Hideo Kojimais arguably the most celebrated video game director currently working. He’s an auteur through and through, and there’s nothing quite like experiencing one of his games, which many will jump at the opportunity to do whenDeath Stranding 2launches in June, but a new game concept he’s conjured sounds like a truly awful idea.
According toIGN(viaRock Paper Shotgun) Kojima discussed a game concept on his Japanese radio podcast,KOJI10, wheretime passing in real life would cause the player character to forget how the game’s mechanics work. In this “forgetting game,” the main character would lose their abilities the longer you go without playing. “How to fire their gun or what their job is,” were two examples given by Kojima of things that could be forgotten. He admits that you would have to “play through it quickly,” and maybe even “take a week off work or school to play it.”
Kojima Discusses Game Concept Where Your Character Forgets Things If You Don’t Play Regularly
The “Forgetting Game”
Kojima has long been known to blur the lines between the game space and reality. This concept takes it to another level, though, punishing players who don’t play regularly. If you go a couple of days without booting up the game, your character would forget key mechanics, butif you leave the game alone for too long, your character would even forget how to move. It’s an interesting thought experiment, but Kojima doesn’t offer a solution to that last bit.
The “forgetting game” concept was thrown out alongsidetwo other ideas, both of which play with the passing of real time. One is essentially a lengthy life simulator, where the player character starts as a baby, and eventually grows into an elderly person. Aging would affect mechanics, such as mobility and eyesight, as your character gradually loses such abilities. Kojima joked that, “no one would buy it!” The other concept uses the passage of real time for players to cultivate items that take a long time to mature, like wine and cheese.
Our Take: This Is Right Up Kojima’s Alley, But Sounds Terrible
Kojima’s Right, I Wouldn’t Buy It
These are clearly not games in development, and just concepts that Kojima has thought about, butit’s perhaps best that such mechanics stay in the conceptual stage. The “forgetting game” especially sounds like a huge hassle. Plenty of players would have the commitment to play through it quickly without any major consequences, but there are also many people too busy to dedicate the time needed to such a game.Kojima’sDeath Stranding 3ideasare already way more appealing.
These concepts are pretty innovative, but not surprising coming from Kojima.Metal Gear Solid 3, which is beingremade asMetal Gear Solid Delta, uses the system’s clock to determine when food spoils. Such mechanics tied to things outside the game itself are a Kojima hallmark, like the famous fourth-wall-breaking fight against Psycho Mantis in the originalMGS, which requires players to move their controller to input two.Hideo Kojimaseems to always be coming up with novel new game mechanics, but some of them clearly aren’t actually fun in practice.
Sources:IGN(viaRock Paper Shotgun),KOJI10
Hideo Kojima
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