One of the things that Konami did right by Hideo Kojima was giving the director freedom to make a game exactly how he wanted it to be made. Joining Konami at the very beginning of the gaming industry, there were only five people on Kojima’s development team and he claims that he was only able to sleep for three hours each day, but the company helped him pursue his passions anyway.
“What I’m grateful Konami for is that when I proposed something I wanted to make, they let me make it,” Kojima states in an interview with Toyokeizai. “Conversely, I wasn’t bound by them saying, ‘You need to do it like this.’”
When he would ask to be allowed to make a game, Kojima would submit a proposal to the company describing his aims, alongside an estimated development plan, and the total staff he would need to make the project happen. At this point, Konami would give the green light and Kojima could make the game with very little restrictions, a decision that resulted in some of the biggest video game franchises of all time.
Now that Kojima Productions is a seperate entity, Hideo Kojima is focussing his efforts on making the new studio bigger and better than ever, starting with the production of its first title: Death Stranding. The game, which was revealed at E3 last year, is still being kept well under wraps but the attachment of the Kojima name has got many fans excited to learn more about the upcoming title.
