I got sick in 2020. It was also during the pandemic, so I was sick and isolated through it all. I even had surgery. And I thought, ‘I can’t do it anymore.’ I was at my lowest level and felt like I couldn’t go back to making games. I wrote a will too. And at that moment I realized that people die. But I turned 60 last year. I will be 70 in ten years. I hope I never retire. That being said, if players want it so much, I thought I should change my priorities a bit. I still want to do new things, but I decided to make an action and spy game.
I get a lot of requests from Hollywood to do films, but I turned them down. Since I now have my own company, I can’t go out for a year or two to make a film. The company would collapse. I was in a difficult situation. And I talked to Guillermo del Toro about it. And he said: ‘Hideo, what you’re doing is already a film. Continue as you are.’ His words saved me. And as we will work with many creators in the industry, although the result will be a game, it won’t be very different from the films.