{"id":704039,"date":"2025-05-17T08:37:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-17T06:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/numero.com\/?p=704039"},"modified":"2026-04-01T11:01:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T09:01:07","slug":"inside-hideo-kojimas-incredible-studio-the-video-game-maestro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/numero.com\/en\/art\/inside-hideo-kojimas-incredible-studio-the-video-game-maestro\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Hideo Kojima’s incredible studio, the video game maestro"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Hideo\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Hideo Kojima wears a Jil Sander shirt and Hideo Kojima x J.F.Rey glasses. Portrait: Frederik Heyman for
Num\u00e9ro art<\/em>. Styling: Samuel Fran\u00e7ois. Hair: Yusuke Taniguchi at B Agency. Production assistant: Arthur Callegari. Special thanks to Scan Engine for providing the 3D scans.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Hideo Kojima opens the doors of his incredible studio<\/h2>\n\n

Nothing in the anonymous glass facade of 1 chome-2-70 Konan, in Tokyo<\/strong>‘s Shinagawa district, suggests what lies inside. After climbing a few steps to reception, where a security guard paces up and down, we spot our first clue: the reduced-size model of a Ludens, a steampunk cosmonaut in a white spacesuit whose glass-fronted helmet allows a glimpse of a man’s head in a black balaclava marked with a skull. This is the mascot of Kojima Productions<\/strong>, whose headquarters we are about to enter \u2013 exclusively \u2013 for Num\u00e9ro art<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>

Few are those who get to use this elevator, which takes us up to a maze of hushed corridors. The walls and the thick carpet are black. All is silent, the noisy capital far behind us. A few meters further on, we find ourselves in front of a mirror. Puzzled but curious, like Alice, we hear a \u201cbeep.\u201d Our reflection slides back; we are now on the other side of the looking glass. The blinding light from the room we have entered makes us screw up our eyes.<\/p><\/p>\n\n

\"Hideo\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Hideo Kojima wears a Mackage coat, a sweater and trousers by Dior Homme, and boots by Jil Sander. Portrait: Frederik Heyman for
Num\u00e9ro art<\/em>. In this portrait series, Frederik Heyman drew his inspiration from the universe and references dear to Hideo Kojima – the novel Inherit The Stars<\/em> by James P. Hogan and the film The Woman In The Dunes<\/em> by K\u014db\u014d Abe.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Kojima Productions, a sanctuary in the heart of Tokyo<\/h2>\n\n

Everything here is white. On either side, floor-to-ceiling mirrors create a sense of infinity. A life-size Ludens<\/strong> dominates the room, like a sphinx glaring at the profane as they prepare to enter the temple. Every Kojima Productions\u2019 guest must go through this initiation rite, and all will see their own references in the experience: Alice in Wonderland, The Matrix<\/em>, 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/em>, The Chronicles of Narnia<\/em>, or even Severance<\/em>. The principle is always the same: the master of the domain requires his visitors to purge themselves of the outside world before they enter. Now that we\u2019ve swallowed the red pill, we may proceed into the sanctuary.<\/p>

The appointment is not for another hour, but he has already come to greet us. As is often the case, he went to bed at 2:00 am the night before. He admits he stayed up to watch Jaws<\/em>, \u201cbut in 4K<\/em>,\u201d he adds. \u201cAnd tonight I might watch <\/em>2001: A Space Odyssey. When I’m feeling a bit down, I like <\/em>to watch great movies. They energize me<\/em>.\u201d Like many of us, Hideo Kojima<\/strong> regularly returns to his favorite films, which seems paradoxical for someone who is \u201cterrified of dying before I\u2019ve seen everything<\/em>.\u201d But he evidently finds solace in rewatching a cherished movie or series after a tough day. In this respect, Kojima is just like anyone else, but only in this respect…<\/p><\/p>\n\n

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https:\/\/youtu.be\/eT_A2gPhTIw?si=Wc8TTUAFpdN8titW<\/a><\/div><\/figure>\n\n

Like the building in which he works, nothing about the61-year-old\u2019s appearance hints at the crazy worlds that are born in his brilliant mind. Still waters run deep as they say. His classmates and teachers in Kansai probably saw only a sensitive child, traumatized by his father\u2019s early death, who sought comfort in books, films, and solitude.<\/p>\n\n

In the late 1980s, his colleagues at the video-game giant Konami are unlikely to have guessed that this young project manager, who proposed between 200 and 300 ideas a day, was dreaming up post-apocalyptic worlds in which biomechanical creatures, capable of changing the course of history, would be hunted by genetically modified elite soldiers against a backdrop of wars in which machines had become human, or scenarious where human fetuses carried in portable incubators would act as \u201cbridge babies\u201d between the land of the living and the world of the dead. Astonishing visions such as these would go on to provide tens of millions of players with some of their fondest memories as gamers.<\/p><\/p>\n\n

Hideo Kojima, a video game maestro<\/h2>\n\n

Try to imagine a ten-year-old\u2019s bedroom lit only by the light of a television on a school night in 1998. On the screen, the video game Metal Gear Solid<\/em>, released that year, pits the child against a seemingly unbeatable enemy. No YouTube tutorials or web searches are available to seek solutions. Imagine the joy, satisfaction, and excitement of those who correctly guessed that they had to switch the (wired!) handset from port 1 to port 2 in order to keep control of their avatar and solve the mystery.<\/p><\/p>\n\n

There you have the essence of Kojima\u2019s games: a pioneering grammar, ahead of its time, that draws on every aspect of a medium in which he excels. Onto his unique and revolutionary structures, he built mythologies that captivated gamers the world over and defined the Zeitgeist for entire generations.<\/p><\/p>\n\n

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Image from the teaser of
Death Stranding 2.<\/em> Courtesy of Kojima Studios.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Prestigious fans from Guillermo del Toro to Mads Mikkelsen<\/h2>\n\n

The man behind the myth sits down opposite us and sets his coffee on the table. To keep the drink hot and protect it from saliva droplets, the cup is covered with a pink plastic cap marked with a Chiikawa (a kawaii<\/em> character from a best-selling manga), an object that is both practical and indispensable, like everything in Japan. As always, Kojima is accompanied by his inner circle, those who have remained loyal since the early days: Miki Suga, Ayako Terashima, C\u00e9cile Caminades, and Akiyoshi Saito, who also acts as his interpreter.<\/p><\/p>\n\n

On the cafeteria walls, large black panels are dotted with messages from visitors \u2013 actors, directors, and musicians \u2013 signed by names such as Mads Mikkelsen<\/strong>, Guillermo del Toro<\/strong>, Norman Reedus, Nicolas Winding Refn, Nicolas Cage<\/strong>, and others just as famous who we are asked not to mention since the projects they were involved in have either been dropped or are still confidential. It soon becomes clear that Kojima’s studio is an essential destination for any artist visiting Tokyo.<\/p><\/p>\n\n

Metal Gear Solid: a genre-defying action game<\/h2>\n\n

Over the past four decades, he has established himself as one of the rare \u201cauteurs\u201d in the gaming industry, which is to say that he designs and curates absolutely everything the player experiences. For 1998\u2019s Metal Gear Solid<\/em>, he was the scriptwriter, director, producer, and designer, overseeing every aspect right down to the music. With that particular release, he set new standards and broke with conventions: presented as an action game in which you play a special-forces operative, it actually requires you to go unnoticed and \u2013 ideally \u2013 to kill almost no one.<\/p><\/p>\n\n

\"\"\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
View of Hideo Kojima’s studio in Tokyo. Courtesy of Kojima Studios.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Death Stranding, a franchise with colossal success<\/h2>\n\n

In his latest franchise, Death Stranding<\/em>, whose first instalment he released in 2019, the scene is rather different: in a disconnected world, you play a courier who must walk and connect point A to point B. Boring? Only if you focus on that aspect without examining the rest (like seeing Mario merely as a plumber who travels through pipes by jumping on mushrooms). Such worlds only make sense if you experience them as a player \u2013 immersing yourself in Sam Porter Bridges\u2019s life as a courier is to feel the isolation, the exhilaration of the great outdoors, and a whole spectrum of emotions inherent in the story that Kojima seeks to tell.<\/p><\/p>\n\n

Shrewdly prefiguring the COVID era, the game has captivated over 20 million players worldwide in the five years since it came out. The sequel, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach<\/em>, is due for release soon. \u201cIn the first episode, you had to reconnect an isolated world. In the sequel, I ask whether we should really have reconnected<\/em>,\u201d Kojima explains between sips of coffee.<\/p><\/p>\n\n

\n

\u201cFor me, all artists create a masterpiece at 35<\/em>\u201d Hideo Kojima<\/strong><\/h2><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

We ask him if he’s not a bit too old to continue making video games, which, according to popular opinion, are a hobby for young people. \u201cNot at all!<\/em>\u201d he exclaims. \u201cLook at <\/em>Ridley Scott: he made Gladiator when he was 62. George <\/em>Miller directed Mad Max: Fury Road at 70. And Hayao <\/em>Miyazaki released Spirited Away at 60. He still hasn\u2019t <\/em>retired even though he\u2019s 84! Maybe one day I’ll win the <\/em>record for the oldest video-game creator<\/em>.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n\n

After focusing on Death Stranding<\/em> for the past decade, he recently announced several new projects: OD, a horror game he has developed with help from Jordan Peele (the director and screenwriter of the Oscar-winning Get Out), and Physint, a return to action-espionage. Like the basketballer Michael Jordan, who took a break to take up baseball, or Guns N\u2019 Roses, who waited 15 years to release Chinese Democracy, Kojima needed to explore other horizons to broaden his creative scope.<\/p><\/p>\n\n

\"Hideo\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Hideo Kojima wears a shirt by Jil Sander with glasses by Hideo Kojima x J.F.Rey. Portrait: Frederik Heyman for
Num\u00e9ro art<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

\u201cFor me, all artists create a masterpiece at 35<\/em>,\u201d he asserts. \u201cAfter that, it\u2019s a question of whether you stay the course and grow or whether you go downhill.<\/em>\u201d At 35, Kojima released Metal Gear Solid<\/em>; George Miller was 34 when he directed the first Mad Max<\/em>; Hayao Miyazaki was 39 when The Castle of Cagliostro<\/em> came out; while Ridley Scott took his time to shoot The Duellists<\/em>, his first feature film, at 40. Like James Cameron \u2013 and Miller, for that matter \u2013 Kojima has taken advantage of technological progress and bigger budgets to realize his ideas on an ever grander scale. There’s only one rule: keep rules to a minimum.<\/p><\/p>\n\n

Are games still games if there are no rules? \u201cYes. When I started in the business, anything could become a game. Now, studios or producers will only fund you if you agree to make a game that ticks pre-established boxes<\/em>.\u201d He refers to the preconceptions that surreptitiously weave their way into our minds \u2013 \u201cIf you watch 500 Hollywood films, you’ll start to understand the rules that define the genre<\/em>\u201d \u2013 and lead us to embrace uniformity, conventionality, and mimicry. \u201cI keep telling my teams: \u2018There are no rules.<\/em>\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n\n

The risky bet of independence<\/h2>\n\n

This constant need to blur the lines and mix genres seems to have been at the root of his split with Konami, for whom he developed the Metal Gear franchise until 2015. In one of the industry\u2019s rare coups de th\u00e9\u00e2tre, he quit and announced that he would set up his own studio. In the opinion of almost everyone around him, he\u2019d lost his mind. \u201cEven my family told me I was crazy to leave my job and become independent at 52!<\/em>\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n\n

Though the rest is history, he is very aware that it wasn\u2019t a sure thing. \u201cThat\u2019s why I hate hearing people say that you shouldn\u2019t be afraid of making mistakes. Of course you should! A mistake can be really serious \u2013 it can ruin a career<\/em>.\u201d At the time, he was going through a period of soul-searching, and remembers a discussion he had with his friend Guillermo del Toro. \u201cI asked him what I should do. He replied: \u2018Keep creating like you\u2019ve always done, but do something new.\u2019<\/em>\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n\n

\"\"\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Image from the teaser of
Death Stranding 2.<\/em> Courtesy of Kojima Studios.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

It is difficult, if not impossible, for the uninitiated to imagine the workload involved in developing a product on the scale of Death Stranding<\/em> or a triple-A-rated game. Production involves hundreds of people over a period of several years: concept artists, character artists, environment artists, animators, programmers, game and level designers, sound engineers, cinematographers, composers, sound designers, bug hunters, and so on. All work under the guidance of the production and project-management teams, who ensure that the constantly evolving pieces fit seamlessly together.<\/p><\/p>\n\n

Passionate collaborators from Yoji Shinkawa to Woodkid<\/h2>\n\n

In his role as an auteur, Kojima is responsible for all these aspects at once, although he never fails to praise the indispensable input of his team members, who manage to turn his offbeat ideas into reality. Among them, the artist Yoji Shinkawa has been in charge of all the concept art and illustrations for Kojima’s games since the very beginning, with a graphic style whose lineage includes a dash of Enki Bilal and M\u0153bius.<\/p><\/p>\n\n

More recently, Kojima befriended the musician Yoann Lemoine, aka Woodkid<\/a>, who he met before the pandemic. In the director’s cut of Death Stranding, Kojima included songs by Lemoine, who recently joined him on stage at South by South West (SXSW) in Austin to unveil the new trailer for Death Stranding 2<\/em>, which features To the Wilder<\/em>, an original song by the artist. \u201cHideo asked me to spend a few days in Tokyo to write a track<\/em>,\u201d Lemoine explains. \u201cI ended up spending several weeks in an office, drawing inspiration from the mythology of Death Stranding<\/em>.\u201d During this time, he discovered Kojima\u2019s creative process, which includes a sports session every morning in a gym located between the meeting and mixing rooms.<\/p><\/p>\n\n

\"Hideo\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Hideo Kojima wears a parka and trousers by Y-3 with boots by Louis Vuitton. Portrait by Frederik Heyman for
Num\u00e9ro art<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Indeed, when asked, Kojima is very open about his daily routine. The first thing he does in the morning? \u201cSocial media<\/em>,\u201d says the man with a strong presence on X and Instagram, where he regularly posts about the tracks he has discovered or the A-list celebrities he has met. \u201cActually that\u2019s not true, I do my emails first<\/em>,\u201d he continues, explaining that he takes audio notes of what he sees, reads, and listens to.<\/p><\/p>\n\n

A hard-working creator<\/h2>\n\n

This aptitude for both detail and synthesis allows him to take ownership of every aspect of his creations, including communications materials such as trailers. \u201cIn many video-game companies, the trailers are outsourced<\/em>,\u201d he explains. \u201cThey\u2019re made by people who have never actually played the game and who just want to satisfy the vision of the executives or the shareholders. Whereas the creatives should always have the final say<\/em>.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n\n

He tells us that he is constantly editing in his mind. \u201cWhen I listen to the music, I know exactly what I want, which image at what moment. I write it down so that the team can follow<\/em>.\u201d Ayako shows us one of the famous e-mails in which a text is marked up with all sorts of annotations. \u201cI avoid sending these at 2:00 am… But I think about work from dawn to dusk. Even when I’m on holiday. My family hates me for it. It’s like a disease. I don’t have an off button.<\/em>\u201d How do you sort through all those ideas? \u201cIn my mind, there’s a constant Darwinian clash between them, until the strongest idea wins<\/em>.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n\n

\"\"\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Image from the teaser of
Death Stranding 2.<\/em> Courtesy of Kojima Studios.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

The highly anticipated release of Death Stranding 2<\/p>\n\n

Death Stranding 2<\/em> will be released on June 26th. Artists know that there’s nothing more dangerous than following in the footsteps of a bestseller, while the public knows how risky sequels can be. Is he afraid of not achieving the same success? \u201cObviously, when I make a video game, I want as many people as possible to play it. Like with a painting, I place some of my ego in these games. But how do you measure success?<\/em>\u201d he continues. \u201cLook at<\/em> Blade Runner. The reviews were terrible when it first came out and now there’s almost a cult around the movie and around how it <\/em>reinvented the genre of science fiction<\/em>.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n\n

Our discussion must come to an end, and Kojima must return to conducting his orchestra. \u201cYou know, when I visit a bookshop or a museum, I realize that most masterpieces were made by people who were broke or unloved in their day…<\/em>\u201d That is definitely not his case, though: the sheer scale, ingenuity, and daring on display in the trailer for Death Stranding 2<\/em> demonstrate that, at 61, Kojima is just as sharp as ever.<\/p><\/p>\n\n

The millions of views and comments testify to the public’s continuing enthusiasm. As with the avant-garde pacifist discourse that underscored the Metal Gear Solid<\/em> series, the issues raised by Death Stranding 2<\/em> promise to question the world we live in. The images of Sam Porter Bridges wandering through environments ravaged by ever-more-violent weather incidents reflect today\u2019s climate deregulation, while the automation of deliveries and the pitfalls of over-connection resonate with our everyday predicaments. Rarely has a film, a book, a painting, or a video game changed the world, but like all works of art they help us to see the color in increasingly gray times, to exorcise misfortune and chase away fear, to continue, in the words of the character played by L\u00e9a Seydoux<\/a> in this second opus, to build \u201ca barrier to evil and a bridge to good<\/em>.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n\n

Kojima Productions<\/a>, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach<\/em>, released for PlayStation 5 on June 25th.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Image from the teaser of
Death Stranding 2.<\/em> Courtesy of Kojima Studios.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hideo Kojima opens the doors of his incredible studio Nothing in the anonymous glass facade […]<\/p>\n

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