Hideo Kojima is one of the industry's most famous game designers, and has been responsible for hits such as Metal Gear Solid, Death Stranding, Policenauts, Snatcher and Zone of the Enders.
As one of the most influential names in the business—and a man in his 60s—you'd expect Kojima to be considering how to pass on and safeguard his legacy, but it seems that he has a slightly different take on things.
Speaking to GQ, Kojima reveals that he's not concerned with "passing the baton" to a new generation because that's not how he was inspired by his own heroes. Instead, he took the inspiration provided by artists he admired and applied it to his own ideas:
I am not going to pass the baton to anyone. I will rather crush the baton… [Laughs.] I don’t need to give “Hideo Kojima” to anyone. If I pass the baton to my staff and tell them to make things the same way I do, the company will not succeed and will go out of business.
Every day, if I tweet something that I like, a director or an actor or a musician contacts me. They say, “I’m a creator because of your games.” But they didn’t receive the baton of Hideo Kojima. They received my small fire. They’re not copying me. They’re not trying to be me. They have this fire, and they light up their own. And they’ll probably give that to someone else. There were legendary comic book artists when I was a boy. I didn’t become a comic book artist – I was inspired by them, I was influenced.
In the same interview, Kojima reveals he was seriously ill in 2020 with Covid, and shares his biggest fears:
I am afraid of dying and having dementia. I am afraid of forgetting things when I get old. I am afraid that I won't even realise what I am forgetting. I became independent when I was 52. I’m 61 now.
The full interview is well worth a read. Kojima's Death Stranding 2 launches this year.