Death Stranding is a massive game, and its sequel seems to be even bigger. Despite this, Hideo Kojima has revealed that he only wants Kojima Productions’ internal teams to max out at 150 people per project. And while Kojima has tons of weird and wonderful approaches to game development, this decision is partly thanks to Mad Max director George Miller – who is set to make an appearance in Death Stranding 2 as Tarman (albeit voiced by Australian pop singer Marty Rhone, who also did the performance capture for the character).
Talking to Edge, Kojima says, “I’ve never wanted my team to grow larger than 150 people working on one game project.” He explains that Miller once regaled him with tales of nomadic sheep herding communities, explaining that they limit their flocks to 150 sheep, as that is the maximum number a human can realistically track.
Kojima was happy to let Miller know about his insistence on a smaller team, telling Edge, “I talked to George last year and he congratulated me on keeping the team small.” Although Kojima later admitted to the Happy Feet director that “I went a little over 150, and we laughed about it.”
According to its LinkedIn page, Kojima Productions currently has between 200 and 500 employees (with 171 on LinkedIn). Given that a number of upcoming Hideo Kojima games are in development, you’d imagine that number should probably grow in the coming years. Then, maybe all of them can have 150 team members each.
