The piece marks the 35th anniversary of Snatcher’s debut in Japan, a project sparked by Hideo Kojima for Konami before the Metal Gear era surged. The premiere for the PC-8801 and MSX2 became a milestone, with Kojima sharing development memories that reveal how the game helped launch his career while highlighting the tough obstacles he faced as a central figure in the video game industry.
A multiplatform premiere
Originally released in 1988 in Japan for the NEC PC-8801 and MSX2, Snatcher later expanded to the PC Engine in 1992 and was then ported to the PlayStation and SEGA Saturn in later years. Reports indicate Konami hoped to launch the two main versions on the same date, but delays, including Kojima taking a short break after finishing the first Metal Gear, pushed shipping dates about a month apart.
Presented as a graphic adventure, the story unfolds fifty years after a chemical weapon devastates Eurasia, wiping out roughly 80 percent of the population. A new menace emerges in the form of artificial lifeforms called Snatchers, who stalk Neo Kobe City, a dreamlike urban island, and seek to replace humans with lifelike copies. The player follows Gillian Seed, an amnesiac Junker employee, as the mission uncovers the Snatchers’ origins and their ties to the protagonist’s past.
Distributed with photocopies
Snatcher, originally planned under the working title Junker, circulated among participants via photocopies because the team lacked a word processor at the time. Kojima recalls being in his mid-twenties and resolute. Konami, while exploring the arcade market, had not yet produced a working adventure game. The team built an adventure game system from scratch since there were no tools, knowledge, or sales channels for such a title on the PC88 platform. The project name changed due to registration hurdles.
Pressure intensified quickly. The team endured days that felt endless, both technically and physically. The workload encompassed planning, organizing, scripting, storyboarding, design work, manual creation, and even crafting their own language while developing it. The strain left its mark on Kojima, who later described a stomach ulcer linked to a well-known industry case. Yet the experience also shaped the creator and steered his career toward future achievements.
Banished to a drawer
Snatcher belongs to a broader catalog of franchises kept dormant by a Japanese entertainment company in recent years. Castlevania remains one of the most lucrative lines without a fresh release in about a decade. By contrast, Metal Gear Solid remains a cornerstone of Kojima’s portfolio, though its creator left Konami years ago. The series has since seen revision work, with attention shifting to ongoing projects across consoles and mobile platforms. Kojima now oversees other titles and franchises, including Bomberman, eFootball, and Yu-Gi-Oh!, maintaining influence across multiple formats.
Cited details reflect industry retrospectives and Kojima’s own commentary from archival interviews and anniversary events, with attribution to primary participants in the Snatcher project. [citation: industry retrospective conference and Kojima archival notes].