As everyone knows (sometimes such phrases aren’t so exaggerated), last week The Last of Us, the HBO-conducted series adaptation of the video game, celebrated its 2013 namesake with critical and popular acclaim.
The series marks a whole range of audiovisual products (films and series) that have either been released in recent years or are preparing to hit cinemas and platforms. The list is as long as a day without bread (Uncharted, Mario Bros, Ghost of Tsushima, Gran Turismo, Cuphead, Fallout, God of War, Arcane, Horizon, Dragon Age, Sonic, Castlevania, A Plague Tale, Cyberpunk, Devil May Cry , Disco Elysium… the list could go on for a long time). And contrary to what’s happened in the past few decades, the good news is that this time around, they seem to mean business. In other words, far from being a mere economic addition to video game companies’ balance sheets, it now presents the adaptations of serious, dignified products capable of solidifying popular culture for years to come.
The day after The Last of Us premiered, when the grades and numbers were known to be good, something happened that was no coincidence. Hideo Kojima posted on his Twitter some photos of him visiting the studio of the American production company A24. At the end of last year, news broke that his latest work Death Stranding was to be filmed in cooperation with the production company Hammerstone Studios and now many are speculating that it will be distributed by A24. Death Stranding, released in 2019, is one of the best games of the last generation of consoles and, as usual in the works of the Japanese genius, a very narrative game, very much based on the characters, the plot and the construction of the world. . Something that makes it easier to transfer his story and his desolate world to the big screen, where the rain ages you and some slimy beings from beyond the grave stalk life and force people to live in underground shelters.
On the left Kojima at the A24 headquarters in the photo he uploaded to his social networks. On the right is an image of Metal Gear V, a game from the great Japanese film saga.
In the video game world, it’s a running gag that Kojima is a frustrated film director. It is not true. It’s true that their games rely heavily on video segments, and that their magnum opus (the Metal Gear saga) contains a very powerful narrative heart that at times (Metal Gear Solid IV) has eaten into the game itself. It is also true that he always recognized his fascination with cinema and the great importance that the seventh art had in his games. But none of this can overshadow his work as a designer: his games are among those that have most advanced the gameplay of the interactive medium, increasing with each new release the playable aspect of the games that were on the market at the time and promoting playful jumping at a level that few can match.
But if. Kojima would like to direct a film. And to players around the world to direct it. In fact, two of his director friends play two characters in Death Stranding: Guillermo del Toro and Nicolas Winding Refn. We don’t know for now who the director of the Death Stranding movie will be, but doubts hang in the air like the stranded beings of the game itself. Will the Japanese take the plunge? To do that, one must have attachments: mastering one medium does not mean mastering them all, and there are many people who are angry with him and await his stumbling block. Also, it would cost you time that you wouldn’t spend on your own games. Although, on the face of it, we’re not the ones blaming him for these things. If anyone within the medium deserves an opportunity to try another area, it’s without a doubt Solid Snake’s father.
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