Otsuka Akio, the Japanese voice actor for Snake in the Metal Gear Solid series, just said that Kojima Productions no longer exists as a development studio. Akio revealed the shocking news through his Twitter account. The tweet reads, “Kojima Productions has been disbanded. It appears that the work that the team has been putting their utmost effort into is nearly complete. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I expect it to become their greatest masterpiece. I couldn’t help it…Even if this is the end, Metal Gear Solid is immortal!”
We reached out to Konami regarding this information but they haven’t announced whether Kojima Productions no longer exists or if Hideo Kojima is leaving the company. To be frank, we don’t expect a response given that rumors of a power struggle between Kojima Productions and Konami have been making the rounds for quite some time now. In March, numerous gaming sites revealed that senior staff at Kojima Productions were given restricted access to corporate internet, emails, and phone calls. According to the tipster, senior staff at the studio were working as contractors just to finish The Phantom Pain.
The source went on to say that once Phantom Pain’s development was complete, management at the studio would likely disband and Kojima would leave. Apparently, their contracts end in December 2015. Kojima wants to make his greatest game for fans before leaving the company for other ventures.
After this news came out, Konami removed the Kojima Productions logo from all official Metal Gear marketing material. They removed mention of the studio from all of the Metal Gear games, not just Phantom Pain! Oddly enough though, the publisher said that Kojima would continue to develop and support Metal Gear products. Does this mean they will continue the collaboration in the future in a different capacity? Or does it mean that Kojima will finish the Phantom Pain and then depart? Only time will tell.
You have to remember that Konami also cancelled the Silent Hills reboot. Even Guillermo Del Toro stated that he was shocked to hear Konami and Kojima split. It seems that Konami and Kojima had different plans for how the company should run and this led to the shocking events. From what we know so far, it seems like Kojima is just finishing up Metal Gear Solid V and will leave the company after it’s complete. Hopefully we’ll have more information soon so we can get to the bottom of this.
Source: Gamespot
Asher Madan is a games journalist, former News Writer (Gaming) at Windows Central. They contributed 182 articles to ICXM in 2015, focused on Windows and PC, and Xbox news: joined Future plc’s Windows Central in 2017 covering Xbox news, hardware, and reviews.