Hideo Kojima says it was even harder to explain his solar-powered vampire game than Metal Gear – and ironically it was raining on release day 21 years ago

Face of stealth games and lover of movies Hideo Kojima recently reminisced about his vampire hunting series Boktai for the 21st anniversary of its first installment on Game Boy Advance. Apparently, the game’s solar-powered weapon was a tough sell for Kojima’s development team, and it probably didn’t help that it was raining on release day. 

“I remember that it was raining hard,” Kojima wrote on X (Twitter). 

Boktai uses a solar sensor on its cartridge to measure actual sunlight, which players would use to more efficiently charge the protagonist’s unique, monster-shattering Gun del Sol and solve puzzles. “The gameplay changes depending on where you live, where you play and when you play,” Kojima said in another post. “This game was even more difficult to explain internally and also externally than Metal Gear (about the concept of stealth).” 

Even after 21 years, Boktai’s game mechanics feel eccentric and inventive. Long after Boktai released, players would marvel at how difficult it was to play it without real sunlight, and modern emulators patched the sun mechanic out altogether, standardizing its gameplay. No wonder it was difficult for Kojima to explain the game’s concept to people — some players continue to have a hard time accepting it. 

“Just go outside, a little fresh air won’t kill you,” one Boktai fan advises another player in a 14-year-old GameFAQs thread that fills me with nostalgia. Boktai was a golden opportunity to touch grass and we wasted it. 

Kojima’s OD is poised to be similarly interactive, albeit seemingly with less sunlight involved. In January, Kojima reiterated on X that Boktai “was met with fierce opposition from the staff and even within the company,” and that, “in that sense, ‘OD’ is just as different.” Without a release window for OD, we’ll have to wait to see how true that is. 

Splinter Cell director says Hideo Kojima’s auteur status is well deserved since “the result speaks for itself.”