Konami Believes Metal Gear Can Survive Without Kojima
One of the biggest news stories throughout this year has been the breakdown and fallout of Konami and Hideo Kojima. The two have fought, reconciled, and yet still haven’t had their full story told. With Metal Gear Solid 5 (the last Metal Gear game Kojima will likely ever work on) a huge success on numerous levels, it has made people wonder if Metal Gear can truly (long term) survive without Kojima.
In an interview with Video Gamer, Konami community manager Graham Day was asked this, and he responded thusly:
“Yeah, course it can. Metal Gear is about the story, it’s about the characters and I think, yeah…”
When asked why he thought this, he pointed out the spinoff game from the series, Metal Gear Rising, which featured Raiden instead of Snake, and was made in collaboration with Platinum Games.
“Look at things like Metal Gear Rising. That was an example of the title being taken in a new direction by separate teams with obviously hands-in from other parties,” he said. “And that was in itself a very, very good game as well, and that was obviously led by a completely different team.”
Of course, a big question was whether Konami would stick around in the AAA market, which has been rumored to not be the case. Graham replied promptly.
“Don’t believe everything you read in the press,” he said. “That’s never changed. Things have been taken out of context but that’s never changed.”
The future of Konami is still very much in flux, we’ll have to wait and see how it all breaks down.