primarily, of William Shatner's comments after his trip to the stars:

"It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness. Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands [...] It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral."

Shatner's experience of 'the Overview Effect' is not unique, and many people who have boldly gone have expressed similar sentiments on their return to Earth. My point: can you imagine if Hideo Kojima had to wrestle with feelings that big? The chaos that would unfold in the narrative of Death Stranding 3? And that's if Kojima even decided to make another game off the back of his experience - I can just as easily imagine his mind breaking and him coming back with a distinct supervillain streak.

Perhaps I'm being unfair, but I've certainly not had the sense that sensible storytelling is always Kojima's strongest suit. If he had to deal with the kind of space grief that Shatner and others have experienced, you know it would end up in his next game, and you know it would be confusing as all hell. So let's just not take that risk.

Kojima's offices already give off some serious supervillain energy.