Hideo Kojima wanted to develop a game like The Boys, probably with fewer exploding genitals

gamesradar.com:

Hideo Kojima originally wanted to develop a game similar to Amazon's The Boys.

Over the past weekend, Kojima published the two tweets seen just below to his personal Twitter account. The Death Stranding director reveals that he's got back into watching The Boys as Season 3 rolls on, but also states that he originally wanted to develop a game similar in concept to The Boys back when it first began airing on Amazon in mid-2019.

2/2and put it on hold because the concept was similar (different settings and tricks). A buddy (male/female) thing with a special detective squad facing off against legendary heroes behind the scenes. I was thinking of Mads as the lead.June 26, 2022

Kojima reveals the game would've had a fairly similar premise: a leading character being integrated into a special detective squad, working behind the scenes to battle legendary heroes away from the public spotlight. Probably without all the drugs, abuse, and exploding people though, if we had to hazard a guess.

In any case, Kojima was thinking of Mads Mikkelsen as the potential lead for the game. What's interesting is that Kojima reveals he was planning this just a few months prior to Death Stranding shipping in late 2019, so this would've actually been his second project with Mikkelsen after the aforementioned game.

Ultimately though, it wasn't to happen: Kojima reveals he had to "put it on hold," chiefly because the "concept was similar" to that of The Boys. It seems as though Kojima opted instead to develop the Director's Cut edition of Death Stranding, with added story and gameplay mechanics, and is now moving onto his cloud-based project with Microsoft. Oh, and Norman Reedus claims that Death Stranding 2 is in development. 

Meanwhile, The Boys was