Hideo Kojima and Ken Levine headline the inaugural Tribeca Games Festival

By Matt Gerardi | March 29, 2017 | 6:01pm

Aux Features Games

Back in 2011, New York’s Tribeca Film Festival started toying with ways to bring video games into its proceedings and has been upping their inclusion ever since. This year, the Tribeca folks are putting together a two-day event that will focus exclusively on games, with talks from prominent developers, a concert, and previews of a few unreleased games. Kicking off April 28, during the last days of the Tribeca Film Festival, the exhibition will be headlined by a conversation with Hideo Kojima, the lunatic behind Metal Gear Solid, who’s expected to talk his upcoming game, Death Stranding, and the influence of film on his work. BioShock director Ken Levine and Max Payne creator Sam Lake will also be partaking in “intimate conversations” about their careers.

In addition to those big chats, a series called “Retro Active” will feature developer retrospectives on celebrated recent releases, including Firewatch, Watch Dogs 2, Overwatch, and a few games that don’t have “watch” in the title. Attendees will also get a chance to participate in a “crowd play” of the first episode in Telltale’s Guardians Of The Galaxy game, where they’ll presumably vote on what terrible choices Star-Lord makes and get collective warnings about Rocket Raccoon remembering them. You can find the festival’s full schedule and details on the rest of its events on the official website.