Death Stranding was — and still is — a huge breath of fresh air. It marked not only a massive departure from most other games, but it was also wildly different from Metal Gear Solid, the franchise Kojima Productions had spent decades making up to that point. Physint is another new series from Kojima Productions and its return to “action espionage,” a similar descriptor thrown on the classic Metal Gear Solid games. While it is exciting to see Hideo Kojima and his crew come back to the underserved stealth genre, Physint would be better served if it didn’t follow in Solid Snake’s exact footsteps.
Like another Enfant Terrible, there is inevitably going to be some Snake DNA in Physint, though. It’s only natural for a studio to bring back some ideas for a game when revisiting a genre. Metal Gear Solid had a suite of fantastic ideas and completely throwing them all out would be unwise. However, Kojima Productions owes it to the players to swerve and not just give them what they expect. Many would likely love another Metal Gear by a different name, but that’s not going to be as exciting. The smarter plan here would be to try and evoke the spirit of Metal Gear and what it inspired in players and not just pantomime those motions.
Physint Should Go in a Different Direction
The Metal Gear Solid games always reinvented sneaking and surprising players, which is the opposite of playing it safe. If Physint is mostly about a gruff guy tiptoeing through a base and hiding their sleepy bodies in lockers, it still has a decent chance of being excellent, but it would likely be a little disappointing to see KojiPro playing the hits.
Even though these Metal Gear games have always pushed forward, Kojima has already been known to recycle material from time to time, too. Metal Gear Solid contains many scenes that are almost exact recreations of ones in the two canon Metal Gear games, and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty turns its similarities to its predecessor into a major plot point. There are also more than a few overt nods to Metal Gear in Death Stranding 2. Kojima is always in dialogue with his past self — and that reflection is usually intriguing — but now is the time for a clean break.
During his time at Konami, Kojima, without fail, repeatedly spoke about how he wanted to move on from Metal Gear when promoting a new entry. His outspoken will to push forward means it would be disheartening to see him go back in order to appease nostalgic fans — as they are wont to do — nagging him to do the same thing again. He’s spoken about the desires of the Metal Gear fans and how they have affected him in the past, noting in a 2012 interview that “as long as people want to keep on playing it, [he would want] to keep on meeting that demand.”
This isn’t to say he’s been strictly beholden to his loyal supporters. However, Kojima is the kind of creator with unique enough ideas who deserves to follow his own creative spirit and any whiff of him returning to stealth out of some obligation or outside pressure would be discouraging. Given how Death Stranding 2 felt like Kojima’s safest sequel, it’s difficult to not at least be tiny bit little nervous Physint might be on the more cautious side in order to “meet that [fan] demand.”
Physint‘s Mysterious “Movie” Descriptor Is Intriguing
But, even in this early stage, there are already more than a few reasons to have faith Physint will live up to the challenge and be something different. Outside of Death Stranding 2, Kojima has made it a point to develop games that don’t follow templates and have their own bold style. Having different lore also means Physint would have a completely different set of tools when compared to Snake, as the world informs what type of gameplay is possible. For example, Death Stranding’s timefall and BTs were unique aspects bred from the lore that led to its own set of one-of-a-kind mechanics. Kojima has even said it’ll incorporate filmic elements, which is an intriguing feature that has yet to be defined but is a territory the studio hasn’t fully explored like this before.
Details about Physint are otherwise still rather sparse. Kojima has only publicly revealed three of its stars, a poster, how it will “[blur] the boundaries between film and games,” and that he is working with PlayStation. Said poster stars a cloaked and silhouetted man in a form-fitting sneaking suit with a suppressed gun. He’s not exactly like Solid Snake but an echo. And an echo can be just fine — great, even — but Physint deserves to come into its own and have its own voice.
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