page_title: Policenauts
section_title: Development
hierarchical_section_title: Policenauts / Development
caption_attribution_description: Hideo Kojima
context_page_description: Policenauts is a graphic adventure game developed and published by Konami. It was written and directed by Hideo Kojima, and originally released for the PC-9821 in 1994. A hard science fiction story, Policenauts is set in the mid 21st century and follows Jonathan Ingram, an astronaut recently recovered floating in space in cryosleep after an accident at a space colony sent him drifting into space 24 years ago. Now a detective in Los Angeles, Ingram travels back to the colony to investigate the murder of his ex-wife and her husband's disappearance. As he begins his investigation, he starts to uncover an illegal organ trafficking ring.
  Kojima conceived Policenauts while working on Snatcher, and started development in 1990. He wanted the production quality to match that of major motion pictures, and created a scripting engine to give him more creative control. He pulled creative influences from American buddy television shows, contemporary social debates on Japan bashing and organ trafficking, and Japan's heightened interest in space travel following the first Japanese man's trip to space in 1990.
context_section_description: Policenauts was developed by Konami and directed by Hideo Kojima. Kojima began to explore concepts for Policenauts during the development of Snatcher (1988) when memory limitation issues prompted them to take a break. He wanted the game to remain in the adventure genre, feeling it was the best method to express what he wanted with video games. He was also growing frustrated with game development and wanted more creative control. After the release of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (1990), he developed a scripting engine so he could maintain control over when animations and music played instead of the programmers. Development on Policenauts began in earnest in 1990 and lasted four years.
  Kojima wanted to explore a near future scenario that could realistically occur rather than outlandish science fiction. The game's story was influenced by news that captured his interest at the time. One such influence was the public debate over organ transplantation and brain death injuries. Another influence was the rise in Japan bashing caused by the American crime film Rising Sun (1993). Some Asian-Americans held protests, fearing the negative characterization of Japanese in the film would lead to hate crimes. Space travel was also an influence after Toyohiro Akiyama became the first Japanese person to travel to space in 1990. Concurrently, many NASA documents about space travel and its effects on the human body were being published in Japan for the first time and were hot topics among Kojima's friends and family. Kojima was curious as to what effect living in space would have on the human body, relationships, and wondered what facets of humans would be exposed in space. He chose to explore these concepts in Policenauts. Kojima mixed his space interests with the aforementioned social issues to build the thematic basis of Policenauts and hoped the players would ponder these topics.
  Earth was called "Home" in the game while the space colony was named "Beyond", names chosen to reflect a parent-child relationship. "Beyond" also references the colony's distance from Home and the 25 years protagonist Jonathan Ingram passed through during his cryosleep. Kojima hoped that these names would reflect the persistence of human society and relationships, even after extreme technological advances. The colony's cylindrical shape was inspired by Gundam. Policenauts was originally titled Beyond, but Konami changed the name after they were unable to trademark it.
  Kojima's familiarity with film and television influenced the cinematography in Policenauts. Though not attempting to use video games as a vehicle for presenting movies, he wanted to fill what he perceived to be a lack of production quality in games. Kojima worked to take the excellence of acting, lighting, direction, and storytelling in filmmaking and match that quality in his games. He took inspiration from American buddy television shows he enjoyed growing up like Starsky & Hutch. The game was originally going to be marketed as a "Cinematic Virtual Reality". Konami did a trademark search early in development that turned up empty, but by 1994, the "Virtual Reality" term had been trademarked so it was dropped.
caption: Director Hideo Kojima in 2018
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