Over the past few months, more and more drama related to Hideo Kojima’s position at Konami and the imminent termination of that position. It has been revealed that the cover of the upcoming Metal Gear Solid V: Phantom Pain has been altered from its original design to wipe any mention of Hideo Kojima away. This is not the first time Konami has shown its desire to shrug Kojima off its roster, and it’s already gone public that Kojima’s employment will be terminated following Phantom Pain‘s release. It will be the last Metal Gear Solid game until Konami gives up the license. The following picture shows a before and after of the cover.
Note the removal of Kojima’s name from the top and his studio’s logo from the bottom. All the news surrounding Konami and Kojima has been circulating for a few months now. Most of the attention of the public eye was garnered March 19th of this year, when Konami removed Kojima’s name from Konami staff listings and Metal Gear Solid websites. Following that, very specific YouTube video, from a content producer under the handle Super Bunnyhop, drew the attention of even more rubberneckers trying to get a glimpse of the situation.
While plenty of the video is convincing enough, the narrator (producer of the video and owner of the channel) admits outright that he will give no names and that a good deal of it is hearsay. Regardless, since the video, the attention granted to the drama has only grown.
Konami has been undergoing complete company-wide reform in order to move away from console gaming altogether in order to pursue mobile games and tend to their assets in Japan. Konami’s most lucrative assets consist of an array of pachinko machines, slot machines, various video gambling machines, and other arcade machines. Needless to say, when Konami decided to rebrand Kojima Productions, Los Angeles to Konami, Los Angeles, there really wasn’t much Kojima could do.
Of the changes relating to Kojima’s standing with Konami, the one to effect the most fans was the cancellation of the previously teased Silent Hills. The game was supposed to be the latest addition to the famous Silent Hill franchise, produced by the impressive and exciting duo of both Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro. Production got far enough along that a demo was released August 12th of 2014, mysteriously titled P.T. Players that figured out the puzzle the game presented and reached the end were treated to a cutscene revealing that what they played through was a sort of prologue to the upcoming Silent Hills. It was masterfully done and was a stunningly unique experience. Then the project got cancelled.
Nobody is sure what will happen to Kojima following his complete termination from Konami, but everyone can be sure it will be a long time before Konami is seen on another box cover, if ever again.