At 2024's Tokyo Game Show, Kojima and Konami slithered in parallel - who emerged in a more solid state?
There's a tarman, waiting on the beach.
Thank you, Hideo Kojima for christening George Miller as Tarman. This was the most pertient piece of information I gathered from this rendition of the Tokyo Game Show, comprised of 985 companies and 274,739 visitors. Following on from the demented triumph of Furiosa - creatively, I will resign the financial fallout to Warner Bros.’ bustling tax department - Miller continues the grand lineage of Death Stranding’s bizarre suite of names: Die Hardman, Fragile, and Deadman - portrayed, naturally, by Tommy Earl Jenkins, Léa Seydoux, and Guillermo del Toro. However, I continue, I must concede that I do not have a worthy handle on the ongoing narrative; Mads Mikkelsen factors in some respect, right? I remember reserving a fondness for the beguiling design, wherein I strove to reunite the United States through the power of the postal service. Sometimes, gloopy black waves would awaken - I had to carry a baby with me? Regardless, it is rare for a major commercial title to aggressively rebel against its form, indulging in its fascinations to an end invulnerable to criticism; no artist in human history could command an interactive canvas of this scale. For perspective, Death Stranding recorded 16 million players as of December 2023, whereas Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order noted 20 million in June 2021 - one is centred on parcel deliveries, the other lets you slash Stormtroopers with a lightsaber. Kojima would agree with the words of the The Postman himself, albeit in an unrelated film: if you build it, they will come.
Indeed, Death Stranding has become a marquee title within PlayStation Studios’ stumbling slate. Most pertinently, however, Kojima’s rockstar standing has raised him to rarified heights in the gaming industry, if not entertainment writ large: A24 are actively developing an adaptation of Death Stranding, Disney+ distributed a documentary on the man himself, and he is incubating a curiously vague horror experience in union with Jordan Peele. Though the process of game development is rather laborious, necessitating reams of credits and - regrettably - hours of overtime, no other creator in the industry this side of Sam Lake commands tantamount fidelity to their vision than Kojima. His sensibility is irreplicable - but it can be parrotted.
I’m afraid it’s been … nine years since the debut of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain - a sophisticated, yet ultimately truncated denouement to the eponymous saga. Following a messy uncoupling between Kojima Productions and Konami, episodic in a manner reminiscent of the narrative itself, the Metal Gear series entered developmental limbo. However, Konami made one attempt to produce a successor bereft of Kojima’s fingerprints: 2018’s Metal Gear Survive. Extending upon the assets designed for The Phantom Pain, Survive imbued the former with elements of a survival thriller - thirst, hunger, and oxygen metres inclusive. However, with zombies in place of private militaries and sticks prevailing over stealth, Survive was a commercial failure: Konami did not address its sales as part of its contemporaneous earnings call. Thus, the series’ signature box was taped up; fans craving a remaster of Snake Eater had to resign themselves to a pachislot pantomime.
However, after a brisk five year nap, Konami sent the series back into the wild for some renewed wetwork: the Master Collection, Vol. 1 valliantly compiled the earliest embers of the series in one neat package. However, as one could imagine, the title was a mere port of an earlier Legacy Collection, nominally adjusted from 720p to 1080p for next-generation consoles. Nevertheless, as a measure of curation, the Master Collection’s A-side succeeded in ensuring these HD revisions of the series could become easily accessible to this generation - erstwhile relegated to the PS3 and Xbox 360. However, the museum manner of the collection rendered these games as historical artifacts, rather than lively experiences approximating the verve they launched with. Thus, in tandem with the fanfare of the series’ resurrection, Konami announced Metal Gear Solid Triangle Delta: Snake Eater - an Unreal Engine 5 remake of the greatest theme song ever orchestrated.
Why begin with the third instalment? Well, not only is it a masterclass in Cold War pulp and masculine melodrama, it is the canonical beginning of the legend of Big Boss; you may be familiar with his clone kin, Solid Snake. However, the explicit calculus on Konami’s end is to recreate the fervour of the Resident Evil remakes through meticulous means - albeit to an even more faithful end. The audio track is copied from the original release; is it not slightly disconcerning to watch deeply detailed characters recite outlandish dialogue? To regain consumers’ faith in the franchise and stabilise their re-entry into the premium home console market, Konami know they must not stray far from the primordial waters charted by Kojima. Conversely, Kojima himself could not be further from the fury, pain, fear, sorrow, and end of Snake Eater; have you acquainted yourself with Dollman yet?
Ultimately, Delta will be a guaranteed success; On the Beach will shine brightly thanks to the slow-burn success of its predecessor. Neither share particular commonalities, despite emerging from the same creator. As Kojima’s uncanny foresight in predicting the COVID-19 pandemic suggests a similarly harrowing omen will emerge through this latest title, the Death Stranding name bears greater urgency than Metal Gear in this current moment. Nonetheless, Konami’s recreations will surfeit in place of imagination for the time being; one can assume the Metal Gear mantle will pass onto a Kojima protégé - parasocial or personal - for an original endeavour at some point on Delta’s victory lap.
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach will release for the PlayStation 5 in 2025. Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, launching simulanteously on the PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, will ostensibly debut in 2024. They’re keeping us waiting, huh?