The empty room is Raiden: a blank slate. Not sure of who he is. His place in the world. Notice how Raiden tries to be like Snake - he idolizes him. And so the game initially plays like it does with snake. But as Raiden discovers who he is - what's his purpose - what choices he has, the game shifts. In these moments it becomes a ridiculous hack and slash / run and gun (the infamous FISSION MAILED section). He casts aside the charade and no longer tries to be snake. He goes his own way and kills his 'father'.

And like that he realizes what's important: what you pass on to future generations. Not through genetics, but through knowledge. Culture. Morals.

Raiden is literally a postmodern allegory for memes.

Nanomachines son.

Unlike most pretentious directors (Looking at you, Cage), Kojima is a legitimate master of his craft, and as confusing as things are and will no doubt be long after the game is out, they will be discussed and made sense of for months, if not years to come.

Yes… and no. His highs are very high… but there is sometimes a lot of bullshit in the way. But it's weird because it's just silly bullshit, not really anything frustrating or off putting. Almost charming in a way.

Right, and it is charming in a way that you just have to smile and shake your head. His weird affinity for Raiden, the oddly Japanese trope of hypnosis, and all of the contrived explanations for every minutiae in past and present games? It's all needlessly stupid at times, but it never gets in the way of the great stuff.

But there is a substantial amount of sexism still present in his work.

Yeah. On the one hand, it's very much a cultural thing. Things that are off-putting to us just don't seem to be for Japanese creators.
On the other hand, Kojima has always been heavily influenced by Western media, and you'd think that somewhere between Snatcher and now, he'd have gone through some personal growth and moved beyond the blatant sexism that pervades every single game he makes in some way (even Zone of the Enders, for crying out loud!).
I've no doubt that they'll have some clever/contrived reason why that woman is called "Fragile" (I mean, it's written on her shirt, it could be played off as a nametag joke), but that won't change the fact that the prominent female has a depreciatory name from the get-go.

And yeah, Cheap mentioned Quiet, but the Beauty and the Beast Unit are far worse offenders, I feel. If you are aware that Kojima wanted them to be fully nude outside of their Beast armor, it just adds to the grossness of how you could exploit psychologically damaged women in skintight suits with a photo camera, getting them to crawl after and pose/dance for you to take photos of them.
But again, if you can ignore that, MGS4 is considered by most to be a masterpiece.

But there is a substantial amount of sexism still present in his work.

Seriously. I don't really have any problems with Kojima's work. But Quiet has to be the dumbest shit I've ever seen in any piece of media ever.

Unlike most pretentious directors (Looking at you, Cage), Kojima is a legitimate master of his craft, and as confusing as things are and will no doubt be long after the game is out, they will be discussed and made sense of for months, if not years to come.

Yes… and no. His highs are very high… but there is sometimes a lot of bullshit in the way. But it's weird because it's just silly bullshit, not really anything frustrating or off putting. Almost charming in a way.

But there is a substantial amount of sexism still present in his work.

I super unfamiliar with Kojima games (are they just the MGS games?). What’s your favorite?

Policenauts.

Is this how most of his games are marketed?

Yeh, they’re always... abstract?
He edited them (US and Japanese) himself, so he’s definitely careful about exactly what he shows.

That said, the premise is fairly clear, your mission will be to establish contact points between the remaining cities in the US. This means it’ll be a road trip adventure with strong themes of connection. It’s definitely as political as he’s ever been, only this time he can go full-on insane with the visual metaphors, as he’s not tied down by Nanomachines™.

Unlike most pretentious directors (Looking at you, Cage), Kojima is a legitimate master of his craft, and as confusing as things are and will no doubt be long after the game is out, they will be discussed and made sense of for months, if not years to come.

Is this how most of his games are marketed?

Many Kojima games have offbeat or strange trailers.

Also remember he managed to hide the fact that Snake was not the main character in MGS2!

It’s a really long trailer that’s confusing as hell. Maybe that’s the point, IDK. Some of it looks cool, but for 9 minutes of my time it didn’t really get me excited about the game. The world sounds cool, but man I don’t get the marketing. lol

It got me so hype I almost forgot about how I can’t play Detroit or Cyberpunk due to studio abuse of employees.

Discuss.

Seems like I'll be locking myself in that weekend.

Next month's PS+ games will be Sonic Mania and The Handsome Jack collection, so now's a good a time as any to grab one. :P