Hideo Kojima and his studio are afforded a freedom that few others are in the industry, and that is to make whatever they want, and write it the way they intend it to be. The prestige of his name allows that. And though the games always excel in terms of ideas, the character names, sometimes, go a little bit overboard.
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Every Hideo Kojima Game, Ranked
With Death Stranding out on the PS4, this seems like a great time to rank every Hideo Kojima game ever released.
There’s no denying that plenty of the time, the surrealism of the name is part of the appeal, and at times the absurdity is even used as part of the storytelling itself. And honestly, the names just aren’t that weird most of the time. Sometimes though, it’s a bit hard to forgive just how on-the-nose they are.
8 Policenauts
Surprisingly Mundane
One of Kojima’s earliest directorial games outside of the original Metal Gear, Policenauts is just gorgeous, though also sadly unfinished. It follows a near future setting where you play as Jonathan Ingram as he settles back into life on earth before setting off to solve a murder mystery on the very space colony he was stationed at.
As you probably already picked up from the name ‘Jonathan Ingram’, most of the names are fairly standard. Dave Forrest, Lorraine Hojo, Marc Brown. Just completely normal names. There’s only one name there that retroactively stands out, and that’s Meryl Silverburgh.
More Like Cool Codenames
Metal Gear Solid 4 marked the end of the main story of the Metal Gear Solid series. Other games came out since to fill in some gaps, and Metal Gear Rising is set afterwards, though MGS4 ends the story of these specific characters. And in that sense, the game feels more like a celebration of the past and its characters.
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So in that way, the names you see in Metal Gear Solid 4 are, sure, a bit funny, but also expected. They don’t reach the absurdity of the likes of MGS 2 and 3, but are more of a callback to the style of names in the original Metal Gear Solid. Screaming Mantis, Crying Wolf and, of course, Jonathan.
Humourously, Jonathan’s incredibly basic name is actually a reference to a Policenauts character.
The Classics, And Then Some
Skull face MGS V
By Metal Gear Solid 5, most of the more absurd of Kojima’s character names had already passed. Some of the most intense names had come and gone to the point that Skull Face was a name that honestly barely even stood out. Mentions of Strangelove were just more of the same.
Metal Gear Solid 5 stands out over the likes of MGS4 purely by merit of the number of names and their diversity. Skull Face, Big Boss, Strangelove, Liquid Snake, Quiet. They’re mostly pretty self-explanatory to the point they’d bring a grin to your face, but at the same time, nothing too obscene either.
The Progenitor
Metal Gear Solid one could be seen as the game that really cemented the way in which Kojima writes and styles his games, and the origins of his naming conventions begin here too. At the time, the names felt entirely appropriate, and even a far cry from some later ones, yet the lineage that caused this is plain as daylight here.
Solid Snake and Gray Fox felt more like stylish codenames than actual titles, while characters like Meryl Silverburgh existed simultaneously. A particular shoutout to Jim Houseman for having a name that is somehow both completely plausible yet also oddly prescient for what would come later.
Codenames With A Taste Of The Surreal
Metal Gear Solid 3 was a big shift from the near-future sci-fi of the previous MGS games. Suddenly, you played as Naked Snake in the midst of the Cold War, having to survive in the jungle with much less focus on interior stealth operations. You were a guerrilla operative, but so was everyone else.
Those codenames present in MGS1 had now become more literal, an actual title or name. The Boss, iconic as she was, was literally called The Boss. Raiden reappeared visually as Raidenovitch, who was also a completely different character. Then there’s Cobra Unit with The End, The Sorrow, The Pain. And there’s really no being more literal than that.
This Is Where It Really Gets Weird
Metal Gear Solid 2 is a game that is itself a parody of itself and those who play it. After just a single Metal Gear Solid game with quite tame names, MGS2 goes all in, You thought those names were weird? Then meet Dead Cell. These guys somehow have absurdly descriptive names, yet still manage to be misinterpreted.
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We have Fat Man, a rotund man named after a nuclear bomb. Then there is Fortune, whom namesake comes from her extreme luck. Solidus Snake, who is obviously just Solid Snake, but better. And of course the literal invulnerable vampire, Vamp. Who is called Vamp because he’s bisexual, by the way. Snake’s own words. The vampirism is irrelevant.
2 Death Stranding
When Everyone Thinks Kojima Started Naming Characters Weirdly
deadman closeup copy
Look, there’s no denying that Death Stranding has some funny character names, especially because so many of them follow the same naming convention. Die-hardman. Deadman. Heartman. Tarman. Dollman. A whole lot of men. They are very direct names. Deadman is technically dead. Dollman is a doll. You get it.
They’re just not so extreme as you think. They are archetypes, and their names play into that. What is one of the biggest challenges in the game? Making sure your cargo doesn’t break. The next best porter after Sam? A character named Fragile. Sam’s name is literally Sam ‘Porter’ Bridges. Honestly it’s surprising he was renamed Sam Drawbridges for the sequel.
When Kojima Actually Started Naming Characters Weirdly
Paz Ortega Comic cutscene peacewalker
Now, if you really want to see Kojima at the most extreme of his naming conventions, you want to play Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. The game that acts as set-up for Metal gear Solid 5, Peace Walker somehow has an altogether different naming convention.
In fact, though there are solid names, such as Dr. Strangelove (named for her love of women and the movie character she is named after) to Paz, whose real name is Pacifica Ocean, the real winner is Hot Coldman. There’s not much more that needs to be said there. Hot Coldman is the antagonist.
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