Game creator and director Hideo Kojima shed a light on the secret of the development of upcoming strand genre video game Death Stranding.
Death Stranding development and team secret
Kojima recently discussed about how he and his team created this mysterious video game, which will be launching this coming Nov. 8, and how quick it was compared to his previous work. He stated that they worked on it for only three years with only 80 developments working on it.
The game director particularly noted that the reason his previous work, Metal Gear Solid V, was taking too long because they had to design the Fox Engine from the ground up. This ended up taking a lot of time and the development of the actual game had to wait until it was finished.
This time around, Kojima asked for the help of game developer Guerilla Games and used Horizon’s game engine Decima Engine. This allowed for the production to happen at a much quicker pace with the upcoming video game. It also helped that the development team was smaller, as everything was created and decided in-house.
Check out his full statement below:
Don’t get me wrong, I’m always quick. It’s like, three years? I can’t really say anything about Sony right now…maybe it will take 8 years, or maybe 10 years for first-party titles, like Nintendo as well. Cyberpunk [2077] has probably been worked on for more than 8 years. I’ve created in three years. When I was creating Metal Gear Solid 5, I needed more time because I had to produce the engine, as well as produce other titles.
So, if you looked back at the interviews three or four years ago, I’m as consistent as I said about game design… I’m kind of very efficient in the way I make games in a short time. Every day, every hour, I decide right or left. I won’t say, “I’ll think about it” or “let’s think about it,” I make a decision on the spot. So, that’s one reason I don’t outsource so much because you have to answer emails and wait for answers, that’s why I do it in house as much as possible.
One of the reasons it’s fast is because I do all the planning, design, and produce, and that kind of forces me to make quick decisions. There’s no time lag. Like other developers might have different people doing boss battles, and different people doing the cutscenes–it’s a bit chaotic when they have to pull everything together. But our team is only about 80 people, usually other big teams are 300 or 600. So that’s what–with the short amount of time and [fewer] amount of people, and the direct feedback I give–allows me to make this game in this time.
The game will be exclusively available on PlayStation 4.
Source: GameSpot