Come this April, legendary game developer Hideo Kojima will be awarded with BAFTA‘s highest accolade at the BAFTA Games Awards. During the ceremony on April 2nd, Kojima will receive the BAFTA Fellowship, an honor that recognizes a creator’s outstanding contributions to the arts, including film, television, and video games.
Kojima thanked the Academy in the following statement,
Thank you very much for this precious BAFTA Fellowship award. I am very honored, and would like to take this moment to reflect on the many predecessors that came before me, as I deeply respect their contributions to entertainment, whether in movies, television, or games. I would also like to thank those who have supported me over the years and I will continue my commitment to creating new and innovative ways that will push the world of ‘play’ entertainment forward.
The BAFTA Fellowship’s inaugural award in 1971 went to the incomparable Alfred Hitchcock. Video games were brought into this particular fold in 2007, when Will Wright became the medium’s first honoree. Since then, Nolan Bushnell (Atari founder), Shigeru Miyamoto, Peter Molyneux, Gabe Newell, Rockstar Games, John Carmack, and Tim Schafer have all been privileged to receive the BAFTA Fellowship.
Kojima first broke into the games industry in the 1980s, taking on work at Konami. 1987’s Metal Gear served as his break out project, a then nascent stealth series that would go on to firmly establish his indelible mark on the industry. Of course, he’s since led development on several other games in the groundbreaking franchise.
One of the developer’s more recent achievements includes the short-lived P.T./Silent Hills. Kojima’s dispute with Konami, which culminated in his departure from the company, resulted in P.T.’s unfortunate cancellation. Following his exit from Konami in 2015, he revived Kojima Productions as an independent studio. Thanks to a partnership with Sony, Kojima’s first independent project Death Stranding, debuted in 2019.
The 16th British Academy Games Awards are slated for April 2nd.
[Source: BAFTA]
