Tag: Kojima Productions

Hades 2, slot machine horror and other new indie games worth checking out

Welcome to our latest roundup of what’s going on in the indie game space. It’s been a packed week, with tons of new releases worth highlighting and Tokyo Game Show taking place.

Before we get started, make sure to check out our recap of Kojima Productions’ 10th anniversary showcase if you need to catch up. I can’t quite get my head around how a literal walking sim from Hideo Kojima might work. Sony had a bunch of things to show off during its PlayStation State of Play this week, including a few tasty-looking indies like Chronoscript: The Endless End. So too did Xbox in its Tokyo Game Show stream — Double Dragon Revive looks neat, as does Rhythm Doctor.

Also, the developers and publishers of several of this week’s arrivals delayed them to get some breathing space from Hollow Knight: Silksong… only to run right into Hades 2. That’s extremely unfortunate. But the teams behind some newcomers — Baby Steps, CloverPit, Aethermancer, Star Birds and Deadly Days: Roadtrip — are doing something about that. They’ve teamed up for a special Steam sale and bundle of their games. Love to see indie developers supporting each other.

New releases

Hades 2 is finally out of early access on PC. The full game is now available on Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 as well.

Reviews have been pretty stellar for Supergiant’s sequel. I played a little of it in early access last year, but decided to hold off getting in too deep until the full version arrived. And, of course, I now have a ton of other games to play. I’ll absolutely spend some time with Hades 2 eventually. But there’s another roguelite that’s soaking up a lot of my time right now…

I feel grimy when I’m playing CloverPit. I’m imprisoned in a tiny, rusty, metallic room that wouldn’t look out of place in Silent Hill‘s Otherworld. I have a debt to pay and deadlines to meet, with some coins, lucky charms and a slot machine to help me reach my goals and hopefully escape. Failure means plunging into a dark abyss.

Whenever I haven’t been playing EA Sports FC 26 in my free time, I willingly keep returning to this disgusting cell. I try desperately to find synergies between the lucky charms to break the slot machine and make sure I earn enough coins to resolve the arrears. Offers made by telephone, almost Deal or No Deal-style, can help while perhaps adding a greater risk of losing all my coins.

Panik Arcade has stressed that this is a horror game, not a gambling simulator. The whole idea is to bend the rules in your favor.

I haven’t yet had a successful run. I did pretty well a few times with builds focused on cherries and diamonds, though deadline 11 has remained out of reach for me thus far. No spoilers here, but there’s a big jump from the 10th deadline’s debt level.

The game is incredibly sticky, and I can see myself sinking many, many more hours into CloverPit. (I won’t be alone there. I just watched a video of someone who put 155 hours into the demo.)

CloverPit, which is published by Future Friends Games, is out now on Steam.

I had fun with the Baby Steps demo this summer, but after looking forward to this literal walking simulator for a couple of years, I realize that I’m more likely to watch a YouTube video of someone playing it than try to beat it myself. I’d probably do that on a treadmill so I can get my own steps in at the same time.

This is the latest game from Bennett Foddy (QWOP, Getting Over It), Gabe Cuzzillo and Maxi Boch, who previously made Ape Out together. It sees “an unemployed failson” being forced to get up off his rear end and make it to the peak of a mountain. To take Nate there, you’ll need to pick up one foot and move it onto (hopefully) stable ground before moving his other leg, taking one clumsy step at a time to reach his destination.

Baby Steps is supposed to be as funny as it is frustrating. You will fall. A lot. Sometimes in a way that erases much of your progress. But as with working out, progress is the point. If only Nate would actually use his damn arms for stability as well. Then you might really start to see some results.

Baby Steps is out now on Steam and PS5.

I’ve had my eye on Bloodthief for a while. It’s a vampiric, medieval take on fast-paced dungeon running in the vein of Ghostrunner with Ultrakill-style murdering. A solo developer who goes by Blargis is behind this game, which hit Steam this week.

Giving so much of my attention to CloverPit and don’t-call-it-FIFA (and a few others we’ll get to momentarily) means I haven’t much time to check out Bloodthief yet. Still, I look forward to being as terrible at it as I am at Ghostrunner 2.

One of the highlights of Playdate Season 2 is Blippo+, a parody of cable TV. The FMV experience from Yacht, Telefantasy Studios, Noble Robot and publisher Panic has moved into the color TV age, as it’s now available on Nintendo Switch and Steam.

As you channel surf the otherworldly broadcasts and observe the offbeat alien TV personalities doing their thing, you might start to piece together a deeper story that’s playing out across the shows and news programs. Blippo+ is such a strange, wonderful thing. I’m glad it exists and that more people have the chance to enjoy it.

Consume Me is a coming-of-age life sim about a student who is entering her last year of high school and dealing with the stress and complexity of that painful time. For Jenny, that means managing chores (such as laundry and walking the dog), her studies, dates with her boyfriend and an eating disorder. Time management is a key factor, and you’ll try to stay on top of everything by playing minigames.

Consume Me, which is based in part on co-developer Jenny Jiao Hsia’s own experiences as a teenager, won the Seamus McNally Grand Prize at this year’s Independent Games Festival. AP Thomson, Jie En Lee, Violet W-P and Ken “coda” Snyder are the other developers of the game, which Hexecutable published. Consume Me is out now on Steam for PC and Mac.

Hotel Barcelona brought together two famed game directors, Swery (Hidetaka Suehiro), of Deadly Premonition fame and No More Heroes creator Suda51 (Goichi Suda). The latter came up with the concept for this game, which Swery announced all the way back in 2019. So the roguelite had been in the works for quite some time before it checked in to PC and consoles this week.

Here, you’ll fight your way through a hotel that serial killers have overrun. You can rope in a couple of friends to help you thanks to multiplayer support. In the style of many FromSoftware titles, you’ll also have the option to invade other players’ games and play spoiler by taking them out and undoing their progress. That seems really mean, though. I don’t know why anyone would do that.

Hotel Barcelona, from Swery’s White Owls Inc. and publisher Cult Games, is out now on Steam, Xbox Series X/S and PS5.

Upcoming

Annapurna Interactive is always a publisher worth paying attention to given its strong track record. This week, it revealed three upcoming adventure games during a showcase at Tokyo Game Show. I checked out demos for a couple of them, and I’ve already added all three to my wishlist.

D-topia is set in an apparent utopia run by artificial intelligence. You play as a maintenance worker who tries to keep things humming along by solving logic puzzles in the factory and helping out others with their problems. Your choices decide how the story plays out and, shock horror, things might not be going entirely smoothly behind the scenes.

I dig the very clean look here. It reminds me a bit of Mirror’s Edge. The dialogue in the demo is fun too. Expect to see this narrative-driven puzzler from Marumittu Games land on Steam, Epic Games Store, Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Windows PC via the Xbox App in 2026.

Also coming to Steam, Epic Games Store, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Windows PC via the Xbox App next year is People of Note by Iridium Studios. This is billed as a “musical narrative adventure” that sees pop singer Cadence seeking stardom with the help of other musicians who specialize in other genres. You’ll need to time your attacks to the beat to make them more effective, while genres play a role in making battles more dynamic.

Turn-based combat generally isn’t my bag and I didn’t enjoy it in this demo either. However, Iridium wants people to be able to play the game their way. People of Note will include the option to disable things like turn-based combat and environmental puzzles. That immediately makes the game more appealing to me, especially because I like what I’ve seen of the world, story and characters. The promise of “full-length cinematic musical sequences” sure sounds good to me too.

The third game Annapurna showed off is Demi and the Fractured Dream. I haven’t had a chance to try the demo for this one as yet, but it looks like a Zelda-esque action adventure with environmental puzzles, platforming and plenty of hacking and slashing. As Demi, a cursed hero who is trying to save the world by slaying a trio of Accursed Beasts, you’ll have a variety of tools and spells at your disposal. Time your dodges just right, and you’ll power up your next set of attacks.

This game from Yarn Owl is coming to Steam, Epic Games Store, Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Windows PC via the Xbox App in 2026.

This week’s State of Play included a gameplay trailer for Halloween, from IllFonic and co-publisher Gun Interactive. We also got a release date for it. The horror game is coming to PlayStation, Xbox, Steam and Epic Games Store on September 8, 2026. Why it’s not dropping in late October is beyond me.

This is an asymmetric multiplayer game in the vein of Friday the 13th: The Game (also from IllFonic and Gun) and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which Gun published. Three teammates will play as civilians who are trying to save the intended NPC victims of Jason Voorhees. If you’d rather go it alone, though, you can terrorize Haddonfield, Illinois as the legendary killer in a single-player mode.

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September 27, 2025
The Death Stranding anime now has a title and its first trailer

The long-running joke about Hideo Kojima is that he’d secretly rather be making movies than video games. Kojima somehow nearly got into double figures on Metal Gear games without any of them receiving the adaptation treatment (though not for the lack of on his part), but it’s looking like a very different story for the Death Stranding series on which he’s been working since departing Konami.

A live-action adaptation of the post-apocalyptic walking simulator landed a back in the spring, and it was a few months later that an animated Death Stranding movie was also on the way, with Aaron Guzikowski (Raised by Wolves) penning the screenplay. We now know what will be called, and there’s a trailer.

Death Stranding Mosquito is directed by ABC Animation’s Hiroshi Miyamoto, with Kojima himself serving as a producer, and will apparently tell an original story within the “surreal and emotionally resonant” Death Stranding universe. If you’ve played the original game or its 2025 sequel, the teaser will look very familiar, with the film seemingly focusing on a character who definitely isn’t Norman Reedus’ Sam Porter Bridges, but is sporting very similar get-up.

The hooded figure comes face to face with what appears to be a BT-ified doglike creature, and then has a brutal fist fight with another character. We don’t get any more context than that, nor any whiff of a release date, but visually Death Stranding Mosquito looks absolutely stunning.

It’s been a busy few days for Kojima-related announcements. We got the first for Kojima Productions’ upcoming horror game, OD, and found out that Kojima is also releasing his own credit card in Japan. Yes,

Matt Tate

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September 23, 2025
5 Disappointing Things About Konami’s Metal Gear Solid ‘Master Collection’

Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 gathers some of the best games ever made and puts them all on modern platforms in one convenient package. Unfortunately, a laundry list of weird caveats and shortcomings at launch make the new anthology hard to celebrate. Why is one of the best franchises in gaming history not pulling out all the stops?

Tears Of The Kingdom’s Newspaper Questline And The State Of Hyrulean Journalism

Out October 24 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, and Windows PC, Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 has been stalked by controversy for months now, with questions about subpar performance on Nintendo Switch and a lack of bells and whistles on “next-gen” platforms like PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. The anthology features five main games—Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater—and includes the oddball Snake’s Revenge and the NES and Famicom ports of Metal Gear as bonuses. But now that it’s finally here, it’s hard not to be disappointed by how publisher Konami has gone about assembling it.

First up is the lack of a visual upgrade on new platforms, or parity with the original versions on Switch. As shared prior to release, Metal Gear Solid still only plays at 30fps across all versions (it was never remastered for 2011’s Metal Gear Solid HD Collection by Bluepoint Games). The Switch version of Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 are also locked at 30fps (MGS2 originally ran at 60fps on PlayStation 2). All three games max out at 1080p as well, with no 4K resolution options for the stronger hardware versions.

Read More: Kotaku’s Metal Gear Retrospective Series

Even without any big improvements, Konami notes that the launch versions still suffer from various bugs and performance issues it plans to patch sometime in the future. A full list of the shortcomings was provided to IGN. “Across Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, and 3, bug fixes are also planned, specifically on MGS2,” the site noted. “Konami warned the game may significantly slow down in certain cutscenes, which sounds worrying. A patch to reduce processing load is planned.” Visual options like CRT scanlines and the ability to switch between windowed and full-screen mode in the options menu in the two MSX games are also MIA at the moment.

There’s also the laggy pause button. Konami added the option to pause during cutscenes, a long-requested feature for the story-heavy stealth series. Footage from copies of the game that leaked early, however, showed that it can take up to 10 seconds for the game to register the pause after the button’s pressed, taking some of the shine off the new option. It’s still unclear if that’s intentional or will be patched down the road.

The Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 is, perhaps less surprisingly, encountering issues on PC as well. Initial Steam reviews are very mixed, with players complaining about unintuitive keybindings, poor UI, and a lack of aspect ratio options. “Take this with a grain of salt, the game literally just launched, but damn the video settings, button mapping, and poor UI/UX for the collection is pretty sour,” wrote one player. “I am sure it will improve over time, but yikes.”

Most galling for me personally are the games altogether missing from the physical Switch version of the collection. In North America at least, only Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, and Snake’s Revenge are actually on the game card. The three Metal Gear Solid games, which are the main ones advertised on the front of the box, must be downloaded separately. As someone who treats their Switch like a physical repository for retro remasters and re-issues, it’s frustrating to have to rely on an internet connection and a temporary online storefront to have access to all-time classics. It sounds like the Japanese physical release at least also includes the first Metal Gear Solid on the game card.

Many of the initial reviews for Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 have noted these shortcomings while still pointing out that at the end of the day these games still play great and remain some of the most profound meditations on geopolitics, war, and the military industrial complex the medium has ever produced. “I think it’s great that such a huge swathe of Metal Gear history is now readily available and easily playable on modern systems,” writes The Verge’s Jon Porter. “But there’s also a part of me that thinks Konami missed an opportunity to give Metal Gear Solid in particular a fresh coat of paint and update it for a modern audience.”

The video game industry is generally so bad at preserving its past I wish it would go all out when it decides to finally take the opportunity to repackage old games and sell them again. If that means charging more so be it. I’d gladly pay $100 for the definitive edition of all of these games. Maybe we’ll eventually get that one day. In the meantime I hope Konami’s planned post-launch updates give the collection some of the additional love it deserves.

Ethan Gach

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October 24, 2023
Metal Gear Solid Locked At 30FPS In Master Collection, Konami Confirms

Screenshot: Konami / Kotaku

Part of the appeal of video game remasters and remakes is the prospect of playing an old game on better hardware that can, ostensibly, run it better than your old console did back in the day. That is the hope, at least. Unfortunately, not every “remaster” is an improvement over its source material—just ask the Grand Theft Auto Trilogy collection. Now, eyes are turning toward Konami’s upcoming Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1., with fans hoping it doesn’t run into those same issues. On that front, today saw the emergence of one new slightly disappointing tidbit.

Tears Of The Kingdom’s Newspaper Questline And The State Of Hyrulean Journalism

The original 1998 PlayStation Metal Gear Solid ran at 30 frames per second, and Konami has now confirmed that will still be the case for the newly remastered edition launching in the Collection on October 24. News of this comes from a graph on the compilation’s official website, which says the first MGS adventure will run at 30fps on all platforms, while Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater will run at 60fps on all systems except for the Nintendo Switch.

To be clear, the original Metal Gear Solid ran at 30fps when it launched in 1998, but it being locked to that lower framerate across the board seems odd in 2023, especially when its sequels will apparently have some scaling depending on which platform you buy them on. (For reference, MGS2 originally ran at 60fps, while MGS3 was originally a 30fps game.)

Here’s the full rundown:

Screenshot: Konami / Kotaku

There’s been chatter about the games’ graphical resolutions as well. It’s a bummer to see that none of these games will run at 4K resolution, even on PC, PlayStation 5, or Xbox Series X/S. This lack of 4K support was confirmed back in August.

All of this comes ahead of Konami’s separate, upcoming Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater remake. That’s titled Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater, presumably so the number doesn’t scare anyone off from playing the game. MGS3 was a prequel in any case, so you didn’t need to know everything going in to understand it.

Kenneth Shepard

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September 22, 2023
Konami, Please Don’t Forget About Metal Gear Solid 4

During Wednesday’s Nintendo Direct, Konami showed off a new trailer for Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol.1. The upcoming collection of past Metal Gear games includes some of the earliest and biggest games from the popular stealth series. However, 2008’s Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots isn’t included, and I’m worried Konami isn’t going to include it in a future, theoretical Vol. 2.

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Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 was first announced in May. The collection contains the first seven games of the series and will be released on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and 5, and (just announced earlier today) Nintendo Switch. These games aren’t being remastered and they aren’t remakes. Instead, this is a new collection of classic MGS games that will make it easier to play these older titles on newer platforms. The collection will also include screenplay books of each game and some other goodies, too.

However, not included in this collection is the PS3-exclusive Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, which is a shame as the game is currently only playable via emulation or on original PS3 hardware. At one point, MGS4 was available to stream via PS Now, but that is no longer the case. While most other MGS games have been ported to multiple platforms, MGS4 remains locked to the PS3. Why? What is the reason for never porting MGS4 to any other platform?

Why is Metal Gear Solid 4 only on PS3?

If you ask the internet about this, and you’ll not doubt see some of this in the comments, a popular theory that is often spouted off as if it’s a fact is that MGS4 is incapable of running on anything but a PS3. But that’s not true. You can, right now, download an emulator and play MGS4 at 60fps without much trouble.

And assistant producer of the game Ryan Payton suggests in Steven L. Kent’s book The Ultimate History of Video Games, Volume 2 that, at one point, MGS4 was actually running on an Xbox 360 and looked and played fine. Reportedly, that version never happened due to Microsoft’s console using DVDs and not Blurays. Konami didn’t want to spend the extra money on shipping multiple discs for the Xbox 360 version. This is more than likely the main reason MGS4 remained a PS3 exclusive and was even alluded to by former PlayStation boss Jack Tretton in 2008. Konami also said this was the reason in 2014.

Now, in 2023, most consoles use Bluray discs and all of them support digital games—which can be as large or small as you want. So that problem is solved. Yet, I’m still not convinced Konami will actually bring MGS4 to modern machines or to PC. It’s certainly not easy to port a game to new hardware, especially one that exists natively on just one platform. Plus, this whole process wouldn’t be cheap, would involve a good deal of resources, and would likely require tweaks to how the game plays as it heavily relied on the Dualshock 3/Sixaxis controller.

Reports indicate MGS4 isn’t coming to more consoles

Sadly, it seems Konami isn’t going to do the necessary work to help preserve this entry in the Metal Gear franchise. A previous report from Windows Central, which correctly revealed information about the Metal Gear Solid Collection and the MGS3 remake before release also stated that a potential Vol. 2 would not include MGS4, but instead would feature Peace Walker, Portable Ops, Metal Gear Rising: Revegance, and a few other spin-offs.

Sadly, it seems Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots—with all its long cutscenes, weird live-action bits, creepy monkey, and cool stealth camo—will remain a PS3 exclusive. Likely due to technical issues, but also, maybe Konami just forgot about it. There are a lot of games in the series. It’s easy to forget one or two of them. I get it. I forget Metal Gear Acid exists.

Still, I hope that one day, someone over at Konami remembers this game exists and that it deserves a second life on new hardware.

Zack Zwiezen

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June 21, 2023
Kojima: MGS2 ‘Seemed Impossible To Release’ After 9/11, Nearly Quit

Photo: Neilson Barnard (Getty Images)

Those well-versed in their Metal Gear Solid trivia will know that the original ending for Metal Gear Solid 2 was changed before release. Scenes involving a massive ship crashing into Manhattan island were a bit too much in a very young post-9/11 world, with images and videos of planes striking the World Trade Center a constant in the media. In a recent interview, director Hideo Kojima talked about the complicated nature of releasing such a game after a world changing event and how it nearly drove him to quit Konami.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty released in November of 2001 to much anticipation. As a series focused on “Tactical Espionage Action,” the games have never shied away from political themes, be they a part of the fictional story or commentaries on world events and history. While it’s been known for some time now that elements of the game were changed at the last minute due to the September 11 attacks, recent comments reveal that the stress and challenge of handling such a release were enough to push Hideo Kojima to quit Konami at the time. A conversation with Konami’s chairman, Kagemasa Kozuki was what convinced Kojima to stay back then.

Read More: Metal Gear Solid 2 Retrospective: Be Careful What You Wish For

Speaking with Shuka Yamada for IGN, Hideo Kojima described an awkward and tough situation after Metal Gear Solid 2, due to release in the Fall of 2001, contained images of the World Trade Center and other sites that were attacked on 9/11.

9/11 took place in 2001 right before the release of Metal Gear Solid 2. We’d just sent off the master, but the game featured both the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It seemed impossible to release the game. I was called to the board of directors and they all turned pale when I explained the situation. Nobody would tell me what to do, with the exception of Mr. Kozuki, who tackled the issue.

As I thought about what to do, I went to speak with Mr. Kozuki about possibly quitting the company. That’s when he told me: ‘When this game comes out and society has their say about it, they’ll be talking about you, its creator, and me, the person who sold it. I doubt they’ll say anything about anyone else. What will you do? I’m ready for whatever happens.’

When I heard how far he was willing to go, I made the firm decision that we’d release it together. The rest is history.

MGS2 would go on to receive critical acclaim. The game’s tactical stealth gameplay was a dramatic evolution of what came before it and its meta-narrative filled with postmodern themes about digital information, virtual realities, among many others, is still relevant and widely discussed.

After MGS2 shipped, Kojima found himself in dire need of recovery. “I became completely exhausted, and I always end up in an awful state when I finish making a game,” he said. “After the first Metal Gear Solid, even after it was done I wasn’t recovering at all and ended up being passed from one hospital to the next.”

9/11 and the themes of Metal Gear Solid 2 weren’t the only time Kojima would face the need to alter his work. As we found out during The Game Awards this year, Kojima rewrote the original story for the sequel to the narrative-driven, post-apocalyptic delivery-service simulator, Death Stranding; the game’s themes of loneliness, isolation, and world-altering events were too close to what we all went through (and are still struggling with). The Covid-19 pandemic followed Death Stranding’s 2019 release by only a few months.

“Fiction changes when something that big happens,” Kojima told IGN. He continued:

That’s why I completely rewrote [Death Stranding 2]. You can’t pretend that something this big never happened. While the games themselves are based on characters who are not bound by our reality, the players themselves have gone through the pandemic, and a story written before that experience just wouldn’t resonate with them in the same way, whether it was a fantasy story or a sci-fi one.

Kojima Productions is currently working on Death Stranding 2. The company is also working on an unnamed game with Microsoft, a project Kojima says other publishers turned down; though he pitched the idea to a few places, he describes the game as requiring “infrastructure that was never needed before.” Other companies seemed to not be as into the idea, “they really seemed to think I was mad.”

Whatever that new game is, let’s hope he’s not predicting an awful future for us yet again.

Claire Jackson

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December 28, 2022