To add on to what you're saying: he didn't really want to make MGS3 either. I believe he said in a Game Informer interview from 2001 that he wanted 2 to be the final chapter. I might be getting my source wrong.

I totally disagree. Death Stranding was groundbreaking in many ways.

> He didn't really want to make MGS4 and MGS5 and then still made successful games

MGS4 and MGS5 were successful but I don't think they were really that good compared to the other games. I am certainly not alone when it comes to thinking that.

The vast majority of praise goes to MGS2 and 3 these days. I think the original MGS should get more praise as it has the better story and at the time it really pushed what was possible.

> Death Stranding franchise is one of the "games that he is well known for" and it is most def not 20+ years old.

It isn't nearly as well respected as MGS 1-3. Metal Gear Solid 3 came out in 2004.

> Dont see your point.

The point is that Kojima work these days isn't nearly as much of a draw as it once was. If fans of the original MGS games like myself aren't that interested in his newer stuff that says quite a lot.

Metal Gear Solid as far as I am concerned ended after I finished 3.

I haven't played 4 (couldn't get past the cutscenes), but ah... Quiet is definitely front and centre in 5 at a certain point in the storyline, very embarrassingly so.

> As of March 2021, the game has sold 5 million copies worldwide for the PS4 and PC platforms. > By April 2025, Death Stranding had reached over 20 million players worldwide.

This is surely more than $60M-$120M earnings.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Stranding

This may be the case - although none of us have access to the real figures.

It's also impossible to judge success relative to marketing budget, how well the game was pushed by Sony etc.

Clearly a critical success and an objectively good game however.

What a shame too. Quake Wars on idTech performed incredibly well for such large maps and so many players. The vehicles were also fun to drive.

Death Stranding 1 at least was a fairly large commercial success. 5 million copies sold, critical darling, and a hugely original put at doing something new.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Stranding#Reception

I was top 1000 for a while in the base-invasion mode of MGSV in the EU. That mode was basically a low-budget little tacked-on multiplayer that kept the core-gameplay and I spent hundreds of hours on it.

MGSV Metal Gear Online (the _other_ tacked-on multiplayer) was also great, but very unreliable netcode made it frustrating.

I wish someone would just take that game engine and make another good game on it. I _almost_ bought metal gear survive on the engine alone, that is how good it is.

I think the other trademark is Kojima, when he's not being weirdly horny, is just "supernatural and weird". Like the other stuff with the floating boy/psycho mantis, man on fire, parasite unit. When you've got the weirdly horny and supernatural mashed together, it's either a Kojima game or some variant of Biohazard (Resident Evil).

Kojima is infamous for being difficult to work with as well as expensive, and Death Stranding 2 didn't do that well after the already-divisive Death Stranding. I think describing him as a generation-defining artist is a bit much, something a devoted fan might say. His mistreatment of David Hayter because David isn't an A-list Hollywood actor really soured my view of him. By all accounts, Kojima has a fantasy of being a Hollywood director and hanging out with movie stars, and he wants to make gigantic expensive Hollywood movie-esque projects. I'm not surprised Sony would get cold feet.

Sony also presumably has a lot of visibility into the project, and it was already being framed as "genre-defining." I've loved various Kojima games but especially with the other exclusives line-up that Sony has, I can understand this is just too much risk for them.

It remains to be seen what egg will be laid in this case, how many golden ones may come after, and how many end up on Playstation anyway.

Really odd indeed, many of the Sony executives used to be relatively "It's OK to fail once, you've proven you can output stuff given resources", but seemingly there is a new Sony now where not obsessively cutting costs and doing bets isn't part of the culture anymore. Sad to see.

The W in MBA stands for Wisdom!

Kojima has a history of overspending by trying to make grandiose but weird games. And while they performed well, MGS4 sold less then The Last of Us or other big hits. I think that Kojima's games are games that people talk about more than they play. Probably MGS5 is the only one that actually "plays good".

Yes. And DS2 was somehow boring. It felt like a DLC for DS.

How did it break ground exactly? I like MGS 1,2 and 3. I saw nothing particularly interesting about Death Stranding. I've seen friends playing it and still didn't really look that interesting.

Yeah, of course I would. If I like a given artist's work, I want more work which is like that. I don't begrudge artists who want to do new things, but "it's just like his old work" is IMO high praise, not a valid criticism.

I mean, yes?

My favorite band started experimenting with different sounds and genres and while I still like their old stuff I don't care for their new stuff much

I would love if they made more that sounded like their old stuff.

Obviously it's their art and I don't begrudge them doing their own thing, but it was a bummer when I listened to it and felt it was no longer for me.