Director Hideo Kojima is best known for the "Metal Gear" series and "Death Stranding," but there are two standout games from his early work that never got much love from publisher Konami: Snatcher and Polisenotes. These graphic adventure games, the former essentially borrowing from "Blade Runner," and the latter a more ambitious adventure intrigue built around the concept of police astronauts who protect order in a human space colony.

"Polisenotes" was released in 1994, but, somewhat incredibly given Kojima's subsequent career, it was never released outside Japan. Localization of the game was initiated at one point, but later halted, leaving it to fans to bring the game to English-speaking players, albeit belatedly, and a patch for the Japanese PlayStation version was released in 2009. The game stars astronaut Jonathan Ingram and explores familiar themes of social isolation, technological advancement, and the impact of space travel through what is essentially an intergalactic detective drama.

In short, if you like Hideo Kojima's work, you'll find something to like. And even if you don't have time to play it, it's easy to see how much this game influenced Kojima's subsequent path. You can see it in the visual design and how modern Kojima Productions represents the mascot and the mission. Kojima first worked with Yoji Shinkawa on this game, and he has defined the look of Kojima's games ever since.

"I miss the reality of 'Policenauts,'" Kojima wrote (open in new tab). It was 1990 when I completed the planning, setting, story, storyboards, and commands, so it's been 32 years now." After that, I was forced to transfer to another department, and full-scale production was delayed."

"Polisenotes" took four years to develop, and the final product reflected the situation in Japan at the time, including public opinion regarding organ donation. Kojima said, "Space development and the medical field had changed drastically. At the time, no one even imagined that a private company would go into space. But there was no division of labor between dispensing and prescribing in Japan at that time."

The game remains stubbornly unavailable, and the only realistic option for playing it is emulation, which seems ridiculous: Konami is simply leaving money on the table with this one: the 1998 release of " Metal Gear Solid" was a smash hit, and the series would account for the majority of Kojima's work over the next two decades.

However, it turns out that the director once had an idea for "Polisenotes 2. Kojima wrote (opens in new tab), "I had a sequel in mind in which Redwood would return to Earth [his hometown] to seek revenge, but it never materialized." Tony Redwood is the game's main antagonist, another high-ranking space detective (as a bonus evil point, he kills your ex-wife), who "dies" at the end of "Policenauts" by jumping to his death with a maniacal grin on his face. In the game, Earth is called Home and the space colony is called Beyond Coast (in fact, the working title of Policenauts was Beyond until Konami realized they could not trademark the term).

So: Policenauts was a game about a space colony cop unraveling a major criminal conspiracy, and the sequel was a return to Earth with a villain in tow. While there have been many "what could have been" games in gaming history, this is a sad one. In particular, Kojima's two previous works in this vein are very inaccessible. One can only hope that Kojima's name recognition and contemporary reputation will ultimately lead Konami to make the right decision: even if it means missing the chance to produce a sequel.