“We all have tough times to go through, but the true test of one’s character comes in how we react to those moments we don’t control,” Keighley said.

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“I think what happened to Hideo Kojima last year was a tragedy, but he never complained. He just sat in an isolated room for months, looked inside himself and focused on his art. He hoped that his love of entertaining us would carry him through the darkest days of his career. And we thank him, for all that he went through.”

Keighley claimed that, for a long time, Kojima refused to accept the award because he didn’t want “blood on [his] hands.”