The covid pandemic gave the ex-Konami auteur a lot to ponder, you see
At the beginning, there was the theme of “connecting,” and after that, I made a lot of notes about character settings, game ideas, and so on. Like how to connect it. I put it together while maintaining a balance…But I had to rewrite everything because of corona. In Death Stranding, it was justice to connect, but with the corona crisis, pseudo-connections such as remotes have come to be emphasized. On the other hand, I felt that such pseudo-connections alone would not lead to fulfilling human lives. After all, humans need to go out into the outside world and move.
Buckle up everyone, between 2024 - 2030, everyone's lives will be uprooted, and we will be forced to live outdoors and keep on moving, all thanks to landlords, real estate speculations, climate changes, government and tech surveillances. Thank you Kojima for predicting our lives again.
Because Kojima had such a little role in his titles, the next game created without him, "Metal Gear Survive", was a full success.
Metal Gear Survive received a generally negative response ... selling 85% fewer copies than Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, and 95% fewer copies than Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
That's bit harsh to say that all his great works are not his.
I do share the sentiment that Kojima's writing has been in downhill for quite sometime and he really in need of a good editor.
I actually think that his stories are more coherent or at least entertaining in his earlier works, e.g.
Snatcher
Policenauts
MGS 1
Some like MGS 2, but I think the boring oil rig setting broke me, and the constant chatter with 'Colonel' didn't help
MGS 3
Peacewalker
MGS Rising
What I actually like is his obsessive attention to details that barely matters when it comes to gameplay, e.g. melting ice cubes, aiming at enemy's crotch to get dog tags, etc.
Kojima games started clicking for me when he introduced the 'R&D system' in Peacewalker, where it's actually a RPG progression system but the rewards are absurd equipments. As the matter of fact, I like the 'walking and R&D' parts of Death Stranding a lot, but really dislike the enemy encounters and the story in that game.
And it's okay, not every games are for everyone, I'm glad that someone is giving him blank cheques for his absurd ideas that are not the norms.
If I'm not mistaken, there is a theory that his cowriter on the MGS games is the one who made it great. Unfortunately it is hard to get information on the topic
And while MGS is the best series I've played on console, the story has still always been a convoluted mess. Try explaining that plot to a layman, and you'll sound like a homeless meth head in the throes of a binge.
Death Stranding wasn't any more coherent either, and that's why I think the next game is going to be highly entertaining.
I'm not sure I can fully agree with this, but he does seem like somebody who is at his best when he has people who can rein in his excesses a bit. He reminds me of George Lucas in that way. He badly needs a good editor.
He definitely wants his games to be movies without having much of an idea how to direct a movie, but they still have more of an unique identity than a lot of games out there.