This Hideo Kojima documentary seems a bit much even for me, a Kojima fan

Kojima Productions has revealed the trailer for Hideo Kojima: Connecting Worlds, a Hideo Kojima documentary starring Hideo Kojima.

The documentary is officially set to debut at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 17, but a newly-released trailer on the Kojima Productions YouTube channel sets the tone for the film. And the tone seems to be 'boy, Hideo Kojima sure is great, isn't he?' The trailer opens with Geoff Keighly calling Kojima "probably the most well-known game creator in the world," right before Guillermo del Toro says "in the space of gaming, he is the master."

Meanwhile, we get title cards that call Kojima "the first auteur of video games," and say this film will show us "a creative journey into the mind of a video games icon." The footage in the trailer only briefly dips away from breathless praise for Kojima to his actual work leading development on games, including his joke during a production meeting about how the devs seem much less stressed when the cameras are rolling.

And, like, look. I'm a massive Metal Gear fan and a medium-sized Death Stranding fan, but isn't this all just a bit much? Kojima has directed some of the most interesting, idiosyncratic games ever created, but we're approaching a level of praise well beyond that given to pretty much any other creative person creating great work. And given how much players have come to understand the collaborative process of game development over the past few years, the auteur theory of game design - where a single director can be credited with a game's entire creative vision - is starting to seem hilariously dated.

Or maybe that "Mario and Princess Beach" line from the later acts of Death Stranding has broken my ability to take Kojima seriously. I'm still excited for Death Stranding 2, though, which we're likely to see as part of the E3 2023 schedule, especially on the Summer Game Fest stage hosted by Kojima hypeman Geoff Keighley.

The Metal Gear Solid 3 remake will give us a solid idea of what a non-Kojima Kojima game looks like.