Hideo Kojima Wants To Make Video Games That Change In Real Time

You gotta give Hideo Kojima this: He always has interesting ideas for the video games he’s made or would like to make. While the final product might not live up to those concepts, at least the guy is trying to push the envelope.

In a recent interview with Japanese lifestyle magazine An-An (via Siliconera and Yahoo! News), Kojima talked about what kind of games he wants to make. He doesn’t mention specific genres, but rather, the overarching concept behind them.

“What I want to do are games that change in real time,” said Kojima. “Even as we’ve finally got people of various ages and occupations from all around the world playing the same game, everyone, and I mean everyone, is playing the same.”

“Instead of that, [I want to make] something that changes based on where a person lives or how they think.”

You could argue AR games sort of already do this, somewhat. The basic mechanic of the games doesn’t change, but the maps do based on your location. What’s more, for something like Pokémon Go, you physically need to go outside to play the game as intended. However, these games don’t really change based on, say, your thinking. While many games for years have offered in-game decisions impact the direction of the game, but those can seem arbitrary and even simplistic, unlike human thought which is often anything but.

In the interview, Kojima brought up Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand, the 2003 Game Boy Advance title he produced, as an example. The vampire-hunting game’s cartridge features a light sensor, forcing players to go outside. (Kojima also wanted the game to include a sensor that would measure garlic breath!)

“Because the amount of sunlight is applied in game to defeat the vampires, the game changes depending on where you played and what time you played,” Kojima told An-An. “A mechanic like that connects human-made systems and real life.”

Gotta wonder what he’s planning to do next.