Hideo Kojima has turned 63, and the veteran game creator has made it clear that he still wants to spend his time making games.
Kojima reflected on his career in a message marking both his birthday and 40 years in the video game industry. The milestone also comes a decade after he founded Kojima Productions as an independent studio.
In his message, Kojima acknowledged that getting older has changed the way he looks at his time and priorities. He noted that the number of things he wants and needs to do continues to grow while the time available to do them becomes shorter. Even so, he said that once he takes something on, he cannot simply walk away from it.
Kojima also said that he continues to receive various opportunities and offers outside game development, but would rather remain focused on creating games. That is particularly relevant given the number of projects currently associated with Kojima Productions.
A look back at Kojima's career
Kojima joined Konami's MSX division in 1986, marking the beginning of a career that would eventually make him one of the industry's most recognisable game creators. His first credited work was Penguin Adventure, where he worked as an assistant director.
He went on to create Metal Gear in 1987, establishing the stealth-focused approach that would become one of the defining elements of his career. From there, Kojima continued working across a range of games, although the Metal Gear series would remain his best-known body of work for many years.
Some of the most notable games associated with Kojima include:
- Penguin Adventure (1986) — assistant director
- Metal Gear (1987)
- Snatcher (1988)
- Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (1990)
- Policenauts (1994)
- Metal Gear Solid (1998)
- Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001)
- Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004)
- Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2008)
- Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (2010)
- Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (2014)
- Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015)
- Death Stranding (2019)
- Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (2025)
His work has also extended beyond Metal Gear. Kojima was involved with games including Zone of the Enders, Boktai and Lunar Knights. He also directed P.T., the playable teaser for the cancelled Silent Hills project, which became one of his most discussed projects despite never becoming a full game.
OD remains in development
One of Kojima's current projects is OD, a horror game being developed with Xbox Game Studios. The project is being made in collaboration with filmmaker Jordan Peele and features actors including Hunter Schafer, Udo Kier and Sophia Lillis.
Details about OD remain limited, but Kojima has described the project as something that aims to explore a different kind of horror experience. The involvement of Peele and its cast has also made the project stand out among Kojima Productions' upcoming work.
Physint returns to espionage
Kojima is also working on Physint, an action-espionage game being developed with Sony Interactive Entertainment.
The project is particularly notable because it takes Kojima back toward the stealth and espionage territory that defined much of his earlier career with Metal Gear. Unlike that series, however, Physint is being developed as a new intellectual property.
Kojima has previously explained that the idea for Physint came from the continued demand for something resembling Metal Gear. The game is still in development, with preparations including casting, actor scanning and performance capture.
Kojima is not slowing down yet
There is still plenty ahead for Kojima Productions. Alongside OD and Physint, the studio is involved in expanding the Death Stranding series into other forms of media, including film and animation.
For now, though, Kojima's message on his 63rd birthday is fairly straightforward. Despite his age and the growing number of projects and opportunities competing for his time, he still wants to focus on making games.
After four decades in the industry, Kojima clearly has no shortage of ideas. The question now is how many of them he will have time to turn into finished games.
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Webmastahhh is the creator of Mastanet, a gaming and technology website where he shares news, reviews, guides and personal insights about games, hardware, software and the future of digital entertainment.
