Hideo Kojima is one of the world's most famous game developers and has been responsible for some of the key titles in the medium – including Snatcher, Policenauts and (of course) Metal Gear Solid.
His most recent epic, Death Stranding, was branded by some critics as a 'delivery simulator', and while that's undoubtedly a key part of the gameplay, Kojima has revealed a little more about the themes behind the game's other elements.
During an interview with NHK World Japan, one of the hosts mentioned to Kojima that he noticed references to past classics in Death Stranding's setting. The ladders in the game are reminiscent of Donkey Kong, while the bike sequences call to mind Sega's Hang-On. The game's action scenes involve a lot of third-person shooting, and there's even a fighting scene which introduces health bars, Street Fighter II-style.
Having been presented with all of this evidence, Kojima told the host that he was correct in his assumption that the game is about revisiting past classics in a 3D space. "All old games were in 2D before sandboxes or 3D visuals," says Kojima. "Why not enjoy that again in an open-world setting? You discovered the hidden theme of Death Stranding!"
Kojima is currently hard at work on Death Stranding 2. Meanwhile, his former employer Konami is remastering Metal Gear Solid 3 and is also packaging up some other MGS titles for release on modern consoles.