Hideo Kojima questionably visits Saudi Arabia to drop the news that he knows just what Death Stranding 3 should be but he wants someone else to make it
Great news: Hideo Kojima already knows just what he wants Death Stranding 3 to be. Bad news: some other poor sod is gonna have to make it, because Kojima's very busy converting Willem Dafoe into an Ogg Vorbis file or whatever it is he does these days.
Kojima let slip the news (via GamesRadar) at a recent Death Stranding 2 event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (about which more later). "Well, I'm not planning to do [Death Stranding 3] at the moment," he said via translator, "Because the ending of Death Stranding 2 was my finale of 1 and 2. But I already wrote the concept of Death Stranding 3."
Promising stuff for anyone yearning to become a post-apocalyptic postman once again, but it's here that Kojima delivers the follow-up blow. "I hope that someone will create it for me," he added.
It makes sense that he's not super-keen on getting right back into Death Stranding. Between DS1 and 2, Kojima's been working on that series for the best part of a decade at this point, and it's understandable that he might want to focus on something different for a while, like Physint or OD, neither of which we know much about.
Plus, he's been chatting a lot recently about feeling his age, even going so far as to mention he has a USB stick filled with ideas, "kind of like a will," for people to turn to after he's translated into glory. If the now-62-year-old dev is feeling the years catch up with him, it's just one more reason to try out new stuff rather than sticking to the same-old, same-old.
So I can't say I'm hugely disappointed to hear that KojiPro won't be immediately getting to work on DS3, even as someone who very much enjoyed the thrill-a-minute delivery action of the first game and is eagerly awaiting the second's PC version. I am a little more iffy, though, on Kojima's choice of venue to drop this bombshell.
Saudi Arabia has long been criticised for using sporting events—including videogames and esports events—to 'sportswash' its international reputation. In other words, to get people thinking more about Saudi Arabia as a hip, modern destination for sports and games and less about stuff like the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
I struggle to imagine Kojima, never one to shy away from politics in his games, is unaware of that, and the choice not only to include Riyadh as a stop on the Death Stranding 2 world tour, but to put in an appearance at the Esports World Cup that was happening concurrently, leaves me feeling more than a little grossed out. Perhaps a side-effect of getting older, on top of a desire to branch out into new things, is that the lure of all that Saudi wealth becomes harder and harder to resist.