Hideo Kojima has been more open about his video game ideas in recent years, and the latest one is a doozy. Kojima took to Twitter over the weekend and shared that he had canned a game project he was considering because its premise was too similar to the Amazon TV series, The Boys.
Kojima explained the what happened on his official Twitter account. He wrote that he “quit after 3 episodes of season 1.” It doesn’t sound like he stopped because he wasn’t enjoying it, though.
“I thought I’d watch the rest of the show. Actually, I watched a few episodes that were delivered at the time when I was about to start a project that I had been warming up for a long time and put it on hold because the concept was similar (different settings and tricks),” he wrote. “A buddy (male/female) thing with a special detective squad facing off against legendary heroes behind the scenes. I was thinking of Mads as the lead.”
Kojima is referring to actor and Death Stranding cast member, Mads Mikkelsen. This seems perfectly on-brand with how he enjoys hiring Hollywood talent to star in his projects. The Boys is a dark superhero story about vigilantes taking on corrupt heroes. It’s based on comics written by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson.
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"THE BOYS," which I quit after 3 episodes of season 1. I thought I'd watch the rest of the show. Actually, I watched a few episodes that were delivered at the time when I was about to start a project that I had been warming up for a long time, pic.twitter.com/UpI00pUIHQ— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) June 26, 2022
Seems familiar
Kojima followed up on this bombshell by watching more episodes of the TV series and concluding that his canned game idea was not as similar to the show as he initially thought.
“I watched the first eight episodes of season one of The Boys,” he wrote. “The concept was the same, a black ‘anti-hero’ story in which a superhero and a human face off, but the setting, gimmicks, and tone were very different from what I had in mind for my previous project.”
Cast members from the hit TV show also chimed in to express their enthusiasm for such a project, including actors Jack Quaid and Antony Starr. The writer and director of The Boys, Eric Kripke, replied asking for Kojima to make a game based on the show.
Kojima has a lot on his plate
The prospect of a Kojima-created game with a premise similar to The Boys sounds exciting. However, the auteur director also has plenty of other games on his plate for fans to look forward to. We now know that Kojima is working with Xbox Game Studios to create a new game that implements Microsoft’s cloud technology. There’s a possibility that this could be the rumored horror game codenamed Overdose. The latter game was rumored to exist. According to reports, it will star Margaret Qualley, who played Mama in Death Stranding, as the lead protagonist.
Death Stranding star Norman Reedus also recently let slip that Kojima Productions may be working on a sequel to the game. Considering that the original title eventually made its way to PC, we wouldn’t be surprised to see the sequel do the same.
