Kojima Productions LA Office Officially Closed
And another chapter in the Konami/Kojima saga has come to an end, as Konami has officially closed its LA office, which used to be known as Kojima Productions. This started out as just a rumor, started by 3D Worlds co-founder George Broussard, who said in a tweet, “BREAKING: Rumor tells me that Konami has shut down the Kojima Productions LA studio, taking with it approx 35 jobs, just before Xmas.”
Many sites reached out to Konami for confirmation about this, and IGN was able to report that this did indeed happen. In a statement given to IGN, Konami stated:
“Konami has made the decision to close its Los Angeles Studio, effective immediately, due to the product development resources being restructured into a more centralized unit. This facility contributed to the recent Metal Gear Solid games. Konami will continue its operations to support all Metal Gear Solid titles, including the recently launched Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phanton Pain and Metal Gear Online. Metal Gear Online is still scheduled to release for PC Steam in January 2016.”
This is just the latest in a long line of changes happening at Konami with the dissolution of Kojima Productions. Where it’ll stop is still very much in the air, but with Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain doing so well, it’d be very weird for them to continue to distance themselves from the franchise outside of “getting rid” of Kojima.