
With Death Stranding 2: On the Beach slated to release at some point this year, Hideo Kojima has confirmed he and his team are now crunching on the PS5 project to get it completed on time. Calling it the "most demanding period of game development", Kojima posted to his Twitter: "On top of mixing and Japanese voice recording, there’s an inevitable pile of other tasks: writing comments, explanations, essays, interviews, discussions, and non-game-related work. It’s incredibly tough."
Crunch is the term used by game developers as they near the finish line of a project, but with so much still to do, lots of employees are made to work much longer hours than usual, potentially to the point of burnout. As Kojima then explains, this period is "both physically and mentally" taxing.
In a follow-up post, Kojima then questions how much longer he'll even be able to stay "creative" in the games industry. "I want to keep going for the rest of my life, but is it 10 more years? 20? Every day feels like I’m racing against the clock." In a tweet earlier today, Kojima said he's watching Blade Runner to replenish his "energy".
At the age of 61, Hideo Kojima has already had a legendary career in the games industry. His first game, named Penguin Adventure, released in 1986, and then he spent close to three decades with Konami creating Metal Gear Solid. Now operating an independent studio in Kojima Productions, the industry lead has a few other projects still in the works, most notably OD with Microsoft and Physint with Sony.