Hideo Kojima (小島 秀夫, Kojima Hideo; born August 24, 1963) is a Japanese video game designer, writer, director, producer, and internet personality. He is best known for the Metal Gear franchise, which is his most famous and highly praised work, as well as the game Death Stranding and its sequel. His games are known for their cinematic style, which comes from his lifelong interest in film and literature. He is considered an influential creator in the video game industry.

In 1986, Kojima joined Konami, where he directed, designed, and wrote the game Metal Gear (1987) for the MSX2. This game helped create the stealth game genre and started the Metal Gear franchise, which he continued to lead for 28 years until the release of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain in 2015. During his time at Konami, he also created the Boktai series and produced the Zone of the Enders series and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. He designed and wrote Snatcher (1988) and Policenauts (1994), which were graphic adventure games known for their movie-like presentation.

In 2005, Kojima founded Kojima Productions within Konami. In 2011, he became vice president of Konami Digital Entertainment. In 2014, he became the director of Silent Hills, the next game in the Silent Hill series, through a playable teaser called P.T. This teaser received widespread praise and is considered one of the greatest horror games ever made. However, the game was canceled by Konami in 2015, shortly before Kojima left the company. In December 2015, he re-established Kojima Productions as an independent studio and released his first games outside Konami, including Death Stranding (2019) and Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (2025).

Early life

Hideo Kojima was born on August 24, 1963, in the Setagaya ward of Tokyo. He has two older siblings. His father, Kingo, was a pharmacist who often traveled for work. He named his son Hideo because it was a common name among doctors he met. At age four, Kojima moved with his family to Osaka. He later described this sudden change in environment as a time when he spent much of his time indoors, watching television or making toys. His parents loved movies, especially European films, horror, and Wild West stories. They started a nightly tradition of watching films with their children, who were not allowed to sleep until the movies ended. His parents did not restrict the types of films the children could watch.

Kojima became interested in filmmaking when a friend brought a Super 8 camera to high school. They began making films together, and Kojima charged other students ¥50 to watch them. He tricked his parents into paying for a four-day trip to an island near Japan, without telling them he planned to use it as a filming location. Instead, he spent the trip swimming and changed the film’s story to be about zombies on the final day because that idea was easier to film. He did not show the film to his parents.

By the time Kojima was a teenager, his family had moved to Kawanishi, Hyōgo. At age 13, his father passed away. In interviews, Kojima has talked about how his father’s death and the financial challenges his family faced affected him. He studied economics in college, where he decided to join the video game industry. While studying, he wrote fiction, including a short story in his thesis.

Career

While in university, Kojima wanted to work in the film industry. He believed winning awards for his writing might help him get a chance to direct films. Later, he saw Nintendo's Famicom and decided to join the video game industry. At the time, few people supported his decision to work in games. He often lied about his job because working in video games was considered a low-status job in Japan. During a wedding, the groom introduced him as someone who worked for a financial firm, and the guests laughed when he said he worked in games.

In 1986, Kojima joined Konami's MSX home computer division. He chose Konami because it was the only game company listed on Japan's stock exchange. At first, he was not happy with the job because he wanted to make games for the Famicom, and the MSX had limited colors. His first project was Penguin Adventure, a game that added more action, levels, and role-playing features compared to its predecessor, Antarctic Adventure. In 2019, a writer noted that Penguin Adventure had advanced features for a game made over 30 years ago. Kojima later worked on a game called Lost Warld, but it was canceled because it was too complex for the MSX.

Kojima was asked to take over a project called Metal Gear. Due to hardware limits, he changed the game's focus from combat to a prisoner escaping, inspired by The Great Escape. Metal Gear was released in 1987 for the MSX2 and later for the NES. The NES version had different graphics, difficulty, and a shorter ending. Kojima criticized these changes, including poor translations. A programmer on the NES version said the team had only three months to complete the port, and the NES hardware could not handle the original game's fight scenes.

Kojima's next project was Snatcher, a graphic adventure game released in 1988. He wrote and directed the game, but it was cut from six chapters to two due to time limits. The game had a cyberpunk style and was designed like a film. Critics later praised its cinematic storytelling. Snatcher was influenced by Blade Runner and had many references that raised copyright concerns. A version for the Sega CD was made without Kojima, but the game's long script made localization expensive. Snatcher sold well in Japan but failed in the West.

In 1990, Kojima remade Snatcher as SD Snatcher, a role-playing game with "super deformed" characters. The game used a first-person battle system and was only released in Japan. Later games, like Vagrant Story and Fallout 3, used similar systems. A writer noted that Kojima's stylized designs added a playful, postmodern feel to his work.

After Metal Gear became a success, Konami made a sequel, Snake's Revenge, without Kojima. Kojima then created Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, which was released in 1990. The game introduced stealth mechanics like making noise to attract guards and crawling. It was not released overseas until 2006.

After facing memory issues during Snatcher development, Kojima worked on Policenauts, a game he wanted to focus on storytelling. He developed a scripting engine to control animations and music. Policenauts was released in 1994 and praised for its animation and voice acting.

In 1994, Kojima planned a 3D sequel to Metal Gear 2, titled Metal Gear Solid, for the 3DO system. Development continued after the 3DO was discontinued.

Influences and mentality

Kojima has mentioned that Yuji Horii’s The Portopia Serial Murder Case (1983) and Shigeru Miyamoto’s Super Mario Bros. (1985) inspired him to work in the video game industry. Portopia Serial Murder Case, a mystery adventure game, influenced Kojima because it included mystery, a 3D dungeon, humor, and a detailed explanation of the murderer’s actions. Kojima said this game showed him how video games could tell stories and create drama. He also noted that Portopia helped shape his early games, such as Metal Gear and Snatcher.

Kojima’s love for film is visible in his games, where he includes references to movies in his stories and characters. For example, in Snatcher, he used ideas from science fiction films like Blade Runner, Akira, The Thing, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and The Terminator. These influences appear in details such as Solid Snake’s codename (inspired by a character from Escape from New York), his alias in Metal Gear Solid 2 (based on the same character’s last name), his real name (from 2001: A Space Odyssey), and his bandana (from The Deer Hunter).

Films also influenced other parts of his games. For example, the character Hal “Otacon” Emmerich was named after a character from 2001: A Space Odyssey and a film director. The way Sniper Wolf shoots Meryl in Metal Gear Solid was inspired by Full Metal Jacket. Psycho Mantis was influenced by The Fury, and the stealth gameplay in Metal Gear was inspired by The Great Escape and The Guns of Navarone. James Bond also influenced the Metal Gear series, especially the introduction in Metal Gear Solid 3. Kojima said Metal Gear was strongly influenced by the anti-war and anti-nuke themes in the Planet of the Apes films.

In an article, Kojima said the movie Dawn of the Dead inspired parts of the Metal Gear series, such as how a closed space like a shopping mall is used in games. He compared Metal Gear Solid to Dawn of the Dead, saying they are similar if soldiers are replaced with zombies.

Kojima was also influenced by anime. His game Snatcher used anime-style art and was inspired by Akira. He said his Zone of the Enders series was inspired by mecha anime like Neon Genesis Evangelion. Mecha anime also influenced the Metal Gear series, which includes robots like Metal Gear REX and RAY.

Kojima listed several games as his favorites in 2000, including Another World, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Operation Wolf, The Portopia Serial Murder Case, Super Mario Bros., and Xevious. He said A Link to the Past was his favorite game by Miyamoto.

In 2019, Kojima published a book in Japan called The Gifted Gene and My Lovable Memes, discussing how pop culture influenced his work. The book was later published in English as The Creative Gene: How Books, Movies, and Music Inspired the Creator of Death Stranding and Metal Gear Solid.

Kojima’s work also influenced others. Screenwriter David Hayter, who voices Solid Snake, said Kojima’s storytelling helped him in his film writing. Hollywood actors Mads Mikkelsen and Léa Seydoux have voice roles in Death Stranding, and director Guillermo del Toro is a fan of Kojima’s work.

In 2020, Kojima was part of the jury for the 77th Venice International Film Festival’s Virtual Reality section. He launched a YouTube channel in 2016 with film critic Kenji Yano to discuss movies and his studio. Starting in 2017, he wrote for Rolling Stone about films and sometimes compared them to his games. In 2022, he started a podcast called Hideo Kojima presents Brain Structure, hosted by him and Geoff Keighley, focusing on his career and interests in books, music, and cinema.

Legacy

Kojima is known for his impact on the video game industry. Metal Gear was the first widely recognized stealth game, a type of game later made popular by Metal Gear Solid. Kojima was also an early leader in using movie-like methods in video games, especially in Metal Gear Solid, which Eurogamer calls the "first modern video game."

Many game developers have said Kojima’s work influenced them. These include Clint Hocking, who designed Splinter Cell and Far Cry 2; Mathieu Ferland, who produced Splinter Cell; Denis Dyack, who founded Silicon Knights; Cliff Bleszinski, who created Unreal and Gears of War; Takuma Endo, who made Tenchu; Tom Leonard, who designed Thief; Emily Knox, a designer at Sumo Digital; Luke Kelly, an animator for Crysis 2; Neil Druckmann, who wrote Uncharted and created The Last of Us; and MidBoss, who developed 2064: Read Only Memories. Kojima’s work has also influenced people outside the video game industry, such as novelist Project Itoh and filmmaker Jordan Peele.

Kojima is known for including ideas in his games that became important later, such as social and scientific topics.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was released on November 13, 2001. Critics praised the game’s gameplay and details when it came out, but they had mixed opinions about its story. Some called the story confusing or strange. In the 2010s, people began to see the story as misunderstood or even ahead of its time, as it accurately predicted some cultural issues from the 2010s. GamesRadar+ said the game’s story was related to events like the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal and Russia’s involvement in the 2016 U.S. elections. The idea of "Selection for Societal Sanity" in the game inspired a paper written by Adrian Mróz and published in the journal Kultura i Historia.

In Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, released on September 1, 2015, the Wolbachia bacteria is used to stop the reproduction of fictional "vocal cord parasites." At the time, using Wolbachia to control diseases like malaria and dengue was only tested in computer models and small field tests in Australia. Scientists suggested using Wolbachia during the Zika outbreak in the Americas. By 2019, using Wolbachia became a successful way to control mosquito-borne diseases in countries like Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Brazil.

Kojima’s game Death Stranding, released on November 8, 2019, takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where people live in isolated cities and shelters because of dangerous conditions caused by an event called the "Death Stranding." People rely on "porters," who risk their lives to deliver supplies, to survive. In early 2020, reporters noticed similarities between the game and the real-world effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as themes of isolation, loneliness, and political division.

Personal life

Kojima keeps his personal life private. He is married and has two sons. His mother died in early 2017.

Awards and accolades

In 2002, Newsweek listed Kojima as one of the top ten people of that year. In 2008, Next-Gen ranked him seventh on their list of "Hot 100 Developers 2008."

In 2009, IGN placed him sixth on their list of top game creators of all time. At the 2008 MTV Game Awards, Kojima was awarded the event's first Lifetime Achievement Award for a game designer. He also received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2009 Game Developers Conference. In 2014, UNESCO’s Bradford City of Film honored Kojima with the inaugural award for Cinematography in Videogames, recognizing his work in directing, storytelling, and cinematography in video games.

At the 2014 National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers (NAVGTR) awards, Kojima was credited for the nomination of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes in the Game, Franchise Adventure category. In December 2015, Kojima was invited to accept an award from The Game Awards 2015 for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, but he could not attend due to Konami.

In February 2016, Kojima received the AIAS Hall of Fame Award at the 19th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards. In December 2016, he attended The Game Awards 2016 and accepted the Industry Icon Award.

On October 12, 2017, Kojima was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Brasil Game Show.

At the 2020 British Academy Games Awards, Kojima was named a BAFTA Fellow, becoming the second Japanese person to receive the award for work on video games after Shigeru Miyamoto.

Kojima directed four games (Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, and Death Stranding) out of the 30 total games that received a maximum score of 40 from the Japanese video games magazine Famitsu. He was also directly involved with three games (Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, and Death Stranding) that were nominated for Game of the Year by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences at the D.I.C.E. Awards.

On January 20, 2022, Kojima received an Industry Legend Award from the Arab Game Awards.

On March 15, 2022, Kojima announced on Twitter that he had received the 72nd Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts from the Japanese Agency of Cultural Affairs.

Works

• The Creative Gene: How Books, Movies, and Music Inspired the Creator of Death Stranding and Metal Gear Solid. Published by Viz in San Francisco in 2022. ISBN 978-19-7472-591-5.
• The Gifted Gene and My 70% Movie Body.