Death stranding proves that Kojima only worked under a heavy leash. He has "creative" ideas sometimes but that gets all lost in the sea of self indulging self righteous nonsense.
It was covered in the MGS thread a while ago, but when you get down to brass tacks and main story beats, Kojima spent most of his Konami career making the same game over and over again. Put to one side all the things taken from other franchises or hollyjew movies.
Metal Gear 1 and 2 are very similar with similar plot developments, Metal Gear 2 being a quasi-remake/do over with the same hero going after the same villain again, and killing him again. Metal Gear Solid once again has very similar plot developments, and while the people and location is different - it's another soft remake of the previous game that came before it. Snake realizes he was tricked in some way, there's a Grey Fox, a crew of weirdos, a wannabe military nation, and a metal gear to blow up, and then Snake learns more about his "father". Moving on to Metal Gear Solid 2, the plot is quite literally "do another Shadow Moses", the people and location is different - but it's yet another soft remake of the previous game. Raiden (Snake) realizes he was tricked in some way, there's a Grey Fox, a different crew of weirdos, another wannabe military nation, another metal gear to blow up, and in the end Raiden learns about his "father" Solidus. Metal Gear Solid 3, again, does much of the same, it's a re-imagining of the previous games. Snake realizes he was tricked in some way, there's a crew of weirdos, a wannabe military nation, a metal gear to blow up, and then Snake learns more about his
father mother mentor.
It's crazy how many times general beats and conceits are reused. Moving on to MGS4, the entire B&B corps is a reference to Foxhound, and the game (once again) is a quasi-reimagining of MGS1. Snake realizes he was tricked in some way, there's a Grey Fox (Cyborg Raiden), a crew of weirdos, a wannabe military nation, an entire section of the game dedicated to retreading Shadow Moses Island, then the game ends with Snake learning more about his father... again... I could go on and on with this. Dude spend his career, tweaking, editing, reimagining, reinterpreting, and remaking the same basic story over and over and over again.