It seems that Hideo Kojima’s opinion on AI is ever-evolving. In 2025, the Metal Gear Solid director compared the tech’s importance to the leap from 2D to 3D in video games, and then, in a separate interview months later, referred to AI as a “friend” that could potentially help “boost efficiency” in game development.
In May 2026, Kojima starred in an AI-generated advert for Prada, alongside Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn, whose likeness is used for the character of Heartman in the Death Stranding games. But then, in June 2026, Kojima flip-flopped on the tech, stating that he wasn’t “interested” in AI: “Maybe AI could create art, but while I live, I don’t think I’ll see it. I’m not interested in it.”
Today, the latest episode of Kojima’s KOJI10 podcast went live, and it’s the first entry in the long-running, 36-episode series to premiere with official English subtitles. During the podcast, after discussing Death Stranding 2’s one-year anniversary, the director brought up NVIDIA’s DLSS 5 tech: “NVIDIA has a technology for its graphics cards; it’s called DLSS 5. It can make CG characters that were close to the uncanny valley look like real people. That caused a buzz.”
“Buzz” is certainly a nonpartisan way to phrase it, as the reaction to the leaked version of Nvidia’s DLSS 5 tech at the end of August was divisive. Presumably, considering that official DLSS 5 support for Death Stranding 2 has not been announced, Kojima was referring to the leaked version of the tech in the interview.
“People kept saying, ‘You don’t need this for [Death Stranding 2], it looks a little odd with it on,’” Kojima explained. “They said it didn’t need it[…]That’s where things are heading. AI will be built into everything, including cameras, and will automatically enhance things, I suppose—improve the image.”
However, Kojima stated that his feelings on DLSS 5 and AI upscaling in general are a bit less neutral than he initially let on. Unsurprisingly, considering his love for both cinema and music, he stated that AI’s inability to understand “intentions” may result in 4K remasters of films and audio remasters of classic albums inadvertently overwriting the creative intentions of the original artists behind them.
“As a creator, I have mixed feelings about this technology,” he continued. “I think we might stop doing remakes one day. People still restore old films in 4K by hand, for instance. AI could do that easily. But as the person who made the original, I wouldn’t want someone changing it too much. There was a reason I chose a particular lighting setup. It would be different if AI understood those intentions[…]I wouldn’t like that. Unless I was controlling the AI in my own work, that may be different. I don’t know, though. This will probably become standard[…]But I don’t much like that idea.”
Although Kojima has previously stated during an interview in 2025 that he believes “remakes and sequels” to films “will be made by AI,” his opinion on the practice has seemingly become somewhat more negative as time has gone on. At this rate, maybe Kojima will be fully anti-datacenter by 2027.
