Today, Japanese video game developer Kojima Productions celebrated its seventh anniversary and gave everyone workspace envy by showing off what its new game studio looks like. And boy howdy, this studio is just as over the top as you’d expect, given that its repertoire includes a video game with a 31-minute cutscene.
Kojima Productions’ MTV Cribs-esque YouTube video is narrated by Akio Otsuka, the Japanese voice actor for Solid Snake. The nine-minute POV video follows Otsuka as he “sneaks” into Shinagawa Season Terrace, the new video game studio for KojiPro, which doesn’t look much like your typical office building. If anything, it’s more a cross between a modern art museum with the sci-fi aesthetic of a space station than it is an office. The luxurious new studio features:
- A park where employees can host barbecues
- An art gallery room for intensive viewing experiences of Death Stranding’s concept art and artifacts
- An Enter The Dragon-esque endless mirror hallway room with a life-size Ludens statue
- Gender-neutral bathrooms (nothing extravagant, but nice to see)
- A hallway of Death Stranding movie posters displayed on its walls
- Resting areas with tatami mat flooring and a birds-eye view of the Rainbow Bridge
- A pop-up movie viewing area with arena seating
Throughout the video, Otsuka drops tidbits of information about how the Shinagawa Season Terrace office is prime real estate for movie and TV show filming locations. Seeing as how Kojima is such a big fan of moving pictures that he’s finally venturing into making movies of his own (god help us all), it makes sense that he’d choose Shinagawa as the location for his studio: the ward has historical relevance in Japanese cinema. For my fellow cinephiles out there, Shinagawa, Tokyo, is where Godzilla first stepped foot on Japanese soil back in the original 1954 film. Also, “Shinagawa-kun” is the kaiju’s nickname in 2016’s Shin Godzilla. I only bring this up because Kojima is a big Goji fanboy.
Read More: Kojima’s Making A Death Stranding Movie With A New Story
Suffice it to say, the entirety of KojiPro’s new office is basically what I envision Geoff Keighley’s shrine of Kojima to look like. We even got to see the room where Kojima 360-model-scans his favourite celebrities. Feel free to place your bets on whether Kojima already scanned Al Pacino after meeting him at the Game Awards in retaliation for CD Projekt Red beating him to the punch on th Idris Elba front by putting him into Cyberpunk 2077. You know he at least thought about it. Regardless, folks online have been struggling with picking their jaws from the floor after seeing Kojima’s lavish new studio.
“I’ve seen quite a few game studios over the years, but holy shit! This is INSANELY COOL,” Simon Cox, Rolling Stone’s former content director, wrote on Twitter. “It’s like a temple, a space station and a masterclass in graphic and interior design all rolled into one gleaming package.”
“We need a VR space of Kojima productions so us gamers can visit anytime,” a commenter named Shinkaidesu wrote in the video’s YouTube comments.
“Wow…did DS1 do that well?!” one Twitter user asked.
“We’re over [here] living in 2022, while they’re developing games in 2044, lol. Sheeesh!” one Twitter user wrote.
UNSEEN developers teach fighting games to kids! #TEKKEN pic.twitter.com/4oA6I74F9x
— Ikumi Nakamura 🪐@unseentokyo (@nakamura193) December 18, 2022
I have to give Kojima props for stepping on everyone’s collective office-working necks here. However, the futuristic chrome aesthetic of KojiPro’s new studio is far from my favourite video in terms of giving off good vibes. That honour goes to the spooky game developer Ikumi Nakamura’s newfound studio, Unseen. Until Kojima uploads a video of his developers teaching their children how to “git gud” at fighting games, Nakamura’s got him beat for having the coolest video game studio feng shui. I don’t make the rules.
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