The Kojima Productions studio has undergone a major renovation for its seventh anniversary, and I'm not sure I've ever seen anything as wild as this office in a Hideo Kojima game.
Of course, what better way to set the tone for a Kojima Productions project than a lavishly produced trailer? This doesn't quite match the heights of those ten-minute-long Death Stranding trailers, but it is an impressive 90 seconds of hype for what I cannot emphasize enough is intended to be an office space.
The entrance of the office is a white room with mirrored walls where a life-sized model of KojiPro mascot Ludens stands waiting. It looks like the room where the protagonist of a particularly philosophical sci-fi movie would learn the secrets of the universe. The sci-fi vibe runs throughout the studio, from the clean lines of the cafeteria to the starship-style control room.
You can get a broad overview on the official site, which fittingly describes the renovation as a "spaceship transformation," but if you really want to dig in, there's also a studio tour video hosted by Akio Otsuda, the Japanese voice actor behind Metal Gear Solid's Snake, Death Stranding's Die-Hardman, and other roles far, far too numerous to list here. I cannot adequately express to you the euphoria I felt at hearing Solid Snake get audibly excited about gender-neutral bathrooms.
After spending far too long watching and rewatching these videos, I still can't decide if I actually like this office space. The first five minutes in any room seem like they'd be the coolest five minutes of my life, but actually spending eight hours a day here - or more; you know how game development is - seems like it'd quickly turn terrifying. Or maybe I've just seen too many tweets about liminal spaces.
Death Stranding 2 was officially announced earlier this month, but Kojima Productions is also working on a "completely new game."
