Hideo Kojima has revealed that his upcoming collaboration with Sony, Physint, is the result of fan demands for another Metal Gear game. While he was happy creating the Death Stranding IP at Kojima Studios, a bout of illness made him change priorities and create an action espionage game too.
During the latest episode of HideoTube, Kojima said he wanted to do something new with his own IP when became an independent developer. This resulted in Death Stranding and the upcoming Death Stranding 2: On The Beach. However, throughout those eight years, Kojima was still receiving daily requests from players for a new Metal Gear game. Then, after becoming ill and requiring surgery, his priorities changed:
So why did I decide to make this? Well first off, because I became independent, I wanted to do something new with my own IP. So to challenge myself, I first 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 been asking 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.
Physint “will be both a game and a movie at the same time” so that “if your mother walks in and sees you playing this game, she’ll think you’re watching a movie.” This likely explains the brief glimpse of a Columbia Pictures lot in the game’s announcement teaser. Very little other information was revealed about the game but we can look forward to more information in the future.
The HideoTube show also revealed more details about Death Stranding 2. Kojima expects the graphics to improve from those in the State of Play trailer, and “the assets are ready, we just need to construct them.” As expected from the trailer, the game does take place in a different continent outside of America as Sam has traveled there to connect the Chiral Network. Fragile’s new group Drawbridge is responsible for connecting areas outside of the United Cities of America (UCA) to prevent accusations of a UCA invasion in those regions.
In case you were wondering, the mysterious puppet from the trailer will accompany Sam and can chat with him about his deliveries. The puppet, whose name has not yet been revealed, is modeled on German director Faith Akin.