2019 has been a year of hot collaborations, and an unlikely pairing between Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima and Danish Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn has already produced one delighful team-up between TV and the world of video games.
Last month, Refn’s new 10-episode TV series, Too Old To Die Young – which he argues can be watched as ten separate movies – landed on Amazon Prime Video, and eagle-eyed viewers noted his close pal Kojima in a scene where a man has his finger chopped off as penance for an $8k debt. Refn will respond in kind later this year by featuring as ‘Heartman’ in Kojima’s upcoming confuse-a-thon, Death Stranding.
The pair rocked up to San Diego Comic-Con this past weekend where Kojima dropped the bombshell that Keanu Reeves – soon to be seen and heard in Cyberpunk 2077 – was on the reccomendation block for Death Stranding, but he wanted Mads Mikkelsen instead. He also took the time to chat about what he feels is the valuable difference between his gestating project and the road not travelled.
“There’s no reason to create something that’s already there,” he said (via wccftech). “I want to create something that gives more inspiration to the world. Like Hollywood movies where some don’t live with you, people just digest and consume. What I do is make something that’s difficult to chow down when you digest my work.
“What happens when I release my game or when Nicolas releases a movie, we get criticism or praise. But you think about it ten years later, same as Bladerunner or 2001: Space Odyssey.”
Kojima also noted that when he left Konami, it would have been easy to just “make a game where everyone is on an island and shoots each other” instead of challenging himself to create something unique.
Wireframe #18 is out now.
