Death Stranding 2 and risky game connoisseur Hideo Kojima says too many AAA games play it safe: "If there is no risk, there won't be any good things that would be born"

A living puppet sits on Fragile's shoulder in a Death Stranding 2 PS5 screenshot.

Hideo Kojima is no stranger to risky games, the type of stuff that's just as likely to inspire loud complaints or heavy confusion as it is to court loads of awards – Death Stranding and Death Stranding 2's fussy cross-country traversal, say. It's not surprising to hear that the famed director recently took shots at the AAA industry's risk-averse product pushing, then.

Speaking to Ssense about this year's annual marketing marathon Summer Game Fest, Kojima felt most of the big-budget fare looked too familiar. "Even the visuals and the systems are pretty much the same, and a lot of people enjoy this, I understand," he says.