I have a friend who thinks Hideo Kojima is the greatest mind in gaming. Not ‘one of.’ The. He sa🌺ys it the way a cinephile would say it about Kubrick or Bong Joon-ho, like Kojima is a singular, visionary artist whose work transcends genre and medium.

I also have a friend who hates Kojima. Says his writing is bloated, self-important, and overhyped. He winces at words like ‘genius’ and thinks 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Death Stranding is what happens when no o꧒ne tells you “no” for te☂n years.

I, on the other hand, am somewhere in the mid🔥dle. More accurately: on the out𝕴side looking in.

The Kojima-verse Is Unskippable

I’ve played some of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Metal Gear and watched a few 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Death Stranding 2 cutscenes out of morbid curiosity, but I’m not well-versed in the Kojima-verse, and yet, as a video game fan, I can’t escape him. He’s inescapable. Not just because of the games, but because of the discourse. He’ll post a photo of a vinyl record or a cappuccino on Instagram, and within minutes, the replies are filled with people calling him the GOAT. On TikTok, his name trends regularly with reverent brainrot edits of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Metal Gear Solid 3 spliced between his selfies.

At some point in the last decade, Kojima stopped being ‘🎃the guy who made Metal Gear’ and became a cultural icon. I find that fascinating, not because I love or hate his games, but because I’ve never seen another developer who invites this kind of reaction, not Todd Howard, not even Miyamoto.

Genius Or Guy With A God Complex?

Kojima’s name alone generates headlines. Theories bloom around every teaser he drops, even when they amount to a blurry corridor and a cryptic phrase. What intrigues me most isn’t the work itself (though I’ll admit, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a lot of it is visually stunning), it’s the sheer magnetism of his identity, how he draws such intense energyꦯ from people, and how polarizing that energy is.

Spend five minutes online and you’ll find devout Kojima stans who treat 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Metal Gear Solid 2 like scripture. They call him a prophet, a genius ahead of his time, and hey, maybe he is. But you’ll also find just as many people accusing him of pretension, of overindulgence, of making games that are more about being Kojima than telling a coherent story. Some resent the way critics seem afraid to call out his misfires, others think 168澳♚洲幸运5开奖网:he’s coasting on reputation and nostalgiꦡa.

This tension, this push and pull, reminds me less of traditional fandom and more of the way we talk about celebrities. Kojima isn’t just the creator behind a fr🐻anchise; he’s a character in the public consciousness. Maybe i🎉t’s a symptom of where games are now. We’ve reached a point where creators are as recognizable as their creations. Neil Druckmann, Cory Barlog, and Yoko Taro are not just names in credits; they’re figures with public personas, fan followings, and often, controversies.

But Kojima was arguably the prototype. He wanted you to know he made these games. His name’s on the box and the opening credits. “A Hideo Kojima Game” Multiple times. In one game, I’m told it shows up seven time༒s before you hit the title screen. For better or worse, that level of own🐲ership demands attention. You either buy into the mythos or rebel against it.

There’s No Easy Answer

Maybe that’s the real magic of it. Whether you love him, hate him, or, like me, just watch from a distance, Hideo Kojimaꦍ has managed to turn himself into a kind of mirror. People project onto him whatever they want to see: genius, fraud, artist, ed🧜gelord. Maybe even all of the above.

I still don’t know exactly how I feel about him. But I do know this: in an industry full of faceless studi༺os and recycled formulas, there’s something undeniably strange and strangely human about someone who makes games this personal, and whose presence is impossib𝔍le to ignore. Even if I never quite get the hype, I can’t stop watching the conversation.