"Building the game," Kojima said on Twitter over a set of photos showing him staring at a blank desktop screen with an inscrutable look on his face and a mysterious pair of black sunglasses.

He's holding an Astro Bot PS5 controller - a gift, I think, based on the holiday card lying on the desk in front of him - up near his chin, hunching a little like a turtle. He rests his hands on the edges of the W-shaped controller, as if he's an intelligent alien who beamed down to earth just to check out the PS5 Pro, but is too shy to do it in front of you. That's where the sunglasses come in.

In one of Kojima's photos, there's also a stack of unopened Lego sets and a giant, traffic cone yellow Lego bag looking slightly crinkled and neglected.

"I see Kojima is a Lego fan, too!" one fan replies encouragingly. But Kojima is too focused on the purity of his male living space for the words to reach his headphone-protected ears.

While these photos, in particular, inspire both my amusement and confusion about Kojima's whole deal, sharing updates where he's "building the game" seems to have become a comforting ritual for the developer. He regularly shares pictures of his workstation with this succinct caption, which provides a chance for Kojima to show off controllers, figurines, and his lunch. He seems to like a sandwich that's a little heavy on the lettuce.

Hideo Kojima seems to be testing Death Stranding 2, but it's not going well: "I fell asleep twice while on a delivery and ran the vehicle into a cliff."