Kojima Says Social Media Can Form "Hivemind" Narratives, Citing Death Stranding

Hideo Kojima says social media can push large groups of people toward the same opinion, and he uses his own game as an example.

The creator of Death Stranding pointed to the label many people give it: a "walking simulator". That term describes games where players spend most of their time moving through a world, with little combat or puzzle-solving. According to Video Games Chronicle, Kojima said many people who have never played the game use that description, and that this perception is what worries him most.

He made the remarks in a two-way interview with director Alejandro González Iñárritu. The conversation was held to mark the Japanese release of the movie Digger.

Kojima also linked the problem to artificial intelligence entering social media. He said that people now see mostly content they already like and agree with, so they rarely meet different points of view.

Iñárritu raised a similar concern. He said people live with fragmented versions of the truth on their phones, and that they often take on opinions from social media instead of forming their own.

Automaton had already reported the core of Kojima's comments, framing them as an example of how online echo chambers can distort how people see things. Both outlets describe the remarks as a general observation about social media, not an announcement about the game itself.

The exchange is a reminder of how a single word can stick. A game that many players have spent hours inside is still being described, by people who have never picked up the controller, in a single phrase. Kojima's point is that the phrase can travel faster than the game.