Hideo Kojima Wants To Create an Aging Game That Only Becomes Good 10 Years After Its Release

During a recent interview, Hideo Kojima shared a wild pitch for a game that improves with time. The prolific creator explained that the title’s Metacritic score would increase over a decade as the game ages. Yes, Kojima has had many interesting ideas in the past, but this might be one of his wildest yet.

hideo Kojima Pitches Game That Requires 10 Years of Patience

Hideo Kojima shared the concept during a recent broadcast of his KOJI10 radio show. According to the Death Stranding creator, the potential game would start off as uninteresting, but would slowly improve over time. And before you think, ‘Isn’t this what MMOs or live service games already do with ongoing patches?’—it’s not. In this game concept, Kojima would have everything already coded in, with a timer that gradually evolves the game over the course of a decade.

Here is a translation of the pitch from Genki: “Kojima has a pitch for an ‘aging game’ that gets more interesting and fun over time like fine wine. He says when you buy the game, it sets off a timer, and at the start, it’s not that interesting with a Metacritic score of 10. But as time passes, it gradually becomes more interesting and 10 years later it’s super fun and would have a Metacritic score of 100.”

In all fairness, Hideo Kojima does say that he doesn’t think the game would sell well. He even encourages other creators bold enough to take on the concept to borrow the idea. During the conversation, Kojima also shared another concept where the game’s protagonist ages over time. The character would lose strength and eyesight the longer you play. However, the auteur developer also admitted that creating a game with an ‘evolving environment’ would probably be too costly to make.

Aging Game Mechanics

This isn’t the first time Hideo Kojima has toyed with time and aging as game mechanics. In Metal Gear Solid 3, players could actually save their game in the middle of the boss fight with ‘The End,’ then change their console clock to defeat him by moving time forward. So, it’s not too surprising that Kojima has some interesting game concepts about time.

His ten-year-long aging game does sound pretty cool. Although, if I’m being honest, I’m not sure most modern players would have the patience for that. Regardless, it would be intriguing to have a title that players could check back on a decade later to discover a completely new experience. It would give a whole new definition to “replay value” as well.

Based on the interview, though, it doesn’t sound like Kojima is going to pursue his aging game concepts. As the Metal Gear Solid creator puts it, they likely wouldn’t be big sellers in the AAA market. Still, it’s pretty cool to get a sneak peek at the creative ideas bouncing around in his head. It makes you wonder what we can expect next from Hideo Kojima. Especially considering Death Stranding is already one of the most out-there gaming concepts to be released in the last decade.