In a recent episode of Hideo Kojima's podcast KOJI10, the Metal Gear and Death Stranding creator discussed some of the game ideas he's had relating to time. These should be taken with a pinch of salt, because Kojima's always loved spieling about how certain concepts would work in videogames, but at least one was almost part of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (both spotted and translated by IGN).
Time-based mechanics have been a minor theme in some of Kojima's past work, probably most famously with The End in Metal Gear Solid 3, an elderly sniper boss who can be beaten by simply…. not playing the game for a week (or moving your machine's internal clock forward).
Kojima also mentions that game's food system: the animals you hunt in-game for Snake's meals will go rotten after a few real world days have passed. This makes Snake sick, but they can also be used as a guerilla booby trap by being left near hungry guards.
"I’ve thought about having characters’ hair grow in games," says Kojima. "Originally in Death Stranding 2, I was going to have Sam’s beard gradually grow out over time, and the player would have to shave it. If they didn’t, Sam would end up looking unkempt. However, as Norman Reedus is a big star, I didn’t want to make him look uncool!"
Kojima says he might return to this idea in future, though it does sound awfully like Red Dead Redemption 2, where I've spent more hours than I care to admit carefully shaving and pomading Arthur Morgan.
Then we get into the good stuff: firstly, Kojima imagines a game where you control a character over their entire life.
"It starts out with the player being born, you’re a child and then gradually over time you become an adult," says Kojima. "In the game, you fight various enemies. Like with [MGS3’s The End], if you keep playing the game, you will become a 70 or 80 year old man. However, at this age you will be weaker, your eyesight will worsen. When you are a teenager you’ll be able to run faster but by the time you reach 60 you’ll slow down a bit."
Kojima says the character will have better physical stats when younger but, without quite explaining how, more knowledge and experience when older. This would apparently play into how you deal with the enemies. Despite the enthusiasm for this idea, Kojima concludes "But no-one would buy it!"
Another idea is some sort of weird food-making simulator where you're producing cheese or wine, and have to log in repeatedly over a long period of time to manage the process. I mean, fine, but at that point why not just actually make some cheese. Maybe Kojima was feeling hungry.
Finally we come to the wildest idea of all, which sounds like what would happen if someone made Memento into a game. In this "forgetting game" players have to get through the entire thing "quickly", because the main character gradually forgets abilities and information if you don't play every day.
Kojima says that examples of how this would work would be "how to fire their gun or what their job is." The endpoint of the process would be that, erm, the character forgets how to move in their entirety, and presumably you just log in and look sadly at your recumbent avatar. "Players would have to take a week off work or school to play it," laughs Kojima.
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