How Much Of Kojima's Games Are Actually Cutscenes? We Did the Maths

There’s nary doubting Hideo Kojima’s devotion to the creation of video games. But 1 question that has followed the Metal Gear maestro astir for overmuch of his vocation is “Why doesn’t helium conscionable marque a movie?”. This sentiment nary uncertainty stems from the cognition that his enactment astatine some Konami and Kojima Productions has been cutscene-heavy, opting to archer stories done often-thrillingly orchestrated cinematics alternatively than integrated gameplay design. But is this perceived conception a reality? And, much importantly, does it adjacent matter?

Well, I’ve done immoderate fig crunching and worked retired what information of each of the mainline Metal Gear Solid games, positive the duo of Death Strandings, is cutscenes. In immoderate cases, it’s what you’d expect. In others, not truthful much…

How overmuch of each Kojima crippled is cutscenes?

To enactment retired conscionable however overmuch of each crippled is cutscene, I’ve utilized the mean clip to implicit a main communicative playthrough, sourced from How Long to Beat’s data. I’ve past taken the full runtime of each game’s cutscenes and utilized it to measure what percent that runtime is of the mean playthrough. The results are:

• Metal Gear Solid: 20.29% (11hr, 30m mean playthrough, 2hr 20m of cutscenes)
• Metal Gear Solid 2: 23.21% (13hr mean playthrough, 3hr 1m of cutscenes)
• Metal Gear Solid 3: 26.35% (16hr mean playthrough, 4hr 13m of cutscenes)
• Metal Gear Solid 4: 40.63% (18hr 30m mean playthrough, 7hr 31m of cutscenes)
• Metal Gear Solid 5: 8.13% (45hr 30m mean playthrough, 3hr 42m of cutscenes)
• Death Stranding: 15.75% (40hr 30m mean playthrough, 6hr 22m of cutscenes)
• Death Stranding 2: 15.97% (37hr 40m mean playthrough*, 6hr 1m of cutscenes)

It is important to enactment that this percent relates to cinematic cutscenes only. Codec calls oregon different specified in-game conversations are not included, arsenic they necessitate immoderate subordinate interactivity to progress.

*average playthrough based connected information from aggregate IGN editors.

What bash those percentages uncover astir Kojima’s career?

It turns retired that the archetypal 3 Metal Gear Solid games travel a akin inclination – cutscenes marque up astir 20-ish percent of the wide playtime, with each consequent introduction gradually contributing to a precise flimsy upward trajectory. It’s with Metal Gear Solid 4 that things truly shift. With 40% of it being cinematics, it’s not excessively acold from the information to accidental Guns of the Patriots is fractional cutscenes. Understandably, the crippled has go the poster kid for Kojima’s cinematic indulgence, thing lone emphasised by magnitude – the communicative famously crescendoes successful a 71 minute-long last cinematic. That’s conscionable 10 minutes shorter than the 1995 animated movie Toy Story.

The aforesaid can’t beryllium said for Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, however. A crippled with a troubled improvement way to accidental the least, it suffers from the nonstop other contented arsenic MGS 4: a paper-thin story. With conscionable nether 4 hours of cutscenes successful 45 hours of gameplay, it’s a starkly debased ratio by examination to its predecessors. MGS 5 is undoubtedly 1 of the top stealth games ever made from a mechanical perspective, but its deficiency of communicative throughline (and, to beryllium honest, ending) prevents it from feeling similar a afloat Kojima package.

And past we person the Death Stranding games, which diagnostic runtimes akin to The Phantom Pain, but a cutscene percent person to that of the archetypal Metal Gear Solid. The effect is simply a duology of games that consciousness much narratively implicit than MGS 5, but not arsenic trapped by cinematic ambition arsenic Kojima’s much indulgent projects.

Death Stranding 2 features a large equilibrium of cutscene and gameplay, with 16% of an mean playthrough dedicated to storytelling. | Image credit: Kojima Productions

Are determination excessively galore cutscenes successful Kojima’s games?

With each that information crunching retired the way, let’s code the existent question: is Kojima excessively reliant connected cutscenes? I deliberation the reply lies successful each idiosyncratic project, oregon astatine the precise slightest each epoch of his career.

Across the archetypal Metal Gear Solid trilogy, betwixt a 5th and a 4th of each crippled is cinematics. Is being passive for that duration a problem? I’m not truthful sure. In the PS1 and PS2 era, telling analyzable stories was harder to bash successful player-controlled scenarios, and truthful that’s wherever cinematics, codec calls, oregon lengthy dialog sequences came into play. The archetypal 3 Metal Gear Solid games were lauded during their time, and are inactive revered, for their cinematic attack to presentation, and those aboriginal trips done Shadow Moses, Big Shell, and Soviet forests flowed beautifully. They told their tales done a steadfast magnitude of cutscenes, yes, but ne'er astatine the outgo of gameplay, which ushered successful never-before-seen approaches to stealth-action and galore experimental fourth-wall-breaking surprises. They were cutscene-heavy, but ne'er astatine the disbursal of the crippled itself.

That unquestionably changes with Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. 7 hours and 31 minutes of it is spent idly watching cinematics that play retired connected either broadside of its linear stealth corridors and brag battles. Kojima had a expansive communicative helium wanted to tell, with aggregate threads that needed tying up from crossed the trilogy that preceded it, but this arguably came astatine the outgo of the crippled itself. The communicative isn’t needfully a atrocious one, it conscionable all-too-frequently interrupts the stealth-action we each tendency from 1 of Snake’s adventures. And often they tin beryllium excessively lengthy – I’ve already mentioned the longer-than-a-movie finale, but the cutscenes that span 1 enactment to different often diagnostic TV show-like runtimes.

Metal Gear Solid 4's cinematic ambitions came astatine the disbursal of its crippled design. | Image credit: Konami

Things spell successful the implicit other absorption with Metal Gear Solid 5, and portion immoderate of that tin beryllium blamed connected its fraught improvement cycle, overmuch of its reduced cutscene percent is down to the power from linear to unfastened satellite design. This expanded imaginativeness aligned with “modern” crippled improvement trends successful 2015, arsenic monolithic maps afloat of accidental were each the rage successful a post-Skyrim world. Crucially, though, the unfastened worlds developed astir that clip by studios similar Bethesda, CD Projekt Red, and adjacent Ubisoft were packed with communicative elements, some astatine tiny and ample scale, made up of a operation of biology storytelling, companion conversations, and cutscenes. Kojima didn’t subscribe to this formula, though, possibly done a stubborn adherence to his accepted methods of sectioning disconnected gameplay from story. But that large unfastened satellite meant that much clip was spent successful progressive gameplay scenarios, and fewer idiosyncratic missions successful The Phantom Pain really advancement the crippled arsenic you play done them. The main communicative is told mostly via cutscenes delivered arsenic portion of your trips backmost to Mother Base, and your clip determination is overmuch much constricted than your clip successful the field. This attack is simultaneously precise Kojima, but oddly removed from the storytelling complexities we’d travel to expect successful 2015. It’s a fantastic game, but little truthful erstwhile viewed purely done a communicative lens, and the noticeably debased fig of cutscenes reflects this.

Heading into 2019’s Death Stranding, it whitethorn not person been a astonishment to spot Kojima caput backmost to his roots erstwhile it comes to communicative construction. Sam Porter Bridges' communicative is told predominantly done cutscenes, and seldom during immoderate of the many, galore deliveries he’s asked to do. There’s the unusual objection – Higgs planting a weaponry successful his cargo that helium has to rapidly dispose of, for illustration – but for the astir part, communicative is reserved for hologram chatter (Death Stranding’s reply to codec calls) and beautifully rendered cinematics.

Both Death Stranding games are of a akin magnitude to The Phantom Pain but, crucially, they don’t consciousness anyplace adjacent arsenic narratively sparse. The halfway gameplay, successful which you link assorted cities astir a continent via delivering items and extending the internet-like “Chiral Network,” whitethorn not enactment arsenic a nonstop conveyance for the story, but your ngo goals ne'er consciousness wholly divorced from the themes of quality interaction successful a integer age. And truthful portion the bulk of the crippled is truthful inactive told via cutscenes, arsenic was the lawsuit mode backmost successful 1998 for Kojima connected the archetypal Metal Gear Solid, everything successful betwixt inactive feels narratively richer than it does successful Metal Gear Solid 5.

Metal Gear Solid 5's unfastened satellite plan meant overmuch much clip was spent playing, but its communicative felt bladed and incomplete. | Image credit: Konami

Kojima’s effect connected single-player stories

We’ve seen that the ratio of cutscenes tin alteration importantly crossed Kojima’s library, but however does his enactment comparison to different studios moving successful akin spaces? Metal Gear Solid did, afterall, practically signifier what modern-day PlayStation would become. We tin spot the interaction of its bequest successful galore single-player, story-focused games – a caller premier illustration would beryllium The Last of Us Part 2. 15.55% of its mean playtime consists of non-interactive cinematic cutscenes, a percent incredibly adjacent to some Death Stranding games. Similarly, Grand Theft Auto 5, different open-world crippled with cinematic aspirations, is 12.5% cutscene connected an mean playthrough.

In some The Last of Us Part 2 and GTA 5, determination feels like there’s a batch much communicative going connected betwixt cutscenes compared to Kojima’s games. Characters are perpetually conversing to physique retired each other's backstories, and radios chatter distant to overgarment pictures of their worlds. But this changeless sound tin beryllium overwhelming, and frankly, wouldn’t suit the worlds of Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding astatine all. Both are built astir protagonists that enactment successful isolation – heavy down force lines, oregon trekking connected a lonesome transportation path. This solitude, which enables stretches of reflection and contemplation, are what marque these worlds – peculiarly that of Death Stranding – truthful singular to wander. The thought of communicative being injected simply to velocity up the travel of its transportation feels counterintuitive. You don’t embody Sam Porter Bridges expecting an audiobook. Instead you get thing of a therapeutic achromatic sound instrumentality that plays successful betwixt caller section milestones.

So, should Kojima “just marque a movie”? No. He’s created immoderate of the astir engaging worlds and unsocial mechanical gameplay experiences, some of which person helped signifier the full medium. We’d each beryllium overmuch poorer without his contributions. Should helium beryllium little reliant connected cinematic cutscenes, oregon incorporated communicative into his missions? Perhaps. But his attack has worked good capable for maine truthful far, and I don’t deliberation a mates of blips 10-15 years agone should alteration my position connected that. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach manages to archer a highly engaging communicative successful lone the mode Kojima knows how, and I wouldn’t privation him pursuing a inclination astatine the hazard of receiving thing little interesting.

Simon Cardy is simply a Senior Editor astatine IGN who tin chiefly beryllium recovered skulking astir unfastened satellite games, indulging successful Korean cinema, oregon despairing astatine the authorities of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him connected Bluesky astatine @cardy.bsky.social.