Hideo Kojima to Headline GDC 2026 With First Keynote in Five Years

Japanese video game designer Hideo Kojima will deliver the headline keynote at Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2026, marking the conference’s first keynote in five years. The session, titled Restarting from Zero: A Message to Creators Considering Independence, is scheduled for the morning of Mar. 12, 2026, during the newly rebranded ‘GDC Festival of Gaming,’ which runs Mar. 9-13 in San Francisco.

Kojima will outline his experience founding Kojima Productions in 2015, reflecting on creating the studio “from early creative concept development to finding a physical office space,” and assembling a team. 

Organizers say the talk will provide insights into building a brand, developing projects, and connecting with players, drawing from the studio’s first decade of independent development.

Kojima to Share Studio-Building Lessons at GDC 2026

The keynote highlights GDC’s shift to a festival-style format and its renewed emphasis on high-impact developer perspectives. 

Meanwhile, GDC president Nina Brown said Kojima’s body of work has shaped how audiences engage with games and noted that opening the Festival of Gaming with his keynote “sets the perfect tone for what this new era is all about.” Her remarks position his path as an example of reinvention at a time when many teams are reassessing their creative and operational models.

Kojima’s appearance also marks ten years since his departure from Konami and the establishment of Kojima Productions. 

Since then, the studio has released Death Stranding and Death Stranding 2: On a Beach, continuing its long-running influence on narrative design and genre innovation. His earlier achievements include a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2009 Game Developers' Choice Awards and a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Fellowship in 2020.

For GDC, the keynote represents a return to spotlight sessions aimed at shaping industry conversation. 

For attendees, Kojima’s reflections offer direct guidance on navigating independence, forming a studio identity, and managing early-stage development areas that remain central as more creators consider building teams of their own.