The Konami/Hideo Kojima saga will never end, will it? Following a report from the New Yorker published yesterday which claimed that Hideo Kojima had officially left Konami on October 9th, with the Metal Gear creator reportedly holding a ceremony at his company Kojima Productions in order to mark the occasion, Konami have now allegedly spoken out against this claim and have insisted that Kojima still works for the company.
Japanese website Tokyo Sports (via Kotaku) received a statement from Konami’s Tokyo headquarters regarding the New Yorker piece, which reads: “Currently, Kojima is listed as a company employee [at Konami].
“Currently, Kojima and the development team are finished developing Metal Gear Solid V and are taking a long time off from work.”
And their response to the farewell party? “We’re not sure what kind of thing this was.”
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To add more credibility to his report, the post’s author Simon Parkin tweeted the below photo, which he alleges was taken during the farewell party he reported upon:
Here is a photograph of Kojima’s farewell party on October 9th at Konami, which Konami claims no knowledge of: pic.twitter.com/xgRUoYs5qt
— Simon Parkin (@SimonParkin) October 20, 2015
So who do we believe in this scenario? Well, considering reports of Kojima being ousted from Konami began to circulate months prior to Metal Gear Solid V‘s release and were never actively denied by Kojima, we’re going to have to side with Parkin on this one. That’s not to mention that his name was completely removed from the game’s box art, which led to him actively plastering “Hideo Kojima” all over MGSV to the point of parody.
This is an increasingly messy situation that doesn’t show any signs of ending amicably, with it now appearing as though Konami are somehow holding Kojima hostage. That, or for some reason they’ve decided to lie about Kojima’s employment with them, even though we’ll all inevitably find out the truth sooner rather than later. Hopefully they’ll finally let the MGS creator go, and he can continue making great games elsewhere while they carry on with their pursuit of solely creating mobile games whilst knocking out another Pro Evolution Soccer every year.
