Rumours suggest that there has been a major disagreement between Kojima Productions and Konami, with Hideo Kojima and several key developers now expected to leave the publisher after the release of Metal Gear Solid 5.
Konami has subsequently put out a press release (as yet incompletely translated from Japanese, unfortunately) that assures fans the Metal Gear franchise will continue, and that the firm is looking for new senior management figures to work on a new entry in the series.
Meanwhile, Konami has been stripping the Koijma Productions name from all marketing and promotion for Phantom Pain, as you can see from the official website and the game’s new Twitter account. Something very big has clearly gone down.
”After we finish MGSV, Mr. Kojima and upper management will leave Konami. They said their contract ends in December,” an anonymous source told Gamespot.
Wow. This is a big deal for the franchise, considering that in many ways Hideo Kojima IS the franchise. Without him and his key staff there wouldn’t be a Metal Gear. I don’t imagine hardcore fans will react at all well to this news, and even less so to the idea of someone replacing Kojima at the helm.
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain is due out on September 1. At least we’ll get to experience one Kojima-inspired Metal Gear on the PC before the franchise takes this radical new direction.
