Kojima’s Return to Stealth with Physint Spurred by a Career-Threatening Brush with Mortality

Hideo Kojima has a lot of stuff on his plate, including Death Stranding 2 and the Xbox cloud-powered horror game OD, but perhaps the most exciting project for longtime fans is Physint, a new “action espionage” game in the vein of Metal Gear Solid. Since parting ways with Konami, Kojima has seemingly avoided a return to the stealth genre, so what convinced him to return?

In his latest HideoTube video, Kojima provided a surprisingly raw answer for return to stealth – during the pandemic Kojima became sick, to the point of needing surgery and making out a will. At a certain point, he thought his ability to make games may be over, which ultimately made him reassess his priorities.

Related Story Death Stranding 2 On The Beach SOP Trailer Was Captured on PS5; Visuals Could Improve Further

“So, why did I decide to make [Physint]? Well, first off, because I became independent I wanted to do something with my own IP. So, to challenge myself, I made [Death Stranding]. Then, to create a franchise, I made [Death Stranding 2]. And I wanted to do something even newer, so I started working on OD. And since then, there have been a lot of new ideas. But in the last eight years, every day on social media, from users all around the world, people have asked me to create another Metal Gear and stuff like that.

Then, I fell ill in 2020. It was also during the pandemic, so I was sick and isolated during all of it. I even had surgery. And I thought, ‘I can't anymore.’ I was at my lowest and felt like I couldn't go back to making games. I wrote a will, too. And in that moment, I realized that people die. But, I turned 60 last year. I'll turn 70 in ten years. I hope to never retire, having said that, if the users desire it so much, I thought I should change my priorities a bit. I still want to do new things, but I decided to make an action-espionage game.”

While Kojima has a blank check to make pretty much whatever he wants, it’s nice to know that, even at his lowest moment, he’s still