Someone has made a VR mod for Metal Gear Solid 2, which is so fitting for the plot of the game that I'm shocked no one has done it before.

YouTube creator Shiffo released a video this week showcasing their mod for Metal Gear Solid 2's Master Collection version. It allows you to play the game in Virtual Reality, either in third-person as the game typically is, or entirely through a first-person perspective. At the moment, the game's opening – the tanker mission featuring Solid Snake – is the only part available to play with the mod, which is set to be released in beta "soon."

In a YouTube video, the creator shows their run through the entire mission, demonstrating that the entire thing works in VR right now. The Raiden-led plant mission that makes up the majority of Metal Gear Solid 2 isn't there just yet, but if anything, that's just even more fitting.

Mild spoilers for Metal Gear Solid 2 ahead

Before infiltrating the Big Shell as part of the plant chapter in Metal Gear Solid 2, Raiden underwent hundreds of VR missions in preparation for his real mission, including the Shadow Moses Incident from Metal Gear Solid 1 and the tanker chapter of Metal Gear Solid 2. He explains this to Iroquois Pliskin, a man who looks very much like Solid Snake, but can't be, because he died on that tanker two years ago.

The implication is that your experience playing through Metal Gear Solid and its VR missions is supposed to mirror Raiden's experience. Some do speculate that the tanker mission found in MGS2 is actually Raiden's experience. However, Snake calls out his VR mission, saying, "I doubt it accurately simulates the events of that actual mission."

Snake is said to have blown up the tanker of his own accord, which is not what happened in the mission, and we see what actually happens in the opening of the game. Still, having your chance to play through the tanker mission in VR is as close to being Raiden as you can get. I don't know that it was intentional from the mod developer, but they've made perhaps the most fitting VR mod of all time.

Metal Gear Solid 5 modders are bringing the open-world stealth game more in line with the PS1 classic in a crucial way

The latest Physint poster may have given us our first bit of plot details about Hideo Kojima's upcoming Metal Gear spiritual successor.

While Bill Skarsgard's casting was the main draw of Kojima's Physint update at the latest Xbox Tokyo Game Show, there's more than initially meets the eye. We also got some artwork consisting of a photo Kojima took of the duo, with a tagline that reads: "The next Cold War begins."

Based on that tagline, we can assume that Physint is about espionage in a time when nuclear war could break out at a moment's notice, while the world powers are engaged in a giant game of chicken. To me, that sure is a Metal Gear Solid game right there. Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater, Peace Walker, and The Phantom Pain all took place during the Cold War, with it being a major plot point in the first two.

Given that Snake Eater is considered one of the best Metal Gear games, it's not a surprise that Kojima would return to a formula that works. However, "the next Cold War" seems to imply that the game will be set closer to modern day than the actual conflict.

Another interesting detail about the marketing for Physint is Kojima's unofficial theme song for it – "Here Comes the Feeling" by Asia – which he has attached to Instagram posts about the game and is also on the original poster.

Having had the song on rotation since last week's PlayStation debacle, I've found the lyrics have definitely struck me. Many see Death Stranding's themes as a metaphor for Kojima coming to terms with the loss of Metal Gear; however, the Asia song focuses on reunion. "All through the winter, I thought I'd never see you again" is how it kicks off, while the chorus consists of "Here comes the feeling. Here comes the same old feeling," which certainly feels like a 'we are so back' declaration from Kojima.

OD is "progressing smoothly," Hideo Kojima says, teasing it as a "completely new kind of game that tests the thresholds of fear"

Hideo Kojima has revealed that John Wick 4 and Nosferatu actor Bill Skarsgård will be the lead in his upcoming Metal Gear spiritual successor Physint.

Appearing at the Xbox Tokyo Game Show 2026 Broadcast, Hideo Kojima gives development updates on both of his upcoming titles for Xbox Game Studios. OD is "steadily taking shape" as performance capture continued this year following the SAG-AFTRA strike. As for Physint – which only last week it was announced Xbox acquired after Sony decided it wanted to cancel the game – Kojima says "the project continues to make steady progress."

Kojima calls Physint "the culmination of more than 40 years of my career: a project that will redefine 'action espionage,' unbound by any existing genres in digital entertainment." Kojima claims he realized he should make a game like Metal Gear Solid while he was sick during the Covid-19 pandemic.

While we already knew Charlee Fraser, Don Lee (also known as Ma Dong-seok) and Minami Hamabe had been cast in the game, Kojima reveals that the game's lead character will be portrayed by Skarsgård. Kojima explains, "we are both long-time fans of each others' work, and we've decided to embark on this new adventure together."

Kojima also acknowledges the game's new home, saying, "I would also like to thank our partners at Xbox for believing in our vision and walking this path toward the future alongside us." He adds, "We are incredibly excited about the road ahead and look forward to sharing much more with you in the future."

Given Kojima said last year Physint is "another five or six years" away, and things likely slowed down a bit while the game was without a publisher, we've probably still got a while to go before we get our hands on it, or even see gameplay for that matter.

Hideo Kojima says his pitch for OD sounded "crazy" to every publisher except Xbox.

Hideo Kojima says development on his mysterious horror game OD is "progressing smoothly," and he can't wait to tell us more about it.

During an Xbox broadcast at this year's Tokyo Game Show, Kojima provides some quick updates on OD and Physint, which are now both being published by Xbox Game Studios.

On OD, he says: "Performance capture and ADR recording, which had been paused during the SAG strike, resumed this year, and production is proceeding on schedule. Sophia Lillis, Hunter Schafer, and the team have delivered intense and outstanding performances, which I can't wait for you all to see.

"OD is a completely new kind of game that tests the thresholds of fear," he continues. "Through constant experimentation and iteration, the project is steadily taking shape. We look forward to sharing more information later down the line."

There's still plenty we don't know about OD – its release window, for a start, is still a complete mystery. Kojima previously said that he'd like to "scan a ghost" into the game, which could take time. Then again, he also suggests that there could have been a ghost accidentally recorded into it already, so he might have ticked that box without even knowing it for sure. Don't worry, though – "that's why we went to the shrine together with Microsoft to make sure that we have a safe build of the game," he said at the time. That's reassuring… I think.

At Tokyo Game Show, Kojima also revealed that John Wick 4 and Nosferatu actor Bill Skarsgård will be Physint's lead actor, with him and the star both being "long-time fans of each others' work."

Physint goes from PlayStation to Xbox as Sony "unexpectedly" drops Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid spiritual successor.

A new Metal Gear Solid 5 mod has been released which aims to bring back the feeling of the series' classic games by allowing you to go in with nothing.

Metal Gear Solid changed pretty drastically with its final entries. Metal Gear Solid 4 sowed the seeds with the Drebin shop, but Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker and 5 took the series in a different direction.

The original MSX2 games and Solid trilogy had you infiltrating enemy bases with only the clothes on your back (or very little supplies) and every important item and extra weapon had to be found during your mission. Peace Walker and The Phantom Pain, on the other hand, feature the Mother Base, which allows you to develop your own weapons, meaning that every single time you went into a mission, your bag was packed to the brim.

Well, clearly someone longs for the good old days of stealth, as modder mohtalgear has released Metal Gear Solid 5's "definitive subsistence" mod. The big focus of this mod is On-Site Procurement (OSP) , a concept introduced in Metal Gear Solid 1, where Snake must secure his equipment at Shadow Moses. However, to launch a mission in Metal Gear Solid 5, you need to have some weapon equipped, so this mod removes that hurdle while reworking the game itself to make the experience work.

Crucially, every base weapon in the game will now be available to find on-site, whether that be from enemies or found on the map. This includes re-introducing concepts from earlier games, like having enemies drop their equipment or looting them when they are down and out. This extends to MGS 5's suite of extras too, as it introduces radios that allow you to call in support from your buddies like D. Dog, D. Horse, or Quiet.

On top of that, the mod introduces new bionic arms and weapons that were previously unavailable for main missions, and allows you to play as multiplayer-exclusive characters like Ocelot and Quiet in the open world. And, of course, you are able to still dispatch with your developed weapons with no issue.

Hideo Kojima intentionally designed Metal Gear Solid's box art to look confusing and grab attention, but stores ruined his plan by "trying to be helpful."

Following Sony dropping Hideo Kojima's next project, analysts report that the Death Stranding series just about broke even in sales.

Despite making a massive deal out of its exclusivity when it was announced – it being the finale of a State of Play presentation – Sony reportedly wanted to cancel Kojima Productions' Metal Gear spiritual successor, Physint. Pretty soon after, Xbox announced it's now publishing both of the upcoming Hideo Kojima games, with OD still on the way, leaving many perplexed as to why Sony would drop one of its most anticipated titles amid a whirlwind few months of bad press for the PlayStation brand.

Some speculated that the Death Stranding games had underperformed, leading to Sony's decision; however, from the sounds of things, the series didn't flop, but it didn't do much more than its budget. Anilea Analytics reports that the first Death Stranding did pretty well, selling 5 million copies by the end in the same time it took Death Stranding 2 to sell around 2.5 million copies.

Death Stranding has reportedly made about $243 million, with a rumored budget of around $100 million, while Death Stranding 2 has made about $129 million on a rumored budget of somewhere between $150-200 million. Anilea reports the franchise has definitely broken even with its $413 million made across both games, "but not by much," with "an estimated return on investment of 18% to 38%."

The development of Metal Gear Solid 5 reportedly going over budget is part of what caused the rift between Konami and Hideo Kojima, so the idea of Physint development being expensive isn't too surprising to hear. And with Sony releasing a string of high-profile misses as of late, with the likes of Marathon, Saros, and Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls having pretty low-profile launches, and of course Sony sinking a ton of money into failed live service projects that end up canceled mid-dev (or after release in Concord's case), the publisher being more stingy is not entirely surprising.

However, Sony built its way back from the PS3's failures by being known for its high-quality releases. The Last of Us, the Horizon series, and so on fed into the prestige-publisher look Sony maintained until it decided to chase a live-service hit and stopped releasing games as often. And even then the Wolverine reviews seem to indicate the PlayStation first-party formula may be losing its shine a bit.

I can't think of something with more prestige than Hideo Kojima doing a new Metal Gear-like game, which not only would probably sell better than Death Stranding did on that basis alone, but even if it only broke even, it's the type of game that gets people in who will eventually pick up the next game. But hey, PlayStation's loss is Xbox's gain, unless it also decides to cancel the title.

Sony has topped a generational run of self-owns: abandoning Hideo Kojima's next Metal Gear right as Marvel's Wolverine falls flat

Former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida has seemingly reacted to the news that Sony has dropped Hideo Kojima's highly anticipated stealth game, Physint, allowing Xbox to swoop in, and he's just as surprised as we are.

Overnight, PlayStation announced that "we have made the difficult decision to step away from collaborating with KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS on its project PHYSINT." However, Kojima's own statement highlights this move as being a lot more one-sided than you might expect: "In mid-June of this year, we unexpectedly received notice from PlayStation Studios that they would cancel the PHYSINT project," he reveals, going on to say that "we have spent the last three months searching tirelessly for a new partner," leading Kojima Productions right back to Xbox, which it's also teaming up with on horror title OD.

The concept that any company would want to cancel a Kojima game is shocking, and the situation of PlayStation essentially handing it over to its main competition only makes it weirder, even though it's unclear if Sony could have known that's where the game would end up. Yoshida, former president of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios, has responded to the news on Twitter, expressing how "surprised" he is (translated by GamesRadar+).

Although his original post isn't shared in response to anything in particular, it's obvious that this is what he's referring to – he doubles down on the sentiment in a separate reply to someone asking him about it directly.

While Yoshida might not have said much, the fact that the news has prompted him to respond like this at all speaks volumes. Sony is in desperate need of a win after its announcement that it's stopping production of physical discs for new PlayStation games in 2028 – the backlash it's prompted from folks opposed to an all-digital future has been immense, with the company's comment sections everywhere filled with cries of "no disc no buy" more than two months on.

Needless to say, deciding it doesn't want to bring Kojima's Metal Gear Solid spiritual successor to life isn't it – in fact, it looks like the opposite. Even with the company's reassurance that "we continue to have great admiration for Hideo Kojima's vision for the game," the general response across the internet is disbelief that Sony would give up on what, from the outside, looks like an easy win.

Despite the change in circumstances, Kojima is clear: "Please rest assured that development of PHYSINT, our genre-defining action-espionage title, is ongoing and will continue moving forward."

As Hideo Kojima turns 63, the Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding creator says "I would like to remain focused on creating games" despite the interest in movies.

Xbox has announced it's working with Hideo Kojima and Kojima Productions on its Metal Gear spiritual successor, Physint, after PlayStation apparently wanted to cancel the project earlier this year.

Following Death Stranding 2's release, the list of upcoming Hideo Kojima games comprises OD, his new attempt at a horror game in partnership with Xbox following the Silent Hills debacle, and Physint, a return to the action espionage genre in the vein of Metal Gear, which Sony made a big song and dance about when announcing. The latter seems like a somewhat personal game to the director, as he says it was conceived while he was sick during the Covid-19 pandemic, realizing people wanted something like Metal Gear from him.

Earlier today, PlayStation's Twitter account posted a statement saying, "After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to step away from collaborating with Kojima Productions on its project Physint". Then, within two minutes, Xbox posted on the Xbox Wire Blog that it would be publishing Physint.

Despite Sony's messaging that it simply stepped away, Kojima himself explained "In mid-June of this year, we unexpectedly received notice from PlayStation Studios that they would cancel the Physint project."

He adds, "Physint is an important project both to me personally and to Kojima Productions. Determined to keep the project alive, we have spent the last three months searching tirelessly for a new partner."

Kojima explains, "We found in Xbox a partner with whom we share a common vision for the future, and we have decided to team up with them once again."

Kojima adds: "Please rest assured that development of Physint, our genre-defining action-espionage title, is ongoing and will continue moving forward."

The combination of this news and a litany of decisions from Sony over the last few years once again leaves me questioning PlayStation's plans for the future.

After the Concord debacle, the cancellation of Naughty Dog's The Last of Us 2 multiplayer leading to it looking like the developer is going to skip the PS5 generation, Horizon Hunter's Gathering in general, and even going back to the closures of Bluepoint and Japan Studio, Sony seems allergic to what made PlayStation so beloved over the PS4 generation.

That being said, Xbox doesn't exactly inspire me with confidence either, following its repeated string of mass layoffs and high-profile game cancellations like Perfect Dark and Everwild. Hopefully OD does well, because right now I'm not exactly confident Physint is still coming out.

Hideo Kojima is "envious" of 21-year-old Backrooms director: "I made Metal Gear at 23 – but A24 didn’t get in touch with me until I was about 59"

Backrooms director Kane Parsons has been praised by Hideo Kojima at the film's Japanese premiere, with the acclaimed game director saying he's "envious" of the 21-year-old.

Backrooms has been one of the major hits that has made 2026 the biggest summer ever at the box office, which is even more impressive when you realize it was directed by a then-20-year-old, with Parsons becoming the youngest director to ever have a film debut at number one at the box office. Parsons had his beginning in online media with his The Backrooms short on YouTube amassing 93 million views after making animated Attack on Titan fan films, only to go on and direct the major film based on his short films years later.

Speaking at the Japanese premiere of Backrooms (attended by and reported on by Postmode), Kojima noted, "He’s 21, and I’m 63. But when people who grew up digital take that digital sensibility and burn it onto analogue film — I think what you’ll see is just how remarkable a result that can be."

Kojima – who was young when he directed his first game – was asked how he related to Parsons' rise; he responded, "I made Metal Gear at 23 – but A24 didn’t get in touch with me until I was about 59. So it’s completely different, isn’t it?"

Kojima adds, "I’m envious, honestly. There was no A24 when I was about 25. I wish they’d called." Kojima is currently working with A24 to adapt the Death Stranding universe to film, with Pig and A Quiet Place: Day One Michael Sarnoski set to direct the film, however it's still not confirmed when the film will be released.

As Hideo Kojima turns 63, the Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding creator says "I would like to remain focused on creating games" despite the interest in movies

Hideo Kojima has explained why the Japanese box art for the original Metal Gear Solid was written vertically, but says some retailers didn't get the memo.

Metal Gear Solid is a series synonymous with banger box art, with most entries in the series featuring some gorgeous artwork from series artist Yoji Shinkawa – in Japan and Europe that is, the US typically got 3D renders (with worse box art for the US being a tradition Konami is continuing to this very day). However, Europe won out with the original Metal Gear Solid, getting Shinkawa art, as both the US and Japan got a blank white cover with the game's title on it. However, there were differences: the US copy had the title in red, while the Japanese copy had the title on its side.

When asked why the title was intentionally misplaced on the Japanese cover, Kojima explains, in a post on Twitter, "When you placed [it] on a shelf, I intentionally designed the package to make customers wonder, 'Why is it vertical?!' and pick it up to see what it is, leading them to the game information from there!"

However, Kojima adds that this didn't exactly work out as planned, as "some stores, perhaps trying to be helpful, turned the package sideways and displayed it horizontally instead of the way I intended."

Doing something weird with the cover to pique players' curiosity isn't unique to Metal Gear Solid, mind you; the most obvious example is the space shooter Phalanx on the SNES. The European and Japanese covers featured a shot of a spaceship flying away from various explosions, while the US cover consists of an old fella playing the banjo with a tiny spaceship flying past in the background. And it's definitely the only reason I remember that game off the top of my head.

91.8% of Metal Gear Solid 4 players immediately got the achievement for ripping a statue's privates clean off.

Legendary video game designer Hideo Kojima has posted his 'review' of Ridley Scott's The Dog Stars and, just like Thumper in Bambi, it seems Koj believes that 'If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all,' because he doesn't actually say a critical word about the film in question.

Writing on X, Kojima's 76-word post expounds on his history with Peter Heller's original novel (he hasn't read it), what he pictured the movie would be like ("something along the lines of Cormac McCarthy's The Road") and even his palpable disappointment that they didn't create pamphlets for The Dog Stars (souvenir brochures that are commonly for sale in Japanese theaters). But what's missing is any kind of verdict on the movie itself, which, if you've been following along with Kojima's movie reviews, almost always means he disliked the movie and is too polite to say as much. Check out the full post below

Of course, if you read between the lines, Kojima's feelings about The Dog Stars are plain as day; he didn't get on with it, perhaps because it wasn't close enough to his McCarthy-aping expectations for his liking. Typically, there's a direct correlation between tweet length and Kojima's feelings about a movie, ie., the longer the tweet, the more warmly he feels about it. This is a rare example where that theory doesn't hold. Perhaps he didn't want to disparage the work of Death Stranding star Margaret Qualley so publicly.

So far this year, Kojima has been "blown away" by creepy pasta horror Backrooms, and was one of the few who liked Supergirl (he even compared it to The Good, the Bad and The Ugly). Still, Kojima's verdict on The Dog Stars is nowhere near as damning as his Return to Silent Hill movie review, which ran just 8 words long (savage). And over a year later, we're still waiting on his Electric State review.

As for The Dog Stars, Kojima wasn't the only person who didn't respond to the post-apocalyptic action drama, as despite costing almost $80 million to produce, it made less than $8 million at the US box office on its opening weekend. The 88-year-old Scott shows no signs of slowing down, however, as he recently revealed a third Alien prequel starring Michael Fassbender's David is in the works.

The Dog Stars is currently in theaters. For more, check out our guide to all the biggest upcoming movies heading your way this year.

Metal Gear Solid 4's new re-release in Master Collection Vol.2 appears to reference a fan-made Metal Gear Online project in its files, suggesting Konami relied on the project for DLC.

Back in the days of the Xbox 360 and PS3, it felt like every game had a multiplayer mode, even if it didn't need it. Nonetheless, this trend resulted in some shockingly great multiplayer experiences like Naughty Dog's Uncharted and The Last of Us online modes, Capcom's forgotten Bionic Commando reboot, and Bioshock 2.

Then, though Metal Gear Online debuted with Metal Gear Solid 3 Subsistence on the PS2, it took the Metal Gear Online 2 featured in Metal Gear Solid 4 to make the series' multiplayer a legendary experience. That brings us to the SaveMGO project, which allows players to play Metal Gear multiplayer to this very day.

Officially, Metal Gear Online went offline in 2012. However, SaveMGO has played a vital role in Metal Gear Solid 4's enduring appeal.

Now, it seems like Konami is acknowledging fan efforts. The SaveMGO Twitter account (via Time Extension) recently shared SaveMGO member Marko's reaction to a post in the Discord community for the project, in which someone shares references to SaveMGO in Metal Gear Solid 4's new port files.

The working theory among fans is that Konami used SaveMGO to access some of the now-deleted DLC for the game which consisted of camouflage patterns for Snake. Marko says, "That is awesome! So the only way they could get that stuff is thanks to the preservation potential of SaveMGO." SaveMGO says in its own tweet, "The original DLC might only exist today because SaveMGO kept it available all these years," adding that the team is "feeling proud."

While it wouldn't be the end of the world if DLC camo were missing from Metal Gear Solid 4, Konami's possible reliance on SaveMGO proves the importance of preservation, and more specifically, fan-made preservation projects. Because it's fantastic that I can still use cool Metal Gear Solid 4 camo, but it's even better that I can still play Metal Gear Online almost a decade-and-a-half since the servers shut.

91.8% of Metal Gear Solid 4 players immediately got the achievement for ripping a statue's privates clean off.

Metal Gear Solid 4 players on PC have earned one specific achievement right away, and all I can say is that poor statue.

Metal Gear Solid is an incredibly silly game series. The series features some of the greatest stories in gaming, with the best Metal Gear games still hitting like nothing else, even after multiple replays.

But yeah, those games can get dumb as hell.

There's a recurring character whose characterization revolves around his chronic IBS, which turns out to be a family trait, as his ancestor found in Metal Gear Solid 3 also can't stop dropping ass on a near-constant basis.

But aside from Mr. Poop, the games themselves are filled with silly little moments and interactions throughout the world. For example, you can slip on the bird droppings at the start of Metal Gear Solid 2, or the fourth-wall-breaking dialogue about the PS3 (which has been changed). One of these comes at the start of Metal Gear Solid 4, where you can pose next to statues to blend in, but if you go to the well one too many times, Snake accidentally rips off the statue's genitals.

Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol 2 features an achievement for doing so, called "Handle with Caution," which rewards you if you "broke off the most important part of a statue". And yesterday, once the game launched on Steam, BlueSky user Columbologist took a peek at the achievements list and discovered something. Frankly, they put it better than I ever could, with their post reading: "91.8% of players, having waited nearly 20 years for MGS4 to be playable on anything other than PS3, booted the game and immediately made a beeline for a statue's dick."

While the number is at a much lower 21.4% at the time of writing, the fact remains that mere hours after Metal Gear Solid 4 launched on PC, 91.8% of players had already pulled the statues' genitals straight off. Just as Hideo Kojima intended.

The Nintendo ports of Metal Gear Solid 4 replace the iconic PS3 and PSP in-game consoles with generic variants

With the release of Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol 2, it's been confirmed that Nintendo editions of Metal Gear Solid 4 have removed PlayStation references from the game.

Metal Gear Solid 4 was famously a PS3 exclusive until this week, and the game itself made that clear. Throughout the game you could see a PS3 console on Snake and Otacon's plane, Sunny could be seen playing the PSP, and Snake used a Dualshock 3 controller to control the Metal Gear Mk. 2. On top of that, there's the famous scene where Otacon recounts how great the PS3 and Blu-Ray discs are.

We already knew that line had been changed to whatever platform you're playing on, but fans noticed Konami's online manual seemingly removed the console from the Switch versions, before Konami changed the image to show the PS3 again. But now the collection is out, fans have revealed that yes, Nintendo players won't see a PlayStation console.

On the PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC versions of Metal Gear Solid 4, you'll still see the PlayStation controller and consoles, but for Switch 1 and 2 the DualShock and PSP have been changed to generic versions, while the PS3 console has a Kerotan frog from Metal Gear Solid 3 in its place.

There hasn't been an official statement about the change, but given that both the PC and Xbox versions have the PlayStation kit, many are assuming this was a call from Nintendo itself. Although, weirdly, the PlayStation seen in Metal Gear Solid is still present in the Switch version of the first collection, albeit in a very low-poly form. Still, if it's the price to pay to get Metal Gear Solid 4 on more platforms, I suppose it's not the biggest deal.

Speedrunner turns one of Metal Gear Solid 4's biggest bosses into a total pushover using the power of Master Collection Vol 2's enhanced framerate

A Metal Gear Speedrunner has discovered that the higher framerate in Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol 2 has made one of the series ' most iconic boss fights a cakewalk.

Sure, it's almost 20 years old, but Metal Gear Solid 4 spoilers ahead for anyone about to experience it for the first time through the Master Collection.

Metal Gear Solid 4 may be a bit messy, but there's one thing it nails: nostalgia and fan service – before nostalgia bait became all the rage. Returning to Shadow Moses Island in Act 4 is one of the greatest gaming moments of all time, and it culminates with a power fantasy a decade in the making as you get to pilot Metal Gear Rex and have a scrap with the improved model Metal Gear Ray. It's a phenomenal boss fight and would be the best moment in the game if not for the final boss.

Jaguar King, a Metal Gear series speedrunner, posted a clip of their gameplay on Twitter, saying, "Thanks to 60FPS, Ray can be mega destroyed way faster than the original…" The attached clip shows the iconic Rex vs Ray scrap, with Rex launching missiles at Ray, then using its laser to destroy Ray's health bar almost instantly, with the fight lasting a mere 11 seconds in total.

Games having things tied to framerates isn't new. The original Metal Gear Solid is still 30 fps in Master Collection Vol. 1 for this very reason. Destiny 2 players also discovered differences in damage when the game was released on PC and had the 60fps option available. But what's weird about this is that Metal Gear Solid 4 was always technically 60fps; yes, the PS3 version never actually ran that well most of the time, but the game was built with a 60fps cap in mind, so it's strange that it would have an effect here.

Metal Gear Solid 4's most famous joke gets updated in Master Collection Vol. 2, with Konami even bringing back the original voice actor

Konami says that reboots of key franchises like Metal Gear, Castlevania, and Suikoden are an important part of its business strategy going forward.

Between a very public falling out between Hideo Kojima and Konami around the release of Metal Gear Solid 5, a pivot into Pachinko machines, and a general lack of new games, the company lost a lot of stock among fans for a while. However, in recent years, thanks to well-received re-releases of Castlevania and Metal Gear games, remakes of Silent Hill 2 and Metal Gear Solid 3, as well as a number of new titles like Silent Hill f, the publisher is back among fans' good graces.

And while Silent Hill f proved Konami isn't just relying on remakes of already-beloved games, Metal Gear in particular is so intrinsically linked with the name Hideo Kojima for many that some don't think we'll ever see a new original title in the series. But speaking to Nikkei Gaming, Konami president Hideki Hayakawa seems to suggest there is a future for the series and plenty more.

"Reboots of existing IPs such as Metal Gear, Silent Hill, Castlevania, and Suikoden are important initiatives that serve as pillars of our business." Hayakawa says, adding, "At the same time, we have a strong desire as Konami to create entirely new genres and works."

The term "reboot" specifically evokes the idea that there will be a fresh start for Metal Gear Solid, as Silent Hill f was also detached from the main series' established beats enough to feel like its own thing.

Of course, Hayakawa could consider Metal Gear Solid Delta a reboot, and we could just end up seeing more remakes in the series, but at the very least, it appears there is a future for Metal Gear; it's just a matter of seeing exactly what that is.

As Hideo Kojima turns 63, the Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding creator says "I would like to remain focused on creating games" despite the interest in movies

Hideo Kojima has turned 63, and he's celebrating the milestone the best way he knows how… with a very long Twitter post.

Kojima celebrated his 60th birthday three years ago by pledging that he has no plans to retire, and with the list of upcoming Hideo Kojima games comprising OD and Physint as well as a line of projects like the Death Stranding anime and A24 film adaptations he's been keeping his word as of late. But Kojima's 60s have also been the peak of him dropping somewhat morbid details in interviews.

PS5 exclusive Physint, for example, is being made after he had the realization that people want something like Metal Gear while he was sick during the Covid-19 pandemic. In the time since he's spoken about having "a USB stick with all my ideas" as a kind of "will" and his desire to die in a movie theater when the time comes. Basically, dude has been getting weird with it.

And in celebration of his 63rd birthday, Kojima once again got a bit morbid on the timeline, with a Twitter post reading, "As I get older, the things I 'have to do' and the things I 'want to do' continue to increase. At the same time, the time I 'have to do them' continues to decrease." He adds, "I constantly need to reassess how I use my time and how I live my life. That said, once you've taken something on, you can't simply put it down and walk away."

Kojima also notes that 2026 marks the 40th anniversary of his career in games, with 1986 being the year he joined Konami, as well as the year the first title he ever worked on, Penguin Adventure, was released. Not only that, but the end of 2025 marked the 10th anniversary of the founding of the revived Kojima Productions as an independent studio.

The Death Stranding director also reaffirms his dedication to making games, by saying, "While I continue to receive various opportunities and offers, I would like to remain focused on creating games." So while it's been an expectation among fans that Kojima is eager one day to move on to direct a film, it may not be as likely as some expect.

Hideo Kojima isn't planning to blast off to space yet because he doesn't want to rush to his "ultimate dream," so he'll "keep on making games" for now.

A modder has released a trailer for a Metal Gear Solid mod which brings two-player co-op to the PS1 stealth classic.

A recent trend I've loved in the modding scene is players going back to classic games and implementing multiplayer into titles that were never designed for it. They are so prevalent there's an entire website dedicated to them. Super Mario 64 is one of the most famous examples – very recently, its sequel Super Mario Sunshine also had a mod released – as are the mods that allow full-blown co-op in FromSoftware games as opposed to certain sections. But one game I never expected this phenomenon to reach was Metal Gear Solid.

On their YouTube channel, a modder going by Felipe has released a "Pre-Alpha" trailer of their Metal Gear Solid Co-op mod. The description calls it "a world first" and says, "This is the first attempt to bring the original PlayStation classic into a true online multiplayer experience, something the original game was never designed to support." The video shows two versions of Solid Snake sneaking about Shadow Moses Island, fighting Genome Soldiers and the likes of Revolver Ocelot.

In the comments of the video, Felipe adds a FAQ section to delve deeper into the mod. They reveal that this is built on the GOG PC release, and that each player will be able to have their own camera within the mod. They also acknowledge later sections of the game that feature different gameplay styles, like the final Jeep sequence and rappel off the building, saying that the former will likely be single-player only but that the rest of the game should be possible.

Felipe also notes that the mod will have settings to balance the game to two players by increasing boss HP, and is thinking of increasing guard reinforcement numbers. The modder says that they will look into additional mod support for their multiplayer version of the game, and the likes of additional skins, which we've seen in similar multiplayer mods.

The mod is still in the early stages, but it's an impressive showing so far.

Nintendo Switch version of Metal Gear Solid Master Collection 2 seemingly removes the PS3 from Snake's plane, suggesting an iconic joke will have to be changed.

Update: Konami has seemingly updated the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 version of the online manual since this was discovered, with the screenshot now showing the PS3 seen in the other platforms' screenshots.

We have reached out to Konami for clarification and will update should be recieve a response.

Original Story: Metal Gear Solid fans have noticed a detail in the screenshots of Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Volume 2 that may explain how the PS3 mentions are handled in the new port of Guns of the Patriots.

Metal Gear Solid 4 has become something of a cryptid among the Metal Gear fanbase; it's the only game in the franchise to remain an exclusive, and it was long thought to be unportable because it was built specifically for the PS3.

This adherence to the PS3 allowed Hideo Kojima and co to do some fourth-wall breaks, including a famous scene where Otacon calls back to Metal Gear Solid 1's disc swapping by saying "Oh wait! We're on PlayStation 3! It's a Blu-ray Disc. Dual-layered, too – no need to swap."

But now that the game is coming to platforms outside of the PS3, many are wondering what Konami will do with the line in Master Collection Volume 2.

As spotted by users on Reddit, the manual pages for Master Collection Volume 2 include a screenshot of the Metal Gear Solid 4 pause menu, which shows a live cam of what Sunny is up to on your plane, the Nomad.

In the original version, you can see a PS3 on the table in some scenes, and this remains the case for PlayStation, PC, and Xbox consoles. However, the Switch and Switch 2 versions of the game have removed the PS3 console, replacing it with what appear to be GA-KO dolls.

While this doesn't confirm anything about the iconic line, it does prove Konami is willing to change things up for the Master Collection ports, which in turn has led to speculation about what the line could be.

While it could easily just be the regular PS3 line, Nintendo versions removing the console has me thinking it will also be changed, and given Christopher Randolph returned for Metal Gear Solid Delta to record lines for the Xbox exclusive Snake Vs Bomberman mode, he and David Hayter are clearly still happy to work with Konami.

One user reckons we'll get a generic "We're on a modern game console - Digital download too, no need to swap," but maybe Konami could go the extra mile and change the line to be about whatever platform you're playing on. Or there's the worst-case scenario where the line is removed entirely for Nintendo fans. We'll find out soon enough, as it's only nine days til Metal Gear Solid 4 is finally free from the PS3.

Metal Gear Solid 4's Master Collection gets an impressive new showing, confirming 60fps, shorter load times, and that Solid Snake still loves his iPod

Hideo Kojima just unveiled a limited edition Death Stranding 2 CD player, developed in collaboration with km5. Apparently "made possible by Kojima's self-proclaimed love for analog media," (though I don't know who wants to tell them CDs are definitely not analog), the Instant Disc Audio Cp1 combines a Bluetooth-friendly disc spinner with the translucent orange aesthetic that will speak to any retro gamer's heart.

Like the regular CP1 it's based on, the build allows for a neat window into your current album, but the casing also allows for your lyric booklet (or the included Death Stranding 2-themed cards) to sit in pride of place as well. With rear mounting holes, the idea is that you can throw a CD in, stick the jacket on the front, and have your now-playing in full view on the wall.

Of course, even if that Bluetooth 5.3 version is upgraded from the original 5.0 on the normal model, you're still not going to get the full uncompressed CD experience here.

Audiophiles will be using the accompanying 3.5mm physical connection, but for most of us that sound quality is going to be just fine. Compatible disc formats span CD, CD-R, CD-RW, and MP3, so those old rips are ready to go. A 1,800mAh battery keeps everything running for approximately 7-8 hours (you'll be running somewhere 10 and 15 albums in that time).

The actual aesthetic keeps the BB pod at front of mind, from that bright orange colorway to the small LED 'BB' in the corner that swaps over to a track indicator when you're spinning. The original, for $40 less, comes in black and white, though there is a neon green colorway available for a whopping $209.

Kojima's Death Stranding CD player is a true limited edition drop. While it's still in stock at the time of writing, we're expecting the run to come to an end shortly. It's been up on km5's own site for a couple of days, so physical media revivalists with a flair for the Kojima should be investigating sooner rather than later.

• See all CD players at Amazon

For more audio solutions, we're rounding up the best gaming headsets and best gaming earbuds on the market.

He may be a little late to the game this time, but the king of Twitter movie reviews has spoken once again, and it sounds like Hideo Kojima is a fan of 2026 horror hit Backrooms.

"I'm blown away," said Kojima over on Twitter. "It reminds me of pseudo-3D games from the 2D era, back in the dawn of RPGs and the Family Computer (NES), before polygons and textures existed… That sense of confinement. That feeling of anxiety. Both are revived here in live action. The art direction is clever, incorporating elements of art, architecture, and psychology." Check out Kojima's full review below.

Backrooms hit the big screen on May 29, 2026. After a long theatrical run, the movie finally landed on digital in mid-July. However, the movie has yet to hit screens in Japan.

Based on the online urban legend of the same name, Backrooms has had an extremely impressive theatrical run, smashing all expectations and grossing over $330 million worldwide. That is quite the feat considering the film's $10 million production budget, and the fact that it is 21-year-old director Kane Parson's feature film debut.

Although he didn't create the original Backrooms image and story posted on 4Chan in 2019, Parsons extended the urban legend over on YouTube. Parsons' Backrooms web series further explored the fear of liminal spaces, where monsters lurk at every corner. The movie then takes that one step further, following an employee at a furniture showroom who finds a doorway leading to an endless network of interconnected rooms.

The movie was such a hit that last month Parsons released a director's cut titled Backrooms: Everything Must Go Edition. The cut hits the 2 hours 6 minutes mark, and includes bonus footage that Parsons edited on his laptop himself. It's not just Kojima who has been blown away, though, as Parsons is now very much in demand in Hollywood.

For more, check out our guide to all the upcoming horror movies heading our way.

Euphoria star Hunter Schafer has revealed she's recently performed in mocap for Hideo Kojima's upcoming horror game OD.

Despite knowing about the upcoming Hideo Kojima games for a while now, we really don't know all that much about either of them. We do know that horror title OD will be first up to the plate, with the game being announced at The Game Awards 2023, but – despite a very naked gameplay leak a year before the game was announced – Kojima claimed his studio was just beginning to work on OD last year. We did get our second trailer last year, while Kojima is hyping it up as a game that goes "beyond the limit of 'scariness."

Well, we now have a slight update on the production of OD, as Schafer – when speaking to IGN at SDCC 2026 – says working OD "was a lot of fun" and that she "just did mocap not too long ago."

Schafer also says "that was my first experience doing motion capture," adding that she loves "how much imagination is involved in filming something like that." She notes: "I just think Hideo's a genius and so lovely to work with"

Beyond that, Schafer speaks about the games she's been playing, calling The Last of Us Part 2 "life-changing," and revealing she has recently played Journey, which she describes as "really simple and gorgeous."

For comparison, Death Stranding 2 motion capture was completed in May 2024, and took just over a year to release from that point. So, come time for The Game Awards this year, I'd suspect (or hope) we might find out a bit more about OD, and have a better idea of what it is and when it's releasing.

Hideo Kojima isn't planning to blast off to space yet because he doesn't want to rush to his "ultimate dream," so he'll "keep on making games" for now.

Hideo Kojima still wants to go to space, but for now he's going to keep making games, and he says that's a good thing.

Metal Gear Solid creator Kojima really hasn't kept it quiet that one day he wants to go to space, so much so that Valve boss Gabe Newell tried to set Kojima up with a tour of SpaceX. Over on Twitter, Kojima recently posted a video of his comments during a panel at Il Cinema in Piazza – a film festival in Rome – where he explains (translated by Genki_JPN) his current thoughts about his space travel aspirations.

"I want to share this with all of you: We all want to make our dreams come true, right?" he begins. And obviously he isn't talking about his dreams with "voluptuous nude women," reanimated "decomposing bodies," and a very impolite coach, as he explains, "I want to go to space and I want to make a movie." However, he adds, "it wouldn't be good if those dreams just came true."

"That's because dreams are goals," Kojima explains, "The idea is to achieve the second, third, and fourth dreams along the way before reaching your ultimate dream." He adds that "for the time being, I think I'll keep on making games without going to space."

I would say perhaps he can go to space once he retires from creating games (although he said he has no plans to retire). However, at that same event, he also said he wants to die in a movie theater, preferably just after the trailers, so unless they build theaters in space, he's probably going to have to come back to Earth at some point.

The original Metal Gear Solid is free to play on Steam this weekend as Konami gears up for Master Collection Volume 2.

Ahead of Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Volume 2 releasing next month, Konami is letting everyone play Metal Gear Solid for free this weekend.

2026 has been a landmark year for those of us who are still obsessed with the year 1998. Spyro is getting a new entry, Resident Evil Requiem felt like as much of a sequel to Resident Evil 2 as anything else, Pokemon Gen 1 returned, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is set to get a remake releasing later this year. So, not to be outdone, Konami decided to remind everyone what the real best game of 1998 was, and is letting everyone play Metal Gear Solid.

Over on Steam, the Master Collection Volume 1 edition of 1998's Metal Gear Solid is free to play for anyone right now, which grants you access to the PS1 classic, as well as its expansion pack Metal Gear Solid VR / Special Missions, and the Japanese exclusive Integral. On top of that there's a full screenplay and "Master Book" which features artwork, character bios, a series timeline and the like.

This free weekend also arrives alongside Metal Gear Solid Master Collection's deepest Steam discount to date at £24.99 | $29.99 (which it's only been at twice before in the previous two Steam Summer Sales).

The best part of this deal, however, is that Metal Gear Solid is not really all that long. You could absolutely beat the entire game as part of this free weekend and experience one of the all-time greats free of charge

Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol 2 brings 4K 60fps to MGS4 and Peace Walker, Konami announces, but Switch 1 still gets saddled with 30fps.

Konami has revealed the performance targets for Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Volume 2, and 4K 60fps Metal Gear Solid 4 is finally within reach, even if Switch 1 users are getting shortchanged again.

Konami released details about both Metal Gear Solid 4 and Peace Walker's performance on its website. It's mostly as you would expect based on the previous game: Xbox Series X, PS5, and PC will be running at 4K 60fps; Switch 2 and Xbox Series S will be 1440/60 – with 1080/60fps in MGS4's handheld mode and for both on Peace Walker for Switch 2.

Once again, the original Nintendo Switch is stuck with 1080/30fps in docked and 720/30fps in handheld. That includes Peace Walker – a 2010 PSP game that ran at 60fps when its HD edition was released on 2005's Xbox 360.

Metal Gear Solid 4 at 60fps was already revealed a few months back with the first gameplay of the re-release. On Switch 2, the game has selectable image modes between "Adjusted and Original," with the handheld mode only getting Original. Presumably, one of these matches the other platforms, with a slightly more inconsistent framerate.

Funnily enough, Metal Gear Solid 4 was always capable of 60fps, but getting it to run as such on PS3 was only possible in really specific circumstances, and most of the time you'd be dealing with sub-30fps in action scenes. But having the game run at a stable 60fps will be a game-changer.

Peace Walker, on the other hand, has a number of different resolution and upscaling options. Konami also released a video showing off the "High Resolution" mode for the game's hand-drawn cutscenes, with the new version having a much clearer image compared to the somewhat blurry original.

While Metal Gear Solid 4's big return is the clear star of the show here, I'm hoping to see Peace Walker's stock rise with this re-release, so people can finally see it for being one of the best Metal Gear Solid games… perhaps even better than MGS4 some may say.

After almost 25 years, Metal Gear Solid 2 players are still finding secrets: "This is the kind of stuff somebody posts on an online forum in 2005 and no one believes it"

A modder has made Grey Fox playable in the original Metal Gear Solid, and it's way more impressive than it sounds.

Despite Snake (and Snake, and Snake, and Snake, and…) being a contender for the greatest video game character of all time, Metal Gear has a variety of side characters that all absolutely rule, and many hope for the chance to play as them. And while there's been the odd opportunity to play as whoever isn't the main protagonist of a given game (Tanker and Snake Tales in MGS2, Ocelot in Metal Gear Online), Metal Gear is pretty strict about having you play as the main character.

One such legendary side character is Grey Fox, who – after appearances in the MSX2 originals – appeared in Metal Gear Solid 1 as the series' first Cyborg Ninja. The character was so popular that he was the selling point and cover star of Metal Gear Solid: VR Missions, where he was briefly playable for a couple of missions. And while Hideo Kojima wanted the character to get his own game as a sequel to Metal Gear Rising, it never materialized.

However, Grey Fox is finally getting his day in the cold alaska moon, as YouTube user Perfect Pizza has released a first look at the final version of their "Playable Grey Fox mod" for Metal Gear Solid. On first read this may not sound that impressive, perhaps the thought of "oh they just moved the VR Missions character into the main game," crossed your mind? Well this mod is not nearly that simple.

Watching the trailer, right away you'll notice you have access to Grey Fox's arm cannon, which saw use throughout Metal Gear Solid, but never actually got used in his previous playable appearance. The High Frequency Blade has gotten a buff too with a new trailing effect and the ability to ricochet bullets back at enemies, and there's new movement options with crouch walking introduced. The mod promises a ton of changes, like "automatic open and close face visor upon alert,""custom animations," and "custom codec calls".

On the mods Discord, Perfect Pizza explains "This mod uses the PSX decompilation project’s ability to modify the game’s C code and build a new executable using the developer version of Metal Gear Solid." Adding "At the time of creation, neither the AI Grey Fox boss nor the playable VR Ninja have been fully decompiled. As a result, everything shown so far has been recreated through reverse engineering, existing game code, experimentation, and educated guesses."

They explain, "The goal is to let players experience an expanded version of Grey Fox vs what was given to us in VR missions with as many of his signature abilities and some new ones as the game’s limitations allow, while preserving core gameplay features such as crawling, elevators, weapons, and environmental interaction." and that "This project also lays the groundwork for a future version that could allow players to experience the entire game as Grey Fox."

Perfect Pizza also says "This is not a complete story-mode conversion" but that "A separate project, which I am not affiliated with, is working toward making the full campaign playable by rebuilding all the stage overlays and making the compiled exe shiftable. The future of a complete Grey Fox playthrough depends heavily on that effort."

Regardless it's an impressive mod that actually allows playable Grey Fox found in VR Missions to live up to the version we hoped he would be all along, and even if a full version doesn't show up, it'll be fun to play about with.

After almost 25 years, Metal Gear Solid 2 players are still finding secrets: "This is the kind of stuff somebody posts on an online forum in 2005 and no one believes it"

After the news that Sony will be sunsetting PlayStation discs, Hideo Kojima has spoken out on the importance of physical media.

"Since production is ending in 2028, this is about video games, but I grew up with physical media, so I find it really sad," Kojima said at the Il Cinema in Piazza film festival (translated via Genki_JPN). "Currently, I've been buying up a lot of Blu-rays, such as various movies, and CDs too.

"The situation is different for games, as they are downloaded to the hard drive, that means the game data remains on your own hardware. However, if things shift to streaming in the future, that won't be the case anymore," he continued.

"With streaming subscription services, like Netflix or Amazon, there is a server somewhere, and you essentially just have the right to turn the tap, and when you do, the data flows out. That's how movies work on these platforms, right? You don't download the data, you access it directly through a subscription. And the consequence of that is that you don't actually possess the data yourself.

"There are companies that own these servers and let you 'turn the tap' for a monthly fee. However, with nations, politics and various ways of thinking, one naturally has to consider the possibility that if there is a change, the data inside will stop being distributed. And if that happens you won't be able to watch or play the movies and games you like. That is what is frightening.

"So, what is happening to video games in 2028, might also happen to movies. I'd like everyone to keep that in mind," he said.

One hot topic in streaming has been movies or shows getting deleted from their streaming homes, effectively rendering them lost media. For example, Disney and Lucasfilm's Willow TV show was removed from Disney Plus and, since it never got a physical release, you can no longer watch it.

As for games, the shift might already be here ahead of 2028, as GTA 6 will ship out codes in boxes rather than a physical disc.

"As consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift away from physical discs to digital, physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028. Following this date, new games will be available on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only. This transition has no impact on games that already released, or will be releasing, prior to January 2028 in disc format," Sid Shumen, senior director of SIE's content communications, announced in a post on the official PlayStation site.

"This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs. This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today.

"We'll continue to prioritize our resources to drive innovation in how players can access games and provide choices as to where players prefer to purchase new games, whether that's at retailers or PlayStation Store. We remain committed to delivering a world-class gaming experience to our fans and we thank you for your continued support," the post concluded.

Keep up to date with all of this year's biggest film releases with our guide to the most exciting upcoming movies.

Metal Gear and Death Stranding mastermind Hideo Kojima is "really sad" about Sony's decision to stop producing physical copies of new PlayStation games in 2028, calling the idea of not being able to access the media we want in the future "frightening."

I'm not sure I can think of a single person who's happy about PlayStation's move to soon kill off its new physical games – it's devastating news for collectors, worrying for game preservationists, and raises concerns about all sorts of things from ownership to the second-hand game market, sharing with friends, and more. Kojima is understandably also upset, as he reveals in comments at the Il Cinema in Piazza film festival (translated by @Genki_JPN on Twitter).

"Since production is ending in 2028, this is about video games, but I grew up with physical media, so I find it really sad," he begins. "Currently, I've been buying up a lot of Blu-rays, such as various movies, and CDs too.

"The situation is different for games, as they are downloaded to the hard drive, that means the game data remains on your own hardware. However, if things shift to streaming in the future, that won't be the case anymore."

He looks to streaming services like Netflix as he notes that "there is a server somewhere, and you essentially just have the right to turn the tap, and when you do, the data flows out." However, he continues, because you don't download the data of those movies and shows, but rather gain access to them via your subscription, "the consequence of that is that you don't actually possess the data yourself."

And there lies a bigger problem – while the "companies that own these servers" will "let you 'turn the tap' for a monthly fee," things might not stay the same forever. "With nations, politics and various ways of thinking, one naturally has to consider the possibility that if there is a change, the data inside will stop being distributed," Kojima says. "And if that happens you won't be able to watch or play the movies and games you like. That is what is frightening."

As a huge fan of movies, Kojima clearly has concerns that this same issue approaching PlayStation could end up impacting the film industry, too. "So, what is happening to video games in 2028, might also happen to movies," he adds. "I'd like everyone to keep that in mind."

Kojima is far from the only developer worried about the death of physical media – last week's news saw many devs and publishers speak out against Sony's decision, with Larian Studios publishing director Michael Douse calling the situation "heartbreaking." Sony apparently already has another use for its disc factory in the form of microlenses, and has reportedly recently invested €30 million into the technology for manufacturing them. Needless to say, it doesn't seem likely that the company could backtrack on the idea, despite the mass backlash.

PlayStation's disc-less future could "heavily influence" Xbox and Nintendo's approach to physical games, former Sony boss says, calling the decision "dramatic."

The gaming world is getting philosophical ahead of the end of PlayStation game discs, and you can count Hideo Kojima among those concerned about the world's move to ephemeral digital data. At least, he was quite concerned about it back in 2021, and given today's news his five-year-old comments have taken on a new life.

"Eventually, even digital data will no longer be owned by individuals on their own initiative," Kojima said in a tweet on August 5, 2021. "Whenever there is a major change or accident in the world, in a country, in a government, in an idea, in a trend, access to it may suddenly be cut off. We will not be able to freely access the movies, books, and music that we have loved. I would be a have-not. That's what I'm afraid of. This is not greed."

There's a, uh, lot to chew on in there that goes well beyond your ability to get GTA 6 on a disc, but I'm not about to start philosophizing on the spread and decay of information in the modern era. Suffice to say, many players have found Kojima's words fairly prophetic in light of the PlayStation news, even if he didn't mention games specifically here. The tweet got some engagement back in 2021, but now you'll find thousands more quotes, replies, and retweets made just today.

Kojima already has a reputation for being a pop culture prophet. The world of Death Stranding, released in 2019, felt scarily close to the one we all began living as part of the COVID-19 pandemic, and way back in 2001 Metal Gear Solid 2 was predicting a future where AI feeds us half-truths by processing massive piles of junk data across the internet for easy consumption. The gaming world's cultlike admiration of Kojima might be a little extreme, but the man certainly knows how to build sci-fi that feels distressingly real as time goes on.

And, of course, Kojima himself is responsible for one of the most bitter reminders of what happens when a publisher fully cuts support for a digital game. PT was intended to be something of a demo for Silent Hills, but in the wake of that project's cancellation and Kojima's messy breakup with Konami, PT was delisted from the PlayStation Store. Not only that, Konami even prohibited users who'd played it from redownloading the game.

PT is perhaps the most extreme example we have of what happens when publishers do not care what happens to their digital games, and its reputation has only grown stronger given how high it stands among the best horror games of all time. Wanting to hang onto games like this? I don't think that's greedy, either.

Hideo Kojima says his pitch for OD sounded "crazy" to every publisher except Xbox.

Renowned video game developer and internet darling Hideo Kojima has become an action figure.

More specifically, he's going to be an adorable Nendoroid toy. Created by the Good Smile Company, these figures have built up a reputation for being high-quality, stylized display figures that look like chibi artwork come to life (AKA some of the best toys around, because c'mon – look at them). Now that same treatment has been applied to Hideo Kojima, and it's actually a bit eerie how well they've captured the famed game designer down to his intense stare and knowing smile.

Available to pre-order as we speak, the Hideo Kojima Nendoroid figure is $38.99 from Good Smile and is due to ship around this time next year. (Yes, the amount of time toy production can take is wild.)

Besides extensive articulation that allows you to pose the toy however you want, this mini Kojima comes with a host of alternate looks and a couple of accessories – there's a serious face, smiling face, thinking face, thumbs up, glasses, sunglasses, and a Ludens Duck. He's also wearing a Kojima Productions t-shirt, because of course he is.

Personally speaking, I'm a big fan of Nendoroids – to the point that I've made it my life's mission to get the Wind Waker version of Link, because it's truly magnificent. There's just so much character to them; you'd need a heart of pure, frigid ice not to be brought a smattering of joy by looking at them. Plus, they feel incredibly premium despite being quite affordable on the whole. Trust me, that's not always the case in the collectibles market; you're frequently paying through the nose for the privilege.

What do you think of the Kojima Nendoroid? Will you be adding it to your shelf, so he can peer pensively at you while you play OD or other upcoming Kojima games?

For more cool replicas, be sure not to miss the best Lego sets.

Hideo Kojima says he was called "crazy" while pitching the concept for his upcoming horror game OD, and only former Xbox CEO Phil Spencer understood what he was trying to do.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Kojima explains that he had trouble getting OD picked up by any publisher since "I pitched to many people, to the big companies, and also to the up-and-coming companies. All of them said the same thing."

Kojima continues, "They said that I'm crazy, and that they really don't understand the concept – that they will not be able to do it."

First unveiled during The Game Awards 2023 (following leaks the prior year as Overdose), OD claims it's going to be a horror experience "no one has ever seen before," and it's being made in collaboration with the likes of horror director Jordan Peele and a larger group of collaborators Kojima is calling his "Avengers." OD's concept (and namesake) is for the player to "overdose" on horror, with Kojima hyping it up as a game that goes "beyond the limit of 'scariness.'"

The idea ultimately appealed to Phil Spencer, who understood the concept and took it on board. Current Xbox CEO Asha Sharma also calls the project a "deeply moving game." She adds, "I've got great artists and creatives that can pick a great game better than I can, and so I want to give it space, but most importantly, I think it just represents another kind of game."

OD currently doesn't have a release date, and outside of a very naked leak and a couple of quick trailers, we really don't know too much about what it has to offer. It seems like the studio was waiting until Death Stranding 2 launched before going all-in on development, as Kojima said his studio was just beginning to work on OD last year. Both OD and Kojima's upcoming stealth game Physint were impacted by the SAG-Aftra strike in 2024, so it'll probably be The Game Awards at the earliest before we see another glimpse of them.

Hideo Kojima recommended Norman Reedus his "favorite" anime, and it sounds like The Walking Dead actor wants to turn it into a live-action movie.

If video game royalty Hideo Kojima is to be believed, Kojima Productions' upcoming single-player horror game OD is going to scare you so much that you'll contemplate quitting, but the game is designed in such a way to help you persevere.

If that all sounds incredibly vague and confusing, don't blame me. Kojima tiptoed around the topic of OD in an interview with Entertainment Weekly for Xbox's 25th anniversary. He's been tightlipped about the project since its reveal back in 2023, and it doesn't help that he's previously described it as "a new form of media" that "explores the concept of testing your fear threshold, and what it means to OD on fear." What exactly that means still isn't clear, but Kojima says there's a whole new system that'll help you navigate the horror if OD happens to go beyond your threshold for fear.

"I wanted to go beyond the limit of the 'scariness' that other games had reached," he says. "It's a single-player game, and I wanted to make it as scary as possible.

"But for those that might stop playing when it gets too scary, I have thought of a system that will allow them to keep going. I can't say much more, because it'll give too much of a hint on the system, and I could get in trouble for saying too much!"

As a self-professed scaredy cat, who just happens to love horror games much to the detriment of my blood pressure, I'm cautiously reassured by this. Kojima is responsible for one of the scariest games I've ever played in PT, and if that "playable teaser" was any longer than an hour or so, there's no way I would've been able to beat it in one sitting. I'm relieved to hear Kojima and co. are considering wimps like me while developing OD, but it's hard to feel completely comfortable until we know the details of this new system.

Capcom tackled the issue of fear thresholds masterfully in Resident Evil Requiem, which frequently bounces between the unbearably tense Grace Ashcroft sections and the cathartic, action-packed Leon Kennedy sequences, offering much-needed breaks from the tension that you don't get in Resident Evil 7 Biohazard, which director Koshi Nakanishi has admitted was "possibly too scary." Hopefully we'll learn more soon about Kojima's plans to keep sissies like me from tapping out while playing OD.

Hideo Kojima recommended Norman Reedus his "favorite" anime, and it sounds like The Walking Dead actor wants to turn it into a live-action movie.

Metal Gear Solid 2 is now approaching 25 years old, and players are still discovering things about the classic game.

Metal Gear Solid 2 is one of the PS2 titles that truly felt 'next-gen' when it came out, or so I'm told since I was five at the time and only cared about Crash Bandicoot. But all of the little details that make that game's world so special are well known now – things like how the ice cubes would melt slowly if you shot the bucket at the bar, or Snake getting a cold if he stays out in the cold too long.

And yet, multiple playthroughs later (including one about a month ago), and I never knew about one hidden detail, and it looks like almost no one else did, either. "After more than 2 decades of playing MGS2, I thought I'd seen everything, then this happened", a user on Reddit writes, sharing an extremely specific interaction that can happen towards the end of the Tanker chapter.

When Snake is making his way to the room where Metal Gear Ray is housed, there are multiple open areas you can hide in off to the side, but as has now been discovered, peeking round the corner at the approaching enemy will cause a metal pipe to fall, alerting them.

The comments are just as shocked as me to find this out, with the top response saying: "Holy shit, what? Same here. This game is legendary, man." A response adds: "I think the insane level of detail on these games, particularly MGS2 and MGS3 is often overlooked. I was absolutely blown away by MGS2 when I was a teenager playing it for the first time, and even now I think the graphics and overall environment design are unbelievable." Meanwhile, another puts it perfectly, "This is the kind of stuff somebody posts on an online forum in 2005 and no one believes it to be real."

And sure, a pipe falling over isn't exactly mind-blowing stuff, but it's just one of the myriad details that makes Metal Gear Solid as a series so beloved.

Metal Gear Solid Snake actor David Hayter didn't understand all of Hideo Kojima's story while recording, but says he didn't need to: "That's what makes Metal Gear, Metal Gear."

Metal Gear and Death Stranding mastermind Hideo Kojima has stated that he's "not interested" in AI-generated art, despite his recent appearance in an AI-generated short film created by Pusher and Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn (who also did the motion capture for Heartman in Death Stranding and its sequel).

Late last month, many Kojima fans weren't exactly pleased to see the game director – or rather, an AI-generated version of him – show up in an AI-generated video promoting Satellites 2, a new Prada Mode art exhibition that's been open to the public in New York over the last few days. The video sent Kojima's AI lookalike on a journey through space alongside AI Refn, before landing on Earth and seemingly checking into the Hotel Chelsea, where the exhibition was being held.

Now, though, at the exhibition itself, Kojima has expressed disinterest in the technology. Speaking to The Washington Post, he explains that he thinks real people need to be present when art is created.

"Art is life," he begins. "But in 50 years, 100 years, I don't know. Maybe AI could create art, but while I live, I don't think I'll see it. I'm not interested in it."

Kojima continues: "We'll find a good way, a good path to how we use technology, and it's really up to young people on how we use it."

The Metal Gear creator has shared his take on AI numerous times over the last year or so – he previously said that instead of using AI to come up with ideas, he would personally "lead the creative part and use AI to boost efficiency" and "handle the tedious tasks." He also once spoke about the "trend" of AI "coming into game creation" and likened it to an evolution like games becoming 3D and using online connectivity.

I can't help but wonder if Kojima's now clearly stated disinterest in AI art could partially come in response to the negativity that followed his appearance in the Satellites 2 video. To be clear, he didn't personally create it, but his association with it didn't go down very well, to put it lightly. Even so, he doesn't acknowledge this backlash at all when speaking to The Washington Post, so it remains somewhat unclear exactly where he stands on that specific video.

Hideo Kojima learns that Higgs is the world's favorite Death Stranding 2 character, but he's just glad all his children have fans.

Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding 2 director Hideo Kojima has finally gone to space thanks to a new short film from Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn, though you'd have to wonder if the price of admission was worth it. Reactions to the video, made with the aid of GenAI, are swiftly being met with disappointment from many of Kojima's fans, to put it mildly.

As reported by Women's Wear Daily, the 14th edition of the Prada Mode event was previewed at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this week. Part of that involved the film in question, which sees Kojima traveling through space, crashing on a planet, and finding the Chelsea Hotel – the site of Prada Mode.

"Throughout our extended friendship, Hideo Kojima and I have shared the feeling that we were somehow split from the same consciousness moving through different lives while orbiting the same obsessions. That idea became the spark for a film: a space odyssey following us as we traverse a sci-fi dreamscape," Winding Refn says, adding, "the project is both an artistic experiment and a playful exploration of new creative possibilities through AI technology."

And so, Kojima goes to space, something the director has been talking about for years, which also saw Valve boss Gabe Newell set up a SpaceX tour that doesn't appear to have gone ahead yet.

So it goes with films made with AI; it looks terrible. Kojima's face morphs into different faces pretty much every time you see him, and it has that general filter of crap that is prevalent in all AI art. Clearly, hiring people to hang out on a soundstage with low-budget props is clearly too much effort, even if 60's Star Trek holds up better.

Reactions to the post on Twitter have evoked the reactions you'd expect: "Heartbreaking to see such great artists resort to generative AI slop," one response says, while Alien Earth artist Reid Southen responds, "With all the resources you have, AI is what you're going with here? And it's even worse than the typical slop." While another puts it perfectly: "This looks like shit from a butt."

While I'm not too bothered about Winding Refn, seeing Kojima involved in this is extremely disappointing. Obviously, he's always seems keen to mix it up with anyone in Hollywood, but signing on to this after releasing multiple games that directly touch on this is a bit embarrassing. One Bluesky user summed it up well by posting, "Kojima: At long last, we have created The Patriots from my iconic video game Metal Gear Solid 2: Do Not Create the Patriots."

Maybe it's just because Metal Gear Solid 2 is fresh in my mind after a recent replay. Hopefully, this is a one-off, because my goat is washed otherwise.

Reminisce over better times by seeing how good Metal Gear Solid 4 looks in its upcoming Master Collection treatment.

Konami has revealed the first gameplay of Metal Gear Solid 4 in Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol 2, and fans have noticed subtle changes and the return of the iPod.

While Metal Gear Solid 4 was in PS3 jail, many speculated that it was just a game that would be impossible to bring back, thanks to all its dumb little details and licensed content. But in a stream on the WasayaganaTV YouTube channel – hosted by Jujutsu Kaisen actor Yuichi Nakamura and radio personality Mafia Kajita – we got our first look at Guns of the Patriots running on new platforms. And within the steam it was shown that the Apple iPod is back in the game, signaling the return of its licensed content.

We didn't see them in the stream, but elsewhere in Metal Gear Solid 4, Otacon uses an Apple Mac computer, so it's probably safe to assume that sticks. There's also a crossover with Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed series, which allows Snake to don Altaïr's robes while sneaking around – this was confirmed to be returning in an interview around the time Solid Snake was added to Rainbow Six Siege. Also, fans spotted that the "No place for Hideo" box is still in the game; however, the link to the now-defunct Hideoblog was removed.

Naturally, however, fans are speculating about how some of the PS3-specific parts will translate. Notably, there's an iconic scene during the game's Shadow Moses segment, in which Otacon pushes Snake to swap to disk 2 before realizing "we're on PlayStation 3" before talking about how good Blu-ray discs are. The question is whether this scene will remain in the game as is, be replaced with new voice lines about the specific consoles, or be nixed entirely.

The rest of the stream also showed some of the improvements coming to this version. Notably, Metal Gear Solid 4 running at 60fps is witchcraft we could've only dreamed of, and as one Twitter user pointed out, the loading times are way shorter when transitioning between areas. Although if you aren't stuck on a loading screen between chapters staring at Snake smoking for 15 minutes, are you really playing Metal Gear Solid 4?

I replayed Metal Gear Solid 4 last year for the first time in about a decade after beating Metal Gear Solid Delta, but I may just find myself returning to it sooner than expected to experience the upgrades on show.

Metal Gear Solid Snake actor David Hayter didn't understand all of Hideo Kojima's story while recording, but says he didn't need to: "That's what makes Metal Gear, Metal Gear"

A modder is fixing an issue that has persisted with Metal Gear Solid 3 since 2011's HD Collection release – one that most people didn't really notice.

Metal Gear Solid 3 is the greatest game ever made – this was the subject of the first thing I ever wrote for GamesRadar+, about a game I've inhaled as many times as Kirby inhales a Waddle Dee. And yet, somehow, I never noticed that the 2011 HD collection version of the game, which was then ported over to Master Collection in 2023, actually had a broken camera in it the whole time.

As spotted by PC Gamer, Afevis Solmunko, one of the developers behind the MGSFix mod – who also found a hidden third-person mode in Metal Gear Solid 2's HD port – is working on a fix for the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection to fix the framing of cutscenes so that they match how they appeared in the PS2 original.

"In both 2011 [HD Collection] & 2023 [Master Collection], the camera in ALL of MGS3's cutscenes is ~10% higher than PS2's framing, cutting off the bottom of the screen," he explains. "Now fully corrected/properly centered by MGSHDFix."

Turns out, Metal Gear Solid 2 has the same issue, with Solmunko also speaking about potentially fixing that one, too, in a message on the Metal Gear Network Discord server.

Granted, there aren't massive things being missed in the HD version's framing, as in, there's nothing as bad as The Simpsons was on Disney+ at launch. Clearly so, since most of us never actually noticed the difference for 15 years.

Metal Gear Solid's Snake actor didn't want to sound like the character Hideo Kojima took so much inspiration from it reportedly nearly got him sued.

Hideo Kojima has shared his verdict on Return to Silent Hill – and he says a lot with very few words.

"Watched 'Return to Silent Hill' on Amazon Prime," he wrote on Twitter. Ouch.

Kojima is known for his long, poetic reviews for movies he loves, but he never posts a negative review. When he posts shorter, sparser summaries, then, fans immediately assume he hates what he's just seen (by contrast, for example, Kojima's glowing review of Stephen King adaptation The Long Walk clocked in at 219 words).

And he wouldn't be the only one to have a less favorable view of Return to Silent Hill. The movie has a score of only 18% on Rotten Tomatoes, with our own Return to Silent Hill review giving the film 1.5 stars. Our reviewer criticized "a confusing plot, mediocre visual effects, and over-the-top acting" in director Christopher Gan's new take on the franchise.

Loosely based on the 2001 video game Silent Hill 2, Return to Silent Hill stars Jeremy Irvine as James Sunderland. The movie does what it says on the tin, as James returns to the town of Silent Hill after he receives a letter from a former lover. But, when he gets there, he finds that the town is now covered in fog and most of its inhabitants have left or died due to a mysterious disease.

Return to Silent Hill is now available to rent at home. For more, check out our guide to the best upcoming video game movies on the way in 2026 and beyond.

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Hideo Kojima is one of the most major figures in the gaming biz - I mean, after all, his genius mind (and past teams at both Konami and Kojima Productions) did bring us the likes of Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding, to name but a few, which makes him worth putting on a pedestal.

Being behind so many major gaming franchises means that there's plenty of merch out there with his name on it, and quite literally too. If you're a die-hard Kojima fan and want to show off your fandom for the man who's brought you countless hours of entertainment (and countless head scratches), then you can pick up everything from Kojima Productions shirts to an official Metal Gear solid mouse mats, and even cute chibi figures of Sam and Higgs from Death Stranding 2 that can sit on your monitor.

While Kojima doesn't have his hand in Konami releases these days, I've still gathered a fair share of merchandise spanning his projects past and present, so there's a little something for every type of Kojima fan. I even found an official anime model of the Kojima Productions lumens mascot by Kotobukiya, because of course that exists.

Check out our guides to the best Nintendo gifts and the best Lego sets if you're after more gaming merch to add to your growing collection.

After 15 years, Metal Gear Solid 2's unfinished third-person camera mode has finally been found in the Master Collection version of the stealth classic.

Afevis Solmunko – one of the developers behind the MGSFix mod, which spruces up the PC version of Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol 1 – posts on Twitter (spotted by PC Gamer), "accidentally found third person view in MGS2MC" while sharing videos of it in action. They note "it locks the camera to overhead view when in super-tight corridors so you don't clip through walls, but otherwise... yeah, it been there for 15 years."

15 years in this case refers to the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, released by Bluepoint Games in 2011, and the basis for the versions of Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 in Master Collection.

As a user in the responses points out, series creator Hideo Kojima mentioned in an interview around the release of HD Collection that "we experimented with putting a 3D camera in there" and turns out the experiments were hidden in there the whole time. This change effectively gives Metal Gear Solid 2 the same treatment as Metal Gear Solid 3 Subsistence, where you can turn it into a more traditional third-person shooter style of play.

It's definitely going to be fun to return to Metal Gear Solid 2 to check this out, but I can also see it being a Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes situation. The GameCube remake of the original Metal Gear Solid added in the first-person aiming from its sequel, which in turn absolutely killed the balance of the game, since the world wasn't planned for you being able to properly aim (the most notable being the Revolver Ocelot fight, which becomes a total joke). So, a third-person MGS2 could definitely see the same balance issues, but as a fun way to replay the game, I'd have loved to see an official version of this emerge for the HD Collection.

Metal Gear Solid's Snake actor didn't want to sound like the character Hideo Kojima took so much inspiration from it reportedly nearly got him sued.

Hideo Kojima recently polled fans on their favorite Death Stranding 2 trailer, and obviously, the winner was Higgs. But while Troy Baker's villain came out on top, he didn't run away with the votes. Kojima himself is pretty happy about that, since he's been pouring his heart into character creation for years and can now rest assured that all his children have their fans.

If you've stumbled upon Tomorrow's Nightmare in Death Stranding 2, you've already been asked to choose between Higgs, Rainy, Fragile, and Tomorrow. The game doesn't really present any criteria for the choice, simply imploring you to "choose well." Are you meant to pick your favorite character? The one you'd like Sam to become romantically entangled with? (That would be weird for a lot of reasons.) The one you feel the deepest spiritual connection to? That's for you to decide.

Kojima put the question a lot more simply when he polled his followers on Twitter. "Which character is your favorite?" the poll asks (via machine translation), with the same four options represented. With 1,443 votes counted, Higgs took 33.8% of the responses, with Tomorrow coming in second at 30.3%. That left Fragile in third with 24%, and Rainy in fourth with a still respectable 11.9%.

"Higgs was the top favorite, but since all four had fans, that puts me at ease," Kojima said (again via machine translation) after the poll had run its course. "It's not just DS—up until now, I've always poured especially a lot of love into character creation."

Of course, Kojima's games have always toed a fine line between a loving gaze and an uncomfortable leer at their central characters, and that's especially true now that they're all modeled on real-world actors. Certainly, Death Stranding 2 was built to give us a whole lot of time with Norman Reedus' butt and Elle Fanning's feet.

But I think the fact that it's the campy, melodramatic Higgs leading the poll that suggests that Kojima's devotion to his characters does help fans build a real connection to them. After all, a cadre of impossibly attractive movie stars has nothing on an evil robot cowboy with clown makeup and a guitar gun.

Hideo Kojima said Half-Life had a "kind of soul" which Japanese games lacked, and Metal Gear Solid 2 was directly inspired by Valve's classic FPS.

Hideo Kojima wants to go to space. He's made this very known, and frankly, I'm not sure the world would be ready for whatever game he'd come up with after escaping the planet for a while. But Valve boss Gabe Newell was clearly eager to help the Metal Gear mastermind make the right connections, as emails have now been released showing Newell asking Elon Musk to give Kojima a tour of SpaceX.

As spotted by PC Gamer, the newly revealed emails have appeared as part of the Musk v Altman lawsuit, listed in the "amended joint exhibit list" filed on April 24. For some background, Musk is suing the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman (who's also one of the co-founders alongside Musk), and the company itself, with the first complaint filed in August 2024 alleging that "Altman assured Musk that the non-profit structure" of OpenAI "guaranteed neutrality and a focus on safety and openness for the benefit of humanity, not shareholder value. But as it turns out, this was all hot-air philanthropy – the hook for Altman's long con."

Anyway, this email from Newell dates back to October 2018, and he gets right to the point. Kojima - "Metal Gear series, a real visionary in our field" - had just visited Valve, "talking about his new game," he says – which we can infer was the first Death Stranding, given the timing of his visit (and resulted in a delightful photo of the pair). Newell says Kojima "mentioned the importance he places on future work in AI."

This part isn't too surprising – more recently, the Death Stranding mastermind has stated that he'd "like AI to handle the tedious tasks that would lower cost and cut down on time," but "would lead the creative part" himself. However, while he can see uses for the technology, he's also expressed concerns that "humans would become spoiled" if they became too reliant on it.

Emailing Musk, Newell says he told Kojima that he'd be "happy to introduce him to the people at OpenAI," but that's not all. "The second thing is he was talking about how much he wants to go into space, and I offered to introduce him to you," Newell writes. "He'd love to get a SpaceX tour."

Responding to Newell's email, Musk seems enthusiastic about the idea. "Sure, it would be great to meet Hideo Kojima and he's welcome to see the rocket factory," Musk writes, telling the Valve boss to "send him my email."

Sadly, this plan still hadn't come to fruition by 2020, when Kojima seemingly made reference to some of these details in an interview with The Game Awards host Geoff Keighley. Mentioning that he visited Valve "maybe four, five years ago" (which would place this well before Newell's 2018 email, so the timeline isn't entirely clear here), Kojima explains: "Gabe said, 'Since we love space so much, let's go visit SpaceX because I know Elon Musk, and I'll contact him, and let's go.'" Poor Kojima seemed slightly disappointed, however, when he added: "Actually, I was really anticipating really going together, but we haven't done that yet."

That didn't lead to Kojima giving up on his dream, though. In 2023, he explained that "I want to go to outer space and create a game you can play in space," pleading: "Please someone send me up to space." Then, last year, he told The Guardian that he wants to "go to the International Space Station and stay there for a few months," adding: "I could probably make games in space. I want to be the first."

At the very least, an image of Kojima appears in the night sky in Death Stranding 2, so he's made it up there in some form. But who knows, perhaps one day we'll see him and Newell set off to the moon together.

Valve chief Gabe Newell saw today's consoles coming a long time ago: "All the consoles are using PC graphics hardware now."

Despite being the star of the series, Metal Gear Solid actor David Hayter says he doesn't fully understand the story of the series either.

Speaking to Fall Damage, Hayter is asked about the series' storyline, responding, "Do I understand the story of Metal Gear Solid? Uh, basically I do; Do I understand all of it? Absolutely not," adding, "I didn't understand all of it while we were recording it."

"I'd be like, 'What does this mean?' and they'd say, 'just say it. And I'd be like, 'Okay.'" Hayter recalls. But he doesn't begrudge the series for it, as he adds, "again, that's what makes Metal Gear, Metal Gear." Hayter explains, "There's more information. There's more character development. There's more detail to the story than you can ever possibly absorb, no matter how many times you play it." He adds, "that's what makes the world feel real and rich and lovable."

Metal Gear is one of those series that gets hit with the 'nonsensical story' stick often, and while it does venture into some wild territory, the core storyline has always been pretty easy to follow. Not to mention it takes place across seven canon games, so we're hardly talking about Kingdom Hearts or Persona, where a golf spinoff would somehow be canon.

Although even the most hardcore of Metal Gear fans like myself will admit that it got a touch convoluted around Metal Gear Solid 4, with elements like a possessed character actually just brainwashing themselves to think they were possessed for two games, a character who was immune to the villain's greatest weapon because he has chronic IBS, and some frankly dumb retcons to tie things into other games.

Metal Gear Solid's Snake actor didn't want to sound like the character Hideo Kojima took so much inspiration from it reportedly nearly got him sued

Metal Gear Solid lead actor David Hayter says he intentionally didn't try to mimic Snake's inspiration when creating the voice for the character.

Speaking to Fall Damage, Hayter says, "When we started Metal Gear and I started taking on Snake, I didn't want him to sound like Kurt Russell from Escape from New York." He explains: "I knew that there were similarities there and I felt like he needed to sound more weathered, you know, that he had been through a lot more than I had been through at that point in my life."

Russell played the character Snake Plissken in the film, a mullet-donning, cigarette-smoking, eyepatch-wearing badass, to which Hideo Kojima was clearly inspired for both Solid Snake and Big Boss. He even acknowledged this, with Metal Gear Solid 2 introducing Iroquois Pliskin a character who looks suspiciously like Solid Snake (but it couldn't be, he died on that tanker two years ago).

Before Hayter was replaced as Big Boss – with Kiefer Sutherland playing the role in Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes – Kojima actually tried to get Kurt Russell himself to play the character in Metal Gear Solid 3. Escape from New York director John Carpenter also revealed that the studio wanted to go after the game for ripping off the film, but "I told them not to do that. I know the director of those games, and he's a nice guy, or at least he's nice to me."

Hayter has a point, though, while Metal Gear Solid was many people's entry point to the franchise, Solid Snake was already in retirement by the time that game took place, with the original MSX2 games taking place 10 and six years before the PS1 title (where he would get a voice for the first time). So, the weathered take on the character was probably the right one, and would prove to be one of the most iconic voices in gaming.

Hideo Kojima and Dark Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki's games have something other AAA titles don't, former PlayStation boss says: "You can tell it's their visions."

Former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida says he prefers indie games because you can feel the developer's vision, something he feels that isn't present in most AAA releases.

Speaking to GameSpot in a new interview, Yoshida, former president of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios, says: "You can feel the game developer's vision in indie games because indie game developers don't have to ask for approvals." He adds, "I used to work at a large company at PlayStation, and even though we are allowed to have the developer and studio propose what games to make, there are many people involved."

When it comes to AAA releases, he says "It's really hard to tell who is the creator" aside from a few notable exceptions. "Maybe [Hideo] Kojima-san is an exception, or maybe [Hidetaka] Miyazaki-san – you can tell it's their visions [when you play] their games, but most other AAA [games] are a group vision. It's not one person's vision."

Kojima, of course, made Death Stranding and its sequel, and it's hard to see anyone else in the AAA space manage to get away with 'game where you walk and deliver parcels and barely shoot things' without the Metal Gear Solid pedigree behind him. Meanwhile, Miyazaki's games released at a time where hardcore games were becoming rare in the AAA space, and gave birth to the Soulslike genre. Even though Elden Ring is massive, its the culmination of goodwill from creating beloved games for a long time.

Yoshida – who was a big proponent of bringing indie games to PlayStation during his tenure – explains that indie devs are "very excited about this certain subject, even though no one seems to be interested in the subject at the time, but after three years, that might become the latest and the most exciting thing," and in turn, the indie developers end up leading innovation for the entire industry.

"The AAA studios are big fans of many of these game designers and look at indie games for inspiration, and so the indie games play a really important role for the whole industry to keep innovating."

The unfortunate thing is that with the way the industry is now, where a massive game like Marvel's Spider-Man 2 reportedly needs to sell 7.2 million copies just to break even, playing it safe in the AAA space is a natural side effect, unless you're a Kojima and Miyazaki – proven creators with ingrained fanbases – thus given the space to get weird with it.

Of course, there are some who handle this better than others. Capcom is using the guaranteed money it makes from the likes of Monster Hunter, Resident Evil and Street Fighter and investing it in smaller and more esoteric projects like Exoprimal, Kinitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, and Pragmata, and while not everyone is a winner, you can't innovate without trying. Exoprimal and Kunitsu-Gami may have not set the world on fire, but Pragmata sold over 1 million copies in just two days and is one of Capcom's highest-rated Steam releases ever.

Releasing PlayStation games day one on PC isn't "a good strategy" for its AAA titles, former Sony head says, but he hasn't seen proof its abandoning the platform altogether.

Thanks to a visit by Hideo Kojima to Valve HQ, the internet is reminiscing about a note from the Metal Gear Solid 2 developer diary in which he recalls playing the original Half-Life.

There's a multitude of reasons many still cite 1998 as the greatest year ever for video game releases, and two of the reasons were Metal Gear Solid and Half-Life – two industry defining games that released months apart (there were also some other games you may have heard of like, Tekken 3, Resident Evil 2, Crash Bandicoot Warped, Baldur's Gate… I could fill out my entire wordcount with bangers). But when it came to Game of the Year, our friends at Edge picked… The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, but for some reason, Kojima singled out Half-Life.

In the January 12, 1999, entry, Kojima notes, "I asked Kume-chan to buy Half-Life for reference for MGS2," as it was selected as a nominee in Edge's Game of the Year awards. He explains, "While the graphics are somewhat underwhelming, the gameplay and attention to detail are astounding. Once again, I felt that sense of 'We’ve been outdone by the Americans!' Most of all, the atmosphere is incredible. The real-time direction is superb, and you can feel the soul of the creators in the game."

Kojima also says "Japanese blockbuster games lack this kind of soul" and that "While it's not an especially groundbreaking game, its careful attention to detail, direction, and mechanics is more than enough to build a compelling game world. Everything in the game can be destroyed, bullet holes appear, and when you throw wooden crates or barrels into the river, they float." Metal Gear Solid 2 is known for its level of interactivity – most famously, the bottles and realistically melting ice cubes on the Tanker area – so it wouldn't be a stretch to say Half-Life could have inspired this.

He also pretty much confirms that Half-Life is to thank for VR Missions returning in the Metal Gear sequel, saying, "Half-Life has a training mode called 'Hazard Course.' This was originally introduced by Tomb Raider, but it seems to have become standard in modern PC games. I had been thinking about removing VR mode from MGS2, but now I’m reconsidering."

Hideo Kojima sparks Xbox Project Helix speculation as he meets execs to pose with a mysterious box – but the reality probably isn't that exciting.

A picture of Hideo Kojima with Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and CCO Matt Booty has prompted speculation the developer might have his hands on Project Helix.

Over on Twitter, Kojima posts a photo of the trio after a visit to the Xbox offices, with him and Booty donning Kojima Productions x Xbox Game Studios jackets (presumably produced for OD). However, the interesting part of the photo is the case Kojima is holding, which has a label saying "Xbox for Kojima." Xbox has already confirmed it's working on its next console, Project Helix, so naturally some fans in the responses are assuming it's perhaps a dev kit for the upcoming console.

However, the box itself looks a bit too small to be a dev kit, as in most cases the dev kits for consoles are usually far bigger than the actual console turns out to be (unless Project Helix is really, really small). Not only that, but Xbox itself confirmed at GDC 2026 that dev kits for the upcoming console are being shipped out to developers in 2027, which we're still a little bit out from.

Kojima also met with other notable Xbox names like former CEO Phil Spencer and Master Chief during his visit to Microsoft, however, neither post gives any indication as to what he was doing there. Sharma also quotes the post, saying the meeting was a "wonderful way to close my first 60 days."

The Xbox-partnered horror game OD is next on the list of upcoming Hideo Kojima games, so hopefully this meeting is a good omen that we'll see more from the game in the near future.

Hideo Kojima flexes on NASA, shows Death Stranding 2 players traveled further than the Artemis 2 mission.

Now that Death Stranding 2 has been out on PlayStation 5 and PC for a while, plenty of folks have had the opportunity to experience the Hideo Kojima masterpiece – including Mike Ybarra, former Blizzard Entertainment lead and Xbox corporate vice president at Microsoft.

Ybarra reveals as much in a new online post, praising the game while sharing a screenshot of his Death Stranding 2 stats on Steam. It shows his hours spent in-game and achievements unlocked, which he has apparently 100% completed.

"91.8 hours, probably idle for 10-15 of those," writes the ex-Blizzard boss. "Hell of an experience, and beautiful graphics and sound throughout the entire game. Well done, Hideo Kojima and team."

It sounds like he thoroughly enjoyed it, which isn't all that surprising – after all, we're talking about the game that saw its PC port impressively surpass the Steam concurrent player peak of both versions of the original game combined in just 24 hours. Heck, it boasts thousands of reviews and an "Overwhelmingly Positive" rating with a perfect 5/5 score on Steam, too.

What is a bit mind-boggling, however, is Ybarra's admission in his comments.

Upon a fan asking which story is better – that of Death Stranding 2 or its 2019 predecessor – Ybarra shockingly replies, "1." In other words, the Microsoft veteran believes the original game has a better plot… or, at least, that's what it sounds like.

I suppose I can understand and respect that it's a matter of perspective, but not everyone agrees. One response to Ybarra reads, "Don't think it's remotely fair to even say that. It's a true sequel. The story is coupled."

Everyone's got their own opinion, I guess – I'd argue that, while Death Stranding 2 presents its "story" more quickly and apparently, the first game definitely harbors a surreal allure I'm not sure the second nails as well. So, I see where Ybarra's coming from… but I also get the other side.

All in all, though, I'm more impressed by the achievement completion. That's a whole "lot of deliveries," as Ybarra himself admits in the thread.

We'll just have to wait and see if Death Stranding 3 – which Kojima said he's already written a concept for but wants someone else to make – outdoes the first two games, should it ever come to fruition. Here's hoping it does.

Hideo Kojima flexes on NASA, shows Death Stranding 2 players traveled further than the Artemis 2 mission in the same time span.

Hideo Kojima is casually flexing on NASA by sharing a graphic showing the cumulative Sams in Death Stranding 2: On the Beach have travelled further than the Artemis 2 Lunar Flyby Mission did in the same 10-day period after the PC version launched.

In a graphic shared onto Hideo Kojima's Instagram account, titled "Sams vs Artemis 2," records taken "from a 10 day period after the PC version launch" are shown. Between April 1 and April 10, 2026, the Artemis 2 mission's Orion spacecraft had travelled 700,237 miles, but in that same period, Death Stranding 2 players had travelled 969,703 miles as Sam on-foot during in-game delivery missions.

Granted, it's not specified if this is just from the PC version of the game, or rather just a way to advertise the recently-released PC version, although I'm not sure why you would even specify in that case. But regardless, the Sam Porter Bridges hivemind has travelled further than a spacecraft and Kojima is going to flaunt that as is. One user points out the implications of counting every player, saying: "I like the idea of every instance of Sam controlled by us is canon, implying he did it all."

However, now the question is, will Kojima take this competition literally? If Death Stranding 3 ever happens, could we see Sam delivering packages through outer space in an effort to connect the galaxy? Probably not, but it should.

Hideo Kojima would "rather have the player walk away impacted than entertained," Troy Baker says.

Hideo Kojima still has plenty of creative fuel left in the tank, according to Death Stranding and The Last of Us actor Troy Baker.

Kojima's already put out hit after hit for decades, delivering wild spectacles and outlandish stories at every turn between the war-riddled Metal Gear Solid series, the nightmarish corridors of PT, and his two most recent Death Stranding games. But with the upcoming Hideo Kojima games - horror experiment OD and stealth-action game Physint - Baker told GamesRadar+ that the famed director's "not running out of ideas anytime soon" in an interview ahead of the 2026 BAFTA Game Awards.

"I've learned to trust Hideo, and he's not running out of ideas anytime soon," Baker says after portraying flamboyant antagonist Higgs in both Death Stranding and its sequel. "I think that there's a lot that he did to set up this world and these characters that we could extrapolate from. But I also understand him as a creator going, 'I don't want to spend the next 20, 30, years of my life in one world.' We've already seen he's got so many other ideas and things that are already in development."

"So, I guess, for me, I always try to approach this as an audience member, and what is it that I would want to appreciate from [creators], and if I get the opportunity to double down and be a part of it, then that's gravy," Baker adds. "That's a bonus. But at the end of the day, I think I just, for these creators and these developers that I've worked with, I think, at the end of the day, I'm more excited to see what they come up with next, and one way or another, be a part of it."

Decades into his already storied career, Kojima's clearly not hurting for new ideas. His Death Stranding games are almost allergic to the open-world trends that have followed the genre for the better part of two console generations, Physint is said to straddle the line between film and video games, and OD, well, I don't think anyone totally knows what's going on in OD.

Despite starring in The Last of Us, Death Stranding, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and many more, Troy Baker feels like he "just got started" and "my best work is ahead of me"