Kojima Prefers Working with Smaller Development Teams

Games icon Hideo Kojima says he digs smaller dev teams. Yeah, I know, kinda unexpected, huh?

So, there he was, chatting at some press event. I think it was Dexerto that spilled the beans. He was all about this game, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. And yeah, it’s made by this tiny bunch at Sandfall Interactive—like thirty folks. No joke, credits roll, and suddenly it’s hundreds ’cause of outsourcing. Go figure.

“When I kicked off, it was just six of us,” Kojima muses. Seriously, imagine doing all the stuff yourself back then. Now, teams blow up in size, and it’s like managing chaos. You gotta delegate, right? But then, you know, ideas sometimes miss the mark. Happens with big teams, I guess.

And then he’s on about Sandfall: “Just 33 people and, get this, a dog. That’s the dream team for me.”

He’s right, though. Creating stuff’s huge now. It’s like this tug-of-war: small team efficiency versus big, flashy projects. How do they even pull it off?