The video game auteur, who is the internet’s favorite developer, was the butt of offensive and dark jokes throughout the weekend. Shitty individuals joked on the internet that the man responsible for the assassination of the former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had a striking resemblance to Kojima. Eventually, some less-informed parties got their hand on this ill-fated joke and took it way too seriously. Things got to a point that a Greek news station and far-right French politician, Damien Rieu, among others, misidentified the famous game developer as the assassin. Just to be clear, Kojima isn’t the assassin. Japanese authorities have identified the alleged gunman behind the assassination of Abe as Tetsuya Yamagami. BBC reports that the funeral for Abe will take place on Tuesday, July 12, following a night vigil tonight. Yamagami is now in police custody after already admitting to the assassination. Also, just to be clear, Kojima is not the assassin. The only reason why “some” have reported that Kojima is the assassin is because of a running racist joke about how all Asians, particularly the Japanese, all look the same. Ultimately, this is a very true and incredibly horrifying example of how offensive humor can make things worse than they already are. Kojima’s video game development studio, Kojima Productions, has already released a statement condemning “the spread of fake news and rumors that convey false information.” We’re also waiting for word on whether this will escalate further or if this will be the end of it. As for Kojima, the Death Stranding creator is working on multiple projects at the moment, including a cloud-based Xbox exclusive, a Death Stranding spin-off, as well as the sequel to Death Stranding. We also learned that Kojima canceled a game because it was similar to The Boys.
